Spending more money in the same old way won’t improve New York City schools, writes education economist Eric Hanushek in the New York Sun. The courts have settled the “adequacy” lawsuit for $1.93 billion, an extra $1,800 per student.

Extensive evidence indicates that falling back on the old standbys of smaller classes and higher pay for teachers will not, by themselves, yield significant improvements in student outcomes.

New York City already spends more per students than three-quarters of states.

In Boston, middle-class parents are adopting elementary schools, raising money for improvements and enrolling their children, reports the Boston Globe.

(Hurley Elementary) parents raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to subsidize arts and science education. They pushed the School Department to convert makeshift offices back into a gym, and last month, they dedicated the new library, with Swedish-designed furniture donated by IKEA.

Similar transformations are occurring in about a dozen other of the city’s 78 elementary schools. Savvy, often well-connected, middle-class parents are joining forces and adopting undesirable schools, infusing them with new life, resources, and expansive extracurricular offerings.

Naturally, there are naysayers.

But even as the city heralds the new engagement, it has set off worries and debate about diversity and empowerment. Some fear that the efforts of the overwhelmingly white parents might leave black and Hispanic parents feeling excluded or, worse, alienated. In addition, the schools chosen by the parents for improvement have undergone changes in their racial composition, as word of mouth spreads and other white parents decide to send their children there.

The alternative to letting parents improve some schools is letting all schools remain equally bad. Equality isn’t controversial.

In Texas, bilingual teachers may not be literate in Spanish, reports the Dallas News.

Thousands of children take the TAKS tests in Spanish each year in reading, math and science.

But what does the state do to make sure the bilingual teachers who instruct them can read and write in Spanish? Nothing.

Texas tests only speaking ability. Teachers answer 15 questions into a tape recorder to become certified in bilingual education. The questions are written in English. The answers are spoken in Spanish. Other states with bilingual programs require extensive testing of literacy and listening skills in Spanish.

Many bilingual teachers grew up in families speaking “Tex-Mex” slang or Spanglish and didn’t learn to read or write standard Spanish in their bilingual classes. They weren’t required to take Spanish in college because they were proficient orally. They can’t teach students to be biliterate — the goal of bilingual education — because they’re not biliterate themselves.

Texas law requires schools to provide bilingual classes through fifth grade if there are 20 or more students who share the same language. But there aren’t enough qualified teachers, even with very low standards, so there’s resistance to raising standards.

Bill Pulte, director of Southern Methodist University’s teacher training programs in bilingual education, said college-level literacy skills in Spanish aren’t essential to be good bilingual teachers.

“People who say they need to be perfect in Spanish literacy to teach in kindergarten – that’s not true,” he said. “They should be very strong orally in Spanish … The extent to which teachers have to write in Spanish is not that great.”

Texas districts are recruiting teachers from overseas but some aren’t proficient in English.

At a San Jose alternative school, students are learning math by playing fantasy football.

Like many high schoolers, John Hagen’s algebra students worry about passing.

But they also worry about rushing. And receiving. And scoring.

They’ve become miniature NFL coaches, tracking the performance of key players in their own fantasy football league. In the process, Hagen’s previously math-resistant students have joined a growing number of kids who get a kick out of multiplying and dividing points and yards so they can see whose team came out on top.

A former math teacher named Dan Flockhart has written a series of books on teaching math through fantasy sports teams.