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Last week, President Barack Obama released his comprehensive plan to reduce gun violence and make the nation’s schools safer. In front of an audience that included family members of the 26 students and educators who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December, the president outlined the four main proposals of his plan:
The plan suggests launching a new Comprehensive School Safety program to put up to 1,000 additional school resource officers and mental health professionals in schools and support other critical investments in student safety. It also recommends helping schools develop and implement comprehensive emergency management plans, creating a new $50 million initiative to help schools foster safer and more nurturing school climates, and sharing best practices on school discipline. Such strategies align with ASCD’s work to promote whole child education, which asserts that children must be safe and healthy to learn and achieve at high levels.
In addition, the plan’s mental health recommendations focus on helping educators recognize children who may need help and connecting school districts with law enforcement, mental health agencies, and other local organizations to help ensure that students with mental health or behavioral issues receive the services they need. The plan directs Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to launch a national dialogue about mental illness with young people who have experienced mental illness, members of the faith community, foundations, and school and business leaders.
As part of the plan’s release, President Obama initiated 23 executive actions related to the plan’s recommendations, but many of the proposals—including those that depend on new funding—require congressional action. House education committee chairman John Kline (R-MN) said he plans to review the recommendations carefully and indicated that his committee would soon hold a hearing to examine school safety.
Read the full plan (PDF) and watch a video of the plan’s release.
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ASCD is holding a public dialogue on how best to define and measure teacher and principal effectiveness, and we’re inviting you to participate. The discussion begins today on the ASCD EDge® platform, the association’s professional networking community for educators.
Join us on Twitter today from 3:00–4:00 p.m. eastern time for a chat with ASCD Director of Public Policy David Griffith to learn more about the ASCD forum. You can use the #ASCDforum hashtag to ask questions about the process and its purpose.
In the ASCD Forum ASCD EDge group, you’ll be able to contribute blog posts, comment on posts from other educators, and take a brief survey that captures your views on teacher and principal effectiveness. If you don’t already have a free ASCD EDge account, join now.
To help guide the discussion, ASCD has identified a series of subtopics related to educator effectiveness—including the roles and responsibilities of teacher preparation programs, the purpose of educator evaluation systems, and using multiple measures to determine effectiveness. And for those educators attending this year’s annual conference, we’ll be hosting a town hall-style session on defining and measuring effectiveness, which will be moderated by ASCD President Debra Hill.
The ongoing conversation will help shape the association’s positions on this important issue.
You can e-mail constituentservices@ascd.org with any comments or questions about the ASCD forum, and we encourage you to participate in the discussion today!
The partnership of national organizations and 26 states developing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) released a second draft of the standards and are soliciting feedback on them until January 29, 2013.
Since the release of the first draft of the standards in May 2012, the lead states and writers have evaluated thousands of comments and revised the standards based on that feedback. The goal of this public release is to share revisions based on the first public review and a college- and career-readiness review. In this draft, the standards are organized in two ways: by disciplinary core ideas from the National Research Council’s Framework for K–12 Science Education and by topic.
The NGSS aim to update and replace the guidelines that have formed the basis for science standards in many states over the last 15 years. They are intended to be rich in content and practice and arranged coherently across disciplines and grades to provide all students an internationally benchmarked science education.
The standards will be completed in March 2013.
Provide your feedback on the standards.
President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday, February 12, 2013, before a joint session of Congress. The president will outline his key priorities for the year and preview his proposed FY14 federal budget.
Capitol Connection will share education highlights from the address and related implications for the field.
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