Education Week - August 26, 2015 - 1

Education Week

VOL. 35, NO. 2 * AUGUST 26, 2015

edweek.org:

BRE AKING NEWS DAILY

Terrain Shifts for Children's TV Programming Polls Reveal
'Sesame Street'-HBO Deal Reflects World of More Channels, Platforms
Nuanced
K-12 Views
By Mark Walsh

The deal that is sending "Sesame Street" to a
new TV neighborhood-the premium channels
and services of HBO-is emblematic of a fastshifting landscape for children's television programming, experts say.
Preschoolers and their parents have vastly
larger volumes of programming available to
them, on more channels, than they did when
"Sesame Street" debuted in 1969, and they
are increasingly watching shows not just on
living room TVs, but also on platforms such as

tablet computers and mobile phones.
"What's clear is that children are moving to
access more and more entertainment and educational shows not on television but on digital
devices," said Ellen A. Wartella, a professor and
the director of the Center on Media and Human
Development at Northwestern University's
School of Communication.
That was a widely accepted motivation for
the five-year partnership announced this
month between Sesame Workshop, the New
York City-based creator of "Sesame Street,"
and HBO, which will give the premium cable

network exclusive access to new episodes for
nine months, after which they will appear on
their longtime home, PBS.
HBO is pumping an undisclosed amount of
money into Sesame Workshop (formerly the
Children's Television Workshop) in a deal that
also includes a new spinoff series involving
"Sesame Street" Muppets. The deal gives HBO
highly acclaimed programming for its new
streaming video services at a time when others
in that field, such as Netflix and Amazon, are
ramping up both original children's shows and
PAGE 14 >

Testing, Standards Remain
Major Topics of Contention
By Corey Mitchell
Two high-profile public-opinion polls
released this month offer contrasting
snapshots on the public's support for
common-core standards and mandatory standardized testing-intertwined
issues that are arguably among the
most divisive in K-12 public education.
Often released within days of each
other, the education survey by Phi
Delta Kappa/Gallup-now in its 47th
year-and the one conducted since
2007 by Education Next, a journal
from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, deliver new data that
fuel debate and reflection on topics
ranging from teacher quality to school
funding.
This year's PDK/Gallup poll reveals
that a majority of respondents, including 54 percent of public school parents,
oppose having teachers use the Common Core State Standards to guide
what they teach.
While the Education Next poll also
shows public support for the common
standards slipping to 49 percent and
mounting dissatisfaction with among
teachers, with 50 percent opposed to
the standards, its results show that

Wong Maye-E/AP-File

PAGE 11 >

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS: Michelle Obama hugs Sohang Vean, a high school student in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The first lady was in Cambodia in March

to promote Let Girls Learn, her effort to remove obstacles that keep 62 million girls around the world from attending school. PAGE 8

Inside schools, meanwhile, the ripple effects
of Amplify's striking demise promised to be
minimal. A majority of the 30,000 or so tablet computers sold by the company went to a
single district, and Amplify fell far short of its
modest goal of getting its no-expense-spared
digital curriculum into the hands of 30,000 students by the 2015-16 school year.
Experts attributed the company's lack of impact
on the K-12 market to a series of miscalculations.
First, News Corp. wagered that it would be
able to leverage the established assessment
PAGE 12 >

PAGE 17 >

Big Hype, Hard Fall for News Corp.'s $1 Billion Ed-Tech Venture
The global media giant News Corp. sought
to push its way into the K-12 marketplace five
years ago by betting big on technology.
Now, despite a $1 billion investment and a
steady stream of brash promises to radically
disrupt the way public schools do business, the
company's education division, known as Amplify,
is deeply in the red and on the auction block.
Veteran observers of the fickle K-12 ed-tech
market say they aren't surprised.
"There's a long history of education entrepre-

neurs who have crashed on the rocks because
the market was not what they thought it would
be," said Douglas A. Levin, a consultant on the
ed-tech market and the recent head of the State
Educational Technology Directors Association.
Earlier this month, it became clear that the
highly publicized venture had become a financial albatross. When News Corp. announced
that it would write off the education division's
$371 million in losses over the past year and
look to sell off Amplify, investors cheered,
sending the parent company's share price up
7.5 percent, to $14.89.

By Christina A. Samuels
The Justice Department's recent
scathing letter to Georgia alleging
discrimination at a statewide network
of alternative schools is the latest example of the government's willingness
to use a muscular interpretation of
the Americans with Disabilities Act to
eliminate what it views as segregated
school settings.
Six years ago, the Justice Department
signaled its intent to aggressively enforce Olmstead v. L.C., a seminal ruling
for disabilities rights. That 1999 U.S.
Supreme Court decision requires public entities to provide services "in the
most integrated setting appropriate to
the needs of qualified individuals with
disabilities."
The 25-year-old ADA is an expansive civil rights law that prohibits
discrimination on the basis of disabil-

DIGITAL DIRECTIONS

By Benjamin Herold

Justice Takes Aim
At ADA Violations
In School Settings

http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - August 26, 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - August 26, 2015