The Condition of Education 2009
National Center for Education Statistics, Institute for Education SciencesJune 2009
National Center for Education Statistics, Institute for Education SciencesJune 2009
All the gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts--and manifestos, studies, reports, and exhortations beyond enumeration--involving teacher recruitment, teacher quality, teacher compensation, and teacher retention miss the fundamental demographic reality at the core of almost all our teacher-related challenges: their sheer numbers.
Dying to learn how to make balloon animals? Tie-dye a tee-shirt? Cut out the perfect construction-paper snowflake? If you're a teacher in Massachusetts, you're in luck.
Should charter-school autonomy mean outsourcing services however a school sees fit? Ten schools in the San Diego area say aye. Heretofore, the charters in question were charged per pupil rates (a projected $763 next year) for district-provided special education services.
"A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice," Sunny Jim once said (for those rusty on their modern European history, that's James Callaghan, PM of the UK in the late 70s.) Perhaps a lesson for Joel Klein, who's now taking heat from experts on his 14-month principal training boot camp, the Leadership Academy.
Here's some background info on some recent ED appointees. ????Russo weighs in, including a blog critique.
If you read your hometown's newspaper regularly, you're bound to see an op-ed or editorial every so often on an educational topic. Today, your odds were much higher--many dailies featured guest opinion pieces on teachers from superintendents, mayors, and wonks, and a few regular columnists chimed in as well. Let's dig in for this first installment of the Ed-Op Round-Up.
Charter-school operators are finishing up the details of their five-year operating budgets, a tough task given that lawmakers are still wrangling over exactly what kind of school-funding charters are to receive over the next two years (see here).
The National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional AssistanceMay 2009
We've heard much about "zombie banks," institutions that are fundamentally insolvent but stay open because they are propped up by government intervention. But finance isn't the only field trod by the walking dead. In Dayton, and indeed across Ohio, we are also witnessing zombie schools. Many are operated by public school systems.
While we're used to stories about government spending millions, billions, and now trillions, this story is about how just a little more state money could make a big difference in rural Ohio schools like South Point High School.
All good things must come to an end, including our illuminating, sometimes raucous, usually respectful debate about whether the Massachusetts Miracle proves teachers unions to be not such a barrier to school reform that some reformers claim.
The NYT raises questions about the New York City Leadership Academy, the much-publicized principal training programs.
And this is definitely one of them. NY Times Magazine reports that in many southern states, proms are still segregated. Yes, you read that correctly.
This has to be the biggest head-scratcher in the ongoing saga of the ARRA (hence this nudge from ED).
Robert Costrell, currently the "endowed chair of education accountability" in the University of Arkansas's Department of Education Reform (Jay Greene's shop), and formerly an advisor to three Republican Massachusetts governors, weighs in on our ongoing de
I didn't. But the story's true and Steele himself tells it to students at H.D. Woodson Senior High School in his native D.C. as part of C-Span's "Students & Leaders" program. Ever the public speaker with his "hip" verbiage and unfortunate use of the verb "ain't," the chairman actually paints a compelling story about perseverance.
We've been lamenting the poor (literally) state of teachers' pension funds but what about the union-run health insurance plans? Alas here's a story that had me beat.
The Massachusetts Miracle debate is back for its sixth round! Sol Stern returns to comment on other debaters' points.
In March, President Obama told a Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter that ???????the number of children going to the Cleveland Public Schools who are actually prepared to go to college (is) probably one out of seven or eight or ten. And that's just not acceptable. It's not acceptable for them.
Mike's post about teachers unions and education reform in Massachusetts really seems to have struck a nerve; we have run four follow-up posts, each highlighting other people's opinions on this issue. Missed the debate?
President Obama has pledged to spend $10 billion more a year on "zero to five" education, and his 2010 budget makes a $2 billion "down payment" on that commitment. (Billions more are already in the "stimulus" package.) Any number of congressional leaders want more preschool, as do dozens of governors.
Matthew Ladner, Mark S. Francis, and Gergory E. StoneThe Goldwater InstituteApril 2009
Eric A. Hanushek and Alfred A. LindsethPrinceton University Press2009
Greg Forster and Christian D'AndreaThe Friedman Foundation for Educational ChoiceMay 2009