No more NCLB, sub overloads, too much tech, Nativity scenes, #saveourlibrary, poor U.S. sex ed, and more: Required Readings, 12.13.15

President Obama signed the successor to No Child Left Behind this week, which put the balance of power and responsibility for K-12 schools in the hands of local and state governments.

Among the concerns about education in schools that serve high-poverty, at-risk students: teacher churn and the heavy use of substitutes, who often are not certified instructors, in the subjects they are teaching or at all.

Technology remorse: a second-grade teacher relates why she wants to turn back time after giving her students iPads.

The latest volleys in the Christmas War on the Constitution, a Pennsylvania school plans to go ahead with a live Nativity, while an Indiana school used mannequins for its Nativity to bypass a judge’s ruling.

Hundreds of students at Chicago’s DuSable Campus high school held a read-in on Friday to protest the layoff of the school’s librarian. You can follow their efforts on Twitter at #saveourlibrary.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that fewer than one-fifth of middle schools and half of high schools are teaching all of the sex education topics they recommend. Least likely to be taught: how to get and use condoms.

In a follow-up to a recent Required Reading about a Wisconsin school that cancelled a reading of a book about a transgender child: More than 600 people attended a public reading of the book at a local library, expressing support for the family who inspired the original event, and more than 200 were at a reading at the local high school.

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