Reading First's revenge
Arne Duncan was at the National Press Club (and on C-SPAN ) this morning, being his usual amiable, cheerful, and optimistic self.
Arne Duncan was at the National Press Club (and on C-SPAN ) this morning, being his usual amiable, cheerful, and optimistic self.
I just sat through a very interesting presentation by Teach For America on the way they are using data to figure out which applicants have a better chance of success in the classroom. So this is being put to very good use.
To his great credit, Secretary Duncan has spent the last several months imploring the education world to spend stimulus money on reform-oriented projects. He has been explicit that states and districts should not use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to merely protect jobs.
It came to our attention that many of our loyal readers never received their Gadflies yesterday. We are so sorry to have deprived you of your weekly Thursday reading material!
These kinds of allegations really get under my skin. Why do all politicians who have anything remotely to do with public schools have to send their kids to public school? Isn't the reason that we all work so hard to reform the public school system because we think it doesn't quite work right?
A few months ago, we reported that the NJ Supreme Court refused to kill off the half-dead and long-damaging Abbott v. Burke. Corzine, backed by the New Jersey legislature, had come up with a new funding formula that would no longer favor the 31 poor districts ("Abbott" districts) singled out by the case.
The Washington Post's Jay Mathews dedicates his column today to discussing Checker's new book "Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut," in which Checker takes strong issue with the idea of universal preschool.