Yesterday, President Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, a bill that provides more money to districts for school lunches and improves nutritional standards for food provided in schools. According to Education Week, the bill will provide the first noninflationary increase for school lunches in more than 30 years, adding 6 cents per meal to district food-service budgets. The legislation will make it easier for more students to qualify for free lunches.
Education Week also reports on ‘data mining’, the emerging discipline, concerned with developing methods for exploring the unique types of data that come from educational settings, and using those methods to better understand students, and the settings in which they learn.
The New York Times reports that Shael Polakow-Suransky, the No. 2 official in the New York City Department of Education, wants more and better testing. Also in New York, new guidelines are making teacher tenure less of an automated process.
Connecticut has joined 17 other states in the National Association of Manufacturers "Dream It! Do It!" initiative, designed to encourage high school students to consider a career in manufacturing, as well as improve vocational school and community college programs for manufacturing skills, the Hartford Courant reports.