Standards

An advisory council has been crafting minimum standards in four core subjects that would be required to graduate from Colorado high schools — baselines that could be achieved through a variety of standardized test scores or other means.

Ignoring a problem has never made it go away. But that’s exactly what some are suggesting Gov. Paul LePage and the Maine Department of Education do after our new A-F grade system was announced last week.

Seeking to address pervasive racial disparities at the top echelons of New York City schools, Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, plans on Tuesday to propose a significant overhaul of gifted and talented programs that would provide space for more children and loosen admissions requirements.

Two decades ago, Texas became ground zero for the accountability movement in public education. Now, after a revolt by teachers and parents who claim that high-stakes testing is ruining classroom instruction, the legislature is poised to undo many of its own reforms. Does anyone have the right answer?

While there has been widespread resistance to the idea, which some have called a punitive oversimplification of a school’s quality, the LePage administration has billed the grades as a simple and accessible way to reward high-performing schools and help educators and communities rally around the rest. Maine is the 14th state in the nation, along with New York City, to implement a school grading system.

U.S. News & World Report's annual rankings of the nation's best high schools are out, and the results suggest students thrive when given access to curriculum and instruction that's significantly more challenging than what a typical American student receives.