Yahoo! News: Education News

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• Washington state school officials criticize federal 'failing' status
• A New Factor in Your College Decision: Does the School Help Save the Planet?
• Guilt by Accusation—How Colleges Deal with Campus Sex

Washington state school officials criticize federal 'failing' status Posted: 14 Aug 2014 04:17 PM PDT By Victoria Cavaliere SEATTLE (Reuters) - Superintendents from 28 Washington state school districts have begun sending letters to parents that criticize the classification of many schools in the state as failing under federal standards, education officials said on Thursday. A large number of schools in Washington's 295 districts this year will receive a failing grade under the federal No Child Left Behind education law, which ties U.S. funding to students' performance on standardized tests and penalizes schools for low performance. In April, Washington became the first state to lose a waiver exempting it from some of the law's requirements after its state legislature declined to link student test scores to teacher evaluations. Though the list of schools to be classified as failing by the U.S. Department of Education will not be released until Aug. 27, superintendents in the Puget Sound area, which includes Seattle and Tacoma, this week began informing parents via mail of some schools' failing status.

A New Factor in Your College Decision: Does the School Help Save the Planet? Posted: 14 Aug 2014 03:45 PM PDT In the ever-expanding universe of "best of" lists for higher education, parents and students can consult rankings to determine everything from colleges that deliver the most academic bang for the buck to universities that have the coolest dorms, most active social scenes and top intramural athletic programs. Now there's a ranking for colleges and universities that help save the planet.   On Monday, Sierra, the magazine of the environmentalist Sierra Club, published its eighth annual list of "Ten Coolest Schools," colleges and universities that have integrated sustainability into campus operations, curricula, and student lifestyles. The 10 schools, according to Sierra, have "displayed a deep and thorough commitment to protecting the environment, addressing climate issues, and encouraging environmental responsibility."

Guilt by Accusation—How Colleges Deal with Campus Sex Posted: 14 Aug 2014 02:30 AM PDT It may take an avalanche of lawsuits to restore due process at the very institutions on which we rely for finishing the education of our best and brightest. Take the example of a male student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, who filed suit against the school after having found him guilty of sexual misconduct. Yet Amherst immediately opened an investigation of those specific allegations and ordered him to move off campus. After three days, Amherst informed him that he was determined to be "responsible" for "sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and [violating] community living standards." The school expelled him after he appealed to the same administration responsible for the original hearing.

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