It’s Friday. You made it! Another week gone, another Rundown to catch you up on your education news. Enjoy the weekend!

NYSSBA Executive Director Tim Kremer penned a letter to the editor in the Albany Times Union this week in response to an October 2 article in which GOP Assemblyman Joel Bloom called out school boards and their handling of teacher contracts as a main reason for rising school costs. Kremer’s reaction? That is not the case.

Staying with the Times Union, their editorial board wrote an interesting piece on child poverty rates. According to the TU board, new child poverty figures are alarming, and suggest the state needs to rethink education funding for things like early childhood programs. The Syracuse Post Standard’s editorial board agrees, saying that it’s critical Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s New NY Education Reform Commission recommend expanding, strengthening and, most importantly, funding early childhood education.

A report Tuesday ranked New York as the worst state in the nation for its business tax climate.

Students across the state are being tested on material that they aren’t expected to know the answers to. According to this article from lohud.com, “new ‘pretests’ count for teachers’ grades only.”

Like sand through the hourglass, so goes the on-going discussion on teacher evaluations. In this editorial in the Poughkeepsie Journal, teacher evaluations will need close monitoring.

Yesterday, we brought you this piece from Tuesday’s New York Times on an alarming new trend of doctors who are ”prescribing stimulants to struggling students in schools starved of extra money — not to treat A.D.H.D., necessarily, but to boost their academic performance.” In a commentary, Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report provides a humorous, but thought-provoking take on the issue.