- Merryl Tisch, who is stepping down as chancellor of New York’s Board of Regents, gave a valedictory interview to the New York Times last week. As head of one of the foremost educational authorities in the state, she will principally be remembered for championing and helping implement the Common Core State Standards and a new teacher evaluation system alongside New York State Education Commissioner John King (confirmed Monday as secretary of education). Her efforts led to some necessary improvements in curriculum and instruction across the state, but they didn’t come without a backlash: Roughly one-fifth of all eligible students were kept out of the new tests by their parents last spring, and unions revolted over the Regents’ recommendation to link teacher evaluations to student scores. Now, with Governor Andrew Cuomo backing slowly away from that notion and an opt-out favorite in line to replace Tisch as chancellor, the movement for high standards looks like it’s undergoing a reset in the Empire State. It’s up to both local leaders and national reformers to make sure that new players don’t change matters for the worse.
- You may be wondering why, after many months and approximately eight thousand primary debates full of nasty invective, Ben Carson decided to back former rival Donald Trump last week. After all, most conservatives have either explicitly denounced the orange menace or sat out the contest entirely. Well, as Carson explains it, there are actually two Donald Trumps: One’s the guy who calls you a lying pedophile, and the other is a sweetie pie who trades endorsements for future jobs. Although the retired neurosurgeon didn’t spill too many details about the almost certainly felonious arrangement, it’s speculated by some that Trump could have him in mind for education secretary (especially given his comments at the end of last week). But that would be kind of a tough job to come by in a Trump administration, since he’s already vowed to abolish the Education Department. Maybe he thinks Carson would literally just be his very well-educated secretary?
- Though it may sometimes seem that way, not all presidential news is attributable to the mephitic emissions of a certain oft-insolvent developer. Sometimes Bernie Sanders also says things. Or doesn’t quite say anything coherent, like at Sunday night’s Democratic town hall. Asked by Columbus, Ohio KIPP administrator Caitlynn Dunn whether he supports charter schools, the Vermont senator burbled out a response that sounded like nothing so much as the gibbering of a man who cannot recall the words of a very boring limerick. In a happy twist, his questioner was actually quoting a Columbus Dispatch article that reported the charter-related findings of Fordham’s own Aaron Churchill. From our mouths to Bernie’s ears—there has to be a first time for everything, I guess.
- Now that Washington lawmakers have finally gotten around to updating the cobwebbed No Child Left Behind Act, state education authorities are expected to revise their accountability measures to comply with the new law. Right now, that means rushing to approve changes ahead of the Department of Education, which is still determining how it will interpret and enforce the will of Congress. According to Education Week, some of the plans being batted about in places like California, Arizona, and Florida might skirt the line of what is, strictly speaking, legal. (The last state, for instance, proposes to give districts the option of administering multiple assessments in grades 3–8; that’s in direct contradiction to ESSA, which mandates the use of a single test.) We leave it up to the lawyers to determine that, which should make for a fun couple of decades. In the meantime, if any state board members or school chiefs are hoping to steal good ideas for accountability, they’ve got an invaluable resource at their disposal: Fordham’s own ESSA Accountability Design proposals, unveiled at our blockbuster event last month. Because after all, why tear your hair out trying to fine-tune school ratings when you can just get Morgan Polikoff to do it for you?
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