Americans Speak Out: Are Educators and Policy Makers Listening?--The 41st Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward Public Schools
William J. Bushaw and John A. McNeePhi Delta KappanSeptember 2009
William J. Bushaw and John A. McNeePhi Delta KappanSeptember 2009
In the world of education policy and education reform, recent months have seen the relationship between government and private philanthropy grow entirely too intimate.
As the school year starts, many an urban district has been disappointed by slack first-day enrollments.
While many school districts have experienced temporary state takeover--Philadelphia, Chicago, and Cleveland come to mind--New Orleans may be the first to permanently remain under state control.
"Should a thousand bad teachers stay put so that one innocent teacher is protected?" That's what Steven Brill would like to know in his excellent New Yorker piece. The issue is due process: How much is too much and how little too little for the incompetent, miscreant, and excessed educators who remain on the payroll but not in a classroom?
Imagination. Statesmanship. Courage. Adaptation. This is the call of Checker Finn, and it is directed right at the United States Department of Education.
Bart Sutherin is a total helicopter parent. Really. He flew his son, ninth grader Joseph Sutherin, to his first day of school this year in a rented bird. Unfortunately, neither Joseph nor his father thought to alert school district officials or the local sheriff's office to their plan. And the unexpected chopper was reported to the FAA, which is now investigating the incident.
Much has been said and written in memoriam about the Lion of the Senate. Since education policy was one of Senator Ted Kennedy's primary interests, we will add our voices to that chorus.
Checker is a regular contributor to the National Journal education experts blog. The question asked this week is about turnarounds, so he was nice enough to give me the floor. Check out my brief thoughts here. There are also comments from Secretary Duncan, the NEA president, Deborah Meier, and more.
NACSA has produced a very helpful and brief report on the state of charter school authorizing. It has lots of interesting descriptive statistics on the field of authorizing, just basic data that had never been collected before.
The Q&N took a little break but it's back--with a whopper. Quotable: