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Weekly News Round-Up for March 30th
posted by: Melissa | March 30, 2018, 06:15 PM   

Apple Unveils New Plan to Retake America’s Classrooms: At an event this week, Apple unveiled the steps it’s taking to penetrate further into the education sphere. Once a staple in schools across the country, Apple products have been outpaced by cheaper alternatives in the past decade. Now, they’ve unveiled a new plan that centers on a new, cheaper iPad that includes support for apple’s stylus, the apple pencil, along with a cheaper alternative from Logitech called the Crayon. They also unveiled a new app, called Schoolwork, which allows teachers to assign work digitally, provide handouts, and send notes. The presentation also included announcement of a developers’ kit that will allow coders to enable their education apps to sync with Schoolwork, making it easy to incorporate third-party apps into a lesson or assignment. In order to have high quality apps that sync with Schoolwork, you need to have people to code them, which may be why the corporation also unveiled an attempt to train teachers in coding. This will enable teachers to code their own apps, but will also help them teach coding to the next generation.


Teacher Protest Underway in Kentucky: Late last night, the Kentucky legislature voted to overhaul the state’s pension system. Teachers in the state had been protesting against the move in recent weeks and, despite lawmakers insisting it was necessary for the state’s financial stability, began to protest immediately. Thousands of teachers across the state called in sick on Friday, causing many districts to close. The bill moves new teachers from the traditional state-funded pension plan to a hybrid pension and cash contribution plan.


Impending Teacher Strike in Oklahoma: Oklahoma’s attempt to divert a similar protest seems to be backfiring on them this week. On Wednesday, the legislature voted to approve tax increases along with a plan to raise teacher salaries. The move was intended to stave off a teacher strike, however, the state’s teacher union says the raise is not high enough and is still planning to strike beginning April 2nd. Surprisingly, some school administrators may support the strike since the state’s low pay is making it increasingly hard for schools to recruit educators and they have been unable to effectively lobby for higher teacher salaries themselves.


Teacher Strike Threatened in Arizona: Teachers in Arizona are getting closer to a strike. This week saw a rally of teachers at the state’s capital demanding a 20% increase in teacher salaries. Once adjusted for cost of living, Arizona teachers rank 49th in teacher pay. Salaries fell in the wake of the 2008 recession and haven’t been increased substantially since then to reflect the healthier economy.


Happening Elsewhere:

Trump wants to arm teachers. So the Mass. education board unanimously opposed it

A Kansas bill could make schools liable for shootings if they don't arm teachers

Number of armed officers growing in US schools amid gun-control debate, study says

Every single teacher on a crowd-funding site just got their wishes fulfilled

Linda Brown, Who Was At Center Of Brown v. Board Of Education, Dies

Trump's school safety commission to hold first meeting behind closed doors

Teachers say grants from Ed Dept were wrongly converted into loans

Federal Bill Could Ease Financial Crunch On Teachers

Colorado House approves $28.9 billion budget, boosting funding to roads and schools

Florida lawmakers’ wives on new charter school boards

Texas elementary teacher suspended after discussion sexual orientation with students

Student shot at Madison Schools in Ohio gets detention for school-shooting protest

The school board rejected NRA ‘blood money’ for a high school rifle team. Locals donated instead.

Teachers, Parents, Administrators Oppose School Choice Bill

He came to the U.S. for high school, then acquired an arsenal to attack it, police say

Police: Teacher Gave Teen Knife for Civics Lesson Skit


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