Show us the evidence
Terry RyanOhio is in the midst of a heated debate about the future of school funding.
Live-blogging Fordham's pre-k debate
Michael J. PetrilliWe're fifteen minutes into Fordham's big debate on universal preschool, designed to discuss Checker Finn's latest book,??R
Live-blogging Fordham's pre-k debate: Steve Barnett is like Jay-Z
Michael J. PetrilliSteve Barnett, the co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research, ceded no ground to Checker. He came out of his corner swinging and never stopped. The book is "inaccurate and poorly reasoned," "cherry picks" the evidence, and is full of "errors and exaggerations."
Live-blogging Fordham's pre-k debate: CATO and Fordham agree!
Michael J. PetrilliNeal McLuskey from CATO is up and he mostly agrees with Checker. (This is more surprising than you might think. We don't generally agree on much.) But he has two additional points: 1. Over time, programs like Head Start get captured by the people who are employed by them.
Live-blogging Fordham's pre-k debate: Is preschool the little engine that could?
Michael J. PetrilliSara Mead of the New America Foundation is taking her turn. She started by holding up Checker's book and commenting (correctly) how similar its cover looks to that of her favorite children's book, The Little Engine that Could. (Still, trust me, don't show Checker's book cover to a small child.
Live-blogging Fordham's pre-k debate: Is Checker joining the far left?
Michael J. PetrilliThat's what Steve Barnett charged. He thinks Checker is arguing to "hold back" the middle class so that poor kids can catch up and close the achievement gap. Needless to say, Checker doesn't agree with that characterization, but admits that he agrees with (not-so-far-left) liberal Bruce Fuller, who believes in targeting resources on poor kids rather than spreading them around.
Stay to the right
Testifying before Congress, Secretary Duncan came under fire from a few Dems for upping the Teacher Incentive Fund and slightly reducing Title I in the 2010 budget.
Of interest
Potentially interesting charter school hearing on the Hill today. Mayoral control of schools coming to Detroit?
Hearing tweets
Mad love for charteralliance and edreform for twittering during today's congressional hearing on chartering.
The Widget Effect: Out National Failure to Acknowledge and Act on Differences in Teacher Effectiveness
The New Teacher ProjectJune 2009
Student Demographics, Teacher Sorting, and Teacher Quality: Evidence from the End of School Desegregation
Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.C. Kirabo JacksonJournal of Labor EconomicsApril 2009
NYU vs. NYT
In last week's Recommended Reading "Leadership woes," Gadfly erroneously cited investigative reporting done by The New York Times as research from an as-yet-unreleased New York University study on New York City principals. The NYU study will be available later in June.
Putting the 'ouch' in voucher accountability
The original voucher pioneer, Milwaukee, is now pioneering voucher regulation.
How high-performing charter schools do 'merit pay'
Stafford PalmieriWith all the positive press surrounding high-achieving charter schools, it's not surprising that they've turned into the education reformer's go-to point of comparison.
Common cause
This week's news that 46 states plus the District of Columbia have signed up to pursue common education standards is a big deal but it's also potentially a big nothing. If this effort leads to rigorous national standards and tests in reading and math, historians will view this milestone as historically significant. But nobody has yet committed to anything of the sort.
Declaring educational bankruptcy
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Turning around bad schools is harder than turning around Chrysler, GM, or AIG--but our fearless, tireless, irrepressible new federal administration seems bent on doing this, too. Just listen to Education Secretary Arne Duncan on the topic of closing and "reconstituting" failed schools.
Flip-flop-flap
Politicians often get themselves into hot water for "flip-flopping" on an issue. Jefferson Township High School students learned this lesson the hard way--and literally. These Ohio high schoolers, days away from year's end, planned a daring defiance of authority: they would stand up to their school's no-flip flop rule by all wearing flip flops on the very same day!
Three strikes and you're in
Policymakers, what do you do when your state's newly adopted high school exit exams might result in a precipitous drop in graduation rates? Give failure a pass. Yes, that's right; if you're a Minnesota high school student, you have two options when it comes to the allegedly "extraordinarily challenging" eleventh grade math exit exam: pass once or fail three times.
Apt education aptonyms
Michael J. PetrilliLoyal Flypaper reader (and American Institutes of Research VP) Mark Schneider has suggested a great new contest idea: Name the education sector's best aptonym!
I spoke too soon!
Just a day ago, I expressed encouragement that Secretary Duncan's ARRA threats may have started making a difference on state policy.
Sliding to the wrong end of the school voucher scale
Christina HentgesBack in March, Checker, Mike, Amber and I wrote a paper called When Private Schools Take Public Dollars: What's the Place of Accountability in School Voucher Programs? We proposed a sliding-scale mechanism: the more money a private school receives from voucher-bearing students, the more a
Upcoming event: Schoolhouses and Courthouses
The American Enterprise Institute is holding an event next Tuesday entitled, "Schoolhouses and Courthouses: Does Court-Driven School Reform Deliver?"
UP
Michael J. PetrilliNew York state's test scores in math were released yesterday, and not surprisingly they were up, up, up.
More on turnarounds
NYT's Dillon writes about Secretary Duncan's turnaround plans. This article makes it sound like Duncan is in favor of 10s.