Here's what SchoolBook is reading in the newspapers and blogs this morning:
Seven Long Island students are charged with cheating on the SAT in 2010 and 2011, and six were arrested on Tuesday on misdemeanor charges. The students, at Great Neck North High School, paid a 19-year-old graduate, Sam Eshaghoff, several thousand dollars each to take the SAT for them. In return, he posted scores of 2220, 2210, 2140, 2180, 2180 and 2170, out of a possible 2400.
A dozen city high schools have made U.S. News and World Report's list of best high schools for math and science. Among them, Staten Island Technical High School earned the highest ranking.
A new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center has found that American students' ignorance of basic facts of the civil rights movement has worsened. The report blames states' standards for ignoring this period of history.
The creator of New York City's short-lived pay-for-performance programs for teachers and students now thinks that incentive programs work if they award students for certain actions, such as completing homework or reading assignments. In a new study, Roland Fryer, the Harvard economist who designed New York's other incentive programs and who was just awarded a MacArthur "genius" grant, says that the other programs he designed for New York failed because test scores were all that mattered.
And the city is spending $16.6 million to add 30,000 public school employees to its online time-keeping program, known as CyberShift. "In the wake of the $700 million CityTime boondoggle, the new system is certain to draw scrutiny," The New York Post writes.
Around town on Wednesday:
It's the last day of school before the Rosh Hashana break, so remember that schools will be closed Thursday and Friday for the holiday.
At 8:10 a.m., Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott will be interviewed live on "Good Day New York," and then at 8:30 a.m. he will attend an eighth-grade orientation workshop for parents at Intermediate School 24 Myra S. Barnes on Staten Island.
At 11 a.m., the Queens Library will open the Literacy Zone at its Rockaway location, 92-25 Rockaway Beach Boulevard. The program is intended to connect adults with solutions to housing, child care and other problems.
And The Learning Network asks, What Five Living People Should Be on the New Postage Stamps?