by Ainsley O’ConnellSchool leaders and industry partners are reinventing vocational education for low-income students. Can the new model work?Read the rest of the story at Fast Company.

Photo credit: David MorrisFour in 10 of the first students to pay higher fees do not believe their courses have been good value for money, a survey for BBC Radio 5 live suggests.Just over half say their university course has been good value and about 8% are undecided.Read the rest of the story at BBC.com.

by Jordan ShapiroWhat are the biggest obstacles to changing education? Some are economic. Others are infrastructural. Few are technological. The most significant challenges are philosophical. We are wedded to particular ways of thinking about school and learning and life that are limiting our ability to best serve our children.Read the rest of the story at Forbes.

Photo credit Vdeb40by Sheryl Gay StolbergWASHINGTON — Sweet Briar College, the women’s liberal arts college in rural Virginia that announced it would close in August — setting off a storm of protest and lawsuits from students, faculty and alumnae — will remain open for at least another academic year under an agreement announced Saturday by the attorney general of Virginia.Read the rest of the story at The New York Times.

Could Hillary Clinton bring together a party splintered over education policy?by Allie BidwellOutside of local elections, education policy has never been an issue that makes voters flock to the polls. It’s just not as sexy as raising or lowering taxes, nor as anxiety-inducing as foreign relations and national security.Read the rest of the story at U.S. News.

I spent time speaking with Sari Factor, Edgenuity CEO, a leading voice in blended learning and educational leadership. Factor discusses the state of education, experiments with technology and new efforts to support schools. Dr. Berger: It seems districts are more willing to ask for help implementing technology.  Has this come from desperation or just experience over time with the good, bad and ugly of district-wide implementations?

The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, headed by one of the most visible critics of teacher-education programs, is creating its own graduate school and research center in the field in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Read the rest of the story at The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Photo credit Leland Franciscoby Jaweed KaleemOn a Wednesday afternoon in early May, after a full day of studying the Byzantine Empire and sitting through lessons on annotation and critical reading, the sixth-graders in Zsazita Walker’s social studies and language arts class were, expectedly, acting like sixth-graders. School was almost over and the classroom, scattered with posters, worksheets and lesson plans, was buzzing with chatty, curious 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds who knew they’d soon be free from class.Read the rest of the story at the Huff Post.

Photo credit Gennaro Viscianoby Tim JonesCollege is a funny thing. It’s full of scholarly pursuits in the halls of academe, centuries-old institutions with cherished seals, histories of tradition, prestigious alumni, trustees, chancellors, regalia, committees on committees, formal ceremonies, and countless other idiosyncrasies.Read the rest of the story at Inside Higher Ed.

by Alan J. BorsukAmid the many education issues now in flux, the future of charter schools seems to attract a high degree of heat and, frequently, misunderstanding. So I thought it might be good to offer a Charter Schools 101 primer.Read the rest of the story at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

by Jorge RuedaCARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela has already lost many of its brightest young professionals to better-paying jobs abroad, and now the South American country is also losing the professors who trained them.Read the rest of the story at Yahoo! News.

Photo credit Chris Moncusby Cory TurnerWhat’s in a number?To many, 81 percent is a success story. It’s the nation’s all-time-high rate for high school graduation in 2013, the most recent year of federal data.Read the rest of the story at NPR.

Photo credit Lesley Showby T. Rees ShapiroKimberley Asselin sits in a rocking chair in front of her 22 kindergartners, a glistening smile across her face as she greets them for the morning. Even at 9 a.m., she is effervescent and charismatic.Read the rest of the story at the Washington Post.

Authors of the best-selling ASCD book Building Teachers’ Capacity for Success talk to Dr. Berger about why your effectiveness in the classroom is directly connected to your ability to self-reflect on your teaching practice and use the reflection process to get better at what you do. Pete Hall and Alisa Simeral discuss tools and strategies, from their latest book Teach, Reflect, Learn: Building Your Capacity for Success in the Classroom, to reveal deeper understandings of your practice and increase your power to make purposeful improvements. Their path forward includes:A short self-assessment to gauge your current self-reflective tendencies and provide a launching point for personal growth.Prompts and strategies to spur your development in the art and skill of self-reflection.Insights into the four stages that compose the continuum of self-reflection and how each stage contributes to your overall improvement.Goals and road maps for developing self-reflective tendencies, accuracy, and behavior.   

by the Associated PressRICHMOND, Va. — The Supreme Court of Virginia has temporarily blocked the planned closing of Sweet Briar College, a 114-year-old private school for women.Read the rest of the story at The New York Times.