A blast from the past
Several of us at Fordham (and some of our friends and associates in the larger ed policy world) have heard recently from James Garner, the former director of Research and Training Associates in Belleville, New Jersey.
Several of us at Fordham (and some of our friends and associates in the larger ed policy world) have heard recently from James Garner, the former director of Research and Training Associates in Belleville, New Jersey.
At first blush it didn't make any sense: Why was Secretary of Education Arne Duncan speaking about school turnarounds at the big National Charter Schools Conference this morning?
As Mike just wrote, Secretary Duncan was at the National Charter Schools Conference today, and he spoke about turnarounds. While I continue to be thankful that he is focusing on America's worst schools, I'm disappointed by his direction--especially in one critically important area.
Years ago, when I was just entering the education reform world, an old hand heard that I had registered for a big conference and dismissively replied, "Conferences are for the uninitiated." Ouch.
For those of you optimistic about our ability to fix broken schools via "turnarounds," please consider the following. It's a single sentence from a journal article explaining what government and non-profit leaders ought to know about turnarounds in the private sector:
An interesting bit of school news in the Los Angeles Times today. Seems that due to tough financial times the LA Unified School District won't be hiring any new Teach For America teachers next year!
This week has provided a nice natural experiment about which kinds of studies the media finds newsworthy. Four major reports, each of which might normally lead the news in a typical week, battled it out for attention.
Andy wonders if he's being naive again to think that a rise in test scores is a bad thing.
A new report from CEP shows consistent gains on state tests for all groups of kids in the NCLB era.
Lots of interesting stuff at next week's national charter schools conference, including speeches by Secretary Duncan, Michelle Rhee, and Joel Klein. Check out the massive agenda here.
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, my old stomping grounds, has just done us all a major service and itself proud.
We hear that USA Today's Greg Toppo met a lovely lady today--"Brady Bunch" Mom Florence Henderson. Apparently she joined other celebs and music groups outside the Department of Education to push for more music education in schools.
Over at????U.S. News & World Report, Andy Rotherham and Richard Whitmire make the case for closing underperforming charter schools and rewarding successful ones.????
Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, Columbia UniversityJune 2009
Can you really take religion out of a religious school? That was the question on many minds when seven D.C. Catholic schools went charter last fall (and when NYC Catholic schools pondered a similar strategy this spring).
To the Editor:The Gadfly review of NYC Schools Under Bloomberg & Klein: What Parents, Teachers and Policymakers Need to Know was perfunctory and unfair. As one of the editors and a contributor to the volume, I would like to set the record straight.
If there's a riot in the Chino, California schools next month, blame it on...an accounting error? The state requires that pupils spend at least 54,000 minutes in instructional time each year and no fewer than 180 minutes on any one day.
How much more "international benchmarking" does American education actually need? Gary W. Phillips's inspired new study of how U.S. states and (some) districts are doing vis-à-vis the rest of the world suggests that we already have a heckuva lot of performance information available right under our noses.
The Charlotte-Mecklenberg school district blazes another trail: making teacher lay-off decisions based on performance evaluations, not seniority. If that raised your eyebrows, prepare to have them meet your hairline.
"Michelle, why would you agree to be photographed with a broom on the cover of Time magazine?" That was D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray's top query when he sat down with the no-nonsense schools chancellor a few months ago.
Big things are underway in Baltimore's schools, despite a hiccup during in the last week. Here's my take in a Baltimore Sun op-ed.
There's much talk of common education standards these days; recently the Obama administration pledged to put some money towards the??tests that will assess those standards. In this CNN segment from June 15, Mike sheds some light on the topic and what we might expect??as the common standards effort moves along.
Ever since The Education Gadfly critically reviewed NYC Schools Under Bloomberg and Klein: What Parents, Teachers, and Policymakers Need to Know, we've been bombarded with messages from aggrieved contributors and editors of that 172-page volume (which you can find??
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced last night that he's making a big bet on the NGA and CCSSO Common State Standards initiative, putting up $350 million to fund the te
ED lands another honest-to-goodness reformer. Michael Robbins, formerly of SEED and continuously a good egg, is joining the Department to work with Peter Groff in the????Faith-Based and Community Initiatives office.
We've long lauded Massachusetts' standards as setting an example for other states.