1) Overall, teachers in the largest metropolitan areas were at school 94% of their scheduled hours–but 16% of them were chronically absent, missing 18 or more school days a year. Another 16% missed just 3 or fewer days.

2) A Gallup poll of about 1,900 superintendents found that 62% believe student performance should NOT be the most important factor in evaluating teachers vs. 34% who said it should.

3) A recent American Association of School Administrators found that 92.5% said the Common Core Standards are more rigorous than previous ones; 78% believe the education community supports the Common Core, bur only 51% said the public does.

4) 16 states have now mandated that controversial teacher evaluations be used in making tenure decisions, up from 10 in 2011.

5) It will cost $3.2 billion to equip and update public K-12 schools’ existing infrastructure and meet Obama’s goal of connecting 99% of students by 2018.

6) By 2020, there will be 1.4 million programming-related jobs but only about a quarter of available and qualified candidates to fill them, says Code.org.