Education Nation Weekly Newsletter Education Nation // November 19, 2014 // 5:12 PM EST Can perseverance and grit be taught? In the latest Parent Toolkit blog, experts Sean Slade and Tom Hoerr argue that they can and offer tips for how parents can instill these traits in kids. This week in education news: A new report says 1 in 30 children in the United States are homeless, the Department of Education is investigating two dozen K-12 school districts for mishandling sexual assualt cases, and the Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium sets the passing scores for the new Common Core tests. As always you can join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The Politics of 'Pre-K' (The Atlantic, 11/19) Introduce Word Problems to Students Sooner, Studies Say (Education Week, 11/19) Study: Teenagers Want to Go to College, but are 'Particularly Averse' to Student Debt (Inside Higher Ed, 11/18) DOE Investigating K-12 School Districts For Mishandling Sexual Assault (Huffington Post, 11/18) Poor High Schools in California Lose 25 School Days a Year (Hechinger Report, 11/17) Under Half of Students Projected to Test Well (Ed Source, 11/17) Teaching the Next Generation of Coders (MSNBC, 11/17) The Painful Backlash Against 'No-Excuses' School Discipline (Hechinger Report, 11/17) New Report: Child Homelessness on the Rise in US (AP, 11/17) Testing: How Much Is Too Much? (NPR, 11/17) To Help Language Skills of Children, a Study Finds, Text Their Parents With Tips (New York Times, 11/14) Is the Student Loan Debt Crisis Beginning to Ease?  (NBCNews.com, 11/13)

Snow Days May Be Over for Students Are school snow days, as we know them, about to be bulldozed? While the idea may leave some students cold, it's gaining momentum thanks to the implementation in schools across the country. More

Dropping Out, Again: Why So Many College Students Never Graduate A new study has found that only about a third of students who re-enrolled in college between 2005 and 2008 ended up earning their degree. More

Vegetables Hit School Lunch Trays, but Most Kids Don't Bite While nearly 7 out of 10 school kids put a vegetable on their lunch trays, only about half of them took even one bite of it, according to a new study of 274 kindergarteners through second-graders at 10 New York City public schools. More