Louisiana State Superintendent John White continues to impress. Check out this really interesting attempt to create new options for the state’s kids—it’s called the Call to Action. Educators and a range of organizations get the chance to submit proposals in a number of areas—charters, nonpublic, leadership development, early childhood, and more. It’s totally fascinating, and I can’t wait to see what becomes of this.
I’ve worked for five different government bodies now. Those experiences, I think, have grounded me, helping me understand how to actually get things done instead of just talking about pie-in-the-sky ideas. So I was a bit surprised to be cast as an unrealistic ideologue in this post by CRPE’s Robin Lake. But maybe I have bad self awareness—you make the call! Either way, Robin and Paul Hill continue to deserve enormous credit for their groundbreaking ideas about public education delivery and their dogged work to implement them.
There’s a new, interesting research paper out called “Student Achievement within a Portfolio Management Model: Early Results from New Orleans.” If you follow NOLA developments and/or the broader discussions about portfolio districts and TUSSotF, you’ll find it worthwhile. You’ll learn more about the general landscape of schools (district vs. RSD; direct-run vs. charter) as well as the differences in performance. I was surprised to see such positive results from the district’s schools—heck, there’s an RSD because Orleans Parish was so dysfunctional. But after checking in with a NOLA expert, I now understand: Most of the remaining district schools are selective-admission magnet schools.
Rick Hess turned in a good piece on the edu-implications of Tuesday’s elections. His take? It should probably go on ed reformers’ Meh List.