Education Nation Weekly Newsletter Education Nation // Febraury 18, 2015 // 7:12 PM EST Read the Parent Toolkit's latest blog! Do your interactions with your kids often devolve into arguments? Rutgers University Professor and Parent Toolkit expert Maurice Elias offers tips on how to reduce anger in your household. This week in education news: Schools are preparing for the upcoming Common Core assessments; teachers are using video to offer feedback to their colleagues; and the STEM gender gap is starting to close. As always, you can join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The Skills Gap: America's Young Workers Are Lagging Behind (The Atlantic, 2/17) LA Unified Preparing a ‘Dress Rehearsal’ for Computer Testing (LA School Report, 2/17) Calif. Districts Seek $1 Billion to Fund Test Mandate (Education Week, 2/17) At One Queens High School, the Video Club is for Teachers (Chalkbeat NY, 2/17) New Computerized Tests Debut This Week, Starting in Ohio (AP, 2/17) How Many Already Attend Community College for Free? (Hechinger Report, 2/16) Fitting In On Campus: Challenges For First-Generation Students (NPR, 2/16) Can Too Many Snow Days Widen the Achievement Gap? (Hechinger Report, 2/13) STEM Gender Gap in K-12 Evolving, Data Show (Education Week, 2/13) Nation’s High School Graduation Rate Ticks Up for Second Year in a Row (Washington Post, 2/12) Third-Graders Take on Keyboard Challenge (Ed Source, 2/12) Death of the Bake Sale? New Rules Mean Healthier Fundraisers (Education Week, 2/11)

Are English Learners Neglected in Early Education? In San Antonio's Harlandale school district, pre-kindergarten students learn English and Spanish together. But the same is not true for school districts across the country. More

Oklahoma GOP Wants to Outlaw AP US History A committee in the Oklahoma legislature voted to outlaw public schools from using state funds to offer Advanced Placement history courses on Tuesday, arguing that the coursework for AP U.S. History is unpatriotic. More

University of Kentucky Has 113 Sets of Twins A professor explains that there’s been a 76-percent increase in the birth rate of twins in the U.S. since 1980 – and quite a few of them have chosen to attend college in Lexington. More