A Grand Bargain for Education Reform: New Rewards and Supports for New Accountability
Theodore Hershberg and Claire Robertson-Kraft, eds.Harvard Education PressAugust 2009
Theodore Hershberg and Claire Robertson-Kraft, eds.Harvard Education PressAugust 2009
Albert Einstein once remarked that "Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work." He and Jonathan Keiler, a social studies teacher from Prince George's County Maryland, would get along swimmingly. This week, Jay Mathews narrates the story of Keiler's attempt to get his entitled pay upgrade.
Like comets, elections, Olympics, and the moon, education policy ideas come and go in cycles. Consider America's on-again, off-again enthusiasm for national standards and tests. Way back in 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower called for "national goals" in education, including "standards." A decade later, President Richard M.
Andrew Porter, Morgan Polikoff, and John SmithsonEducational Evaluation and Policy AnalysisSeptember 2009
E.D. Hirsch, Jr.Yale University PressAugust 2009
It's once in a blue moon that an erratum calls for its own erratum; the moon tonight will surely be a lovely shade of aqua.
The College Board, as always, hung a smiley face on it, but the latest SAT results are a real bummer.
Los Angeles must have Folgers in its cup this week, finally waking up to the woeful state of that city's schools. On Tuesday, the LAUSD board passed a resolution that would open 50 new and 200 underperforming schools to external operators.
Two weeks ago, we reported that Florida was going to stop awarding regular four-year diplomas to students who graduate through its GED Exit Option program. But the announcement came through garbled; administrators, parents, and teachers believed the GED EX OP program was simply being abolished.
"Who's The Boss" of sophomore English at Northeast High this year? That'd be Tony Danza, he of boxing and 70s-sitcom fame. He was recently approved to teach in that Philly school as part of a new A&E series, Teach. Move over Jon & Kate Plus 8, it's Tony Danza... Plus 30.
Remember that first scary day of kindergarten? A five-year-old in Van Buren, Arkansas came up with an ingenious way to calm his butterflies: Skip right to first grade. Was this self-social promotion? A gifted student testing into first-grade honors? Nope, just a story of friendship--or peer pressure, if you're cynical.
Late last Friday, when it would attract little or no news coverage, the National Education Association offered its detailed feedback on Arne Duncan's "Race to the Top" plans. 26 pages worth.
More than anyone else who comes to mind in American public life, Edward M. Kennedy ascended from reprobate to icon, from??an object of criticism, even ridicule, to??statesman. He made many lasting marks on??our policies and politics and just about everyone came??to admire and like him. Generations of devoted and able staffers. Fellow??Senators and Presidents of both parties.