Performance pay in the Lone Star State
The "Differentiated Compensation in Education" conference, hosted by fellow Buckeye Staters Battelle for Kids, in Houston this week reminds me how messy the "nuts and bolts" of policy implementation can get.
The "Differentiated Compensation in Education" conference, hosted by fellow Buckeye Staters Battelle for Kids, in Houston this week reminds me how messy the "nuts and bolts" of policy implementation can get.
Despite Secretary Duncan's imploring states and districts to use formula-based ARRA funding for reform, it appears that nearly all of it went to job protection.
Obviously, I've been playing the lecturing schoolmarm about RTT, warning that we have to increase our skepticism and manage our expectations. I've been looking for a pithy way to summarize my concern that states are much more interested in getting these federal funds than in pursuing the reforms those funds are meant to support.
This cool, interactive map grades all 50 states plus the District of Columbia on educational innovation and accompanies the just-released report Leaders and Laggards: A State by State Report Card on Educational Innovation?.
Education Week's Alyson Klein doing some top-notch on-the-ground reporting on Colorado's efforts to get Race to the Top funds.
You know that it's a stark indicator of the educational readiness of America's youth when even former military leaders publicly admit that too many young people are academically ineligible to be recruited.??
Quotable: "I would just hope administrators, as they're looking at the budget, would look first to areas that don't impact student learning." -Kerry Birmingham, media relations specialist for the Michigan Education Association
Informative new report on school choice from Heritage Texas to streamline process for expanding great charters
The administration chose Wisconsin as the site for the president's Race to the Top speech yesterday, we're told, because that state's legislature is about to get rid of its data firewall.
Great discussion yesterday at our national standards event. Here's an article in Education Week that highlights some of it.
Quotable: "[For-profit companies] see public education as a windfall for their bottom line, and they are taking what is an education crisis in Georgia and the nation and trying to make a buck.?? They see children as profit margins."
U.S. Department of EducationNovember 2009
Victor Bandeira de Mello, Charles Blankenship, and Don McLaughlinNational Center for Education StatisticsOctober 2009
Consortium on Chicago School ResearchUniversity of Chicago Urban Education InstituteOctober 2009
Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. HasselPublic ImpactOctober 2009550px;height:500px">
Arne Duncan may continue lambasting teacher preparation programs nation-wide, but Texas could soon give him something to smile about. The State Board for Teacher Certification recently gave initial approval to a proposal authored by veteran state Senator Florence Shapiro that would impose stricter standards on the state’s 177 traditional and alternative teacher prep programs.
In perhaps the worst decision since the resurrection of the legwarmer, the North Carolina General Assembly has effectively granted retroactive diplomas to scores of high school seniors who failed graduation tests.
“I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep…Those numbers completely changed my professional life,” says Sarah Fanning, referring to 1999 test scores that revealed a full third of freshmen at Buckhorn High School in New Market, Alabama, where Fanning oversees curriculum and instruction, read at or below the seventh-grade level. In response, Buckhorn became an earl
Call before you print--that’s the lesson for Linda Vista Elementary School in Yorba Linda, California. That school’s PTA recently made tee-shirts for a student jog-a-thon that featured the school mascot (a lion) and an inspiring seven-letter slogan transformed into a 1-800 number.
Education schools are under attack--yet again. But don’t yawn and assume that this, too, shall pass. For unlike innumerable previous assaults, which these institutions withstood with awesome obstinacy, this one may actually crack their fortified walls. That’s no sure thing, of course, given the history of failed attempts at reform in this area.
When the Gates Foundation announced in July that it would give up to $250,000 grants to fifteen states to help them with their Race to the Top applications, it was exercising the right of a private organization to be selective with its funds. But then the neglected 35 cried “unfair.” And the financial floodgates opened.
The Parent Revolution in Los Angeles continues to bring home the bacon, having managed to put organized parents squarely in the center of local education politics.
Last week’s editorial “Remembering Ted Sizer” misidentified the outreach program at Harvard Graduate School of Education as "Outward Bound," a well-known outdoors program.
You can now watch the live webcast of our event on national education standards . No registration required. The webstream will work on both PCs and Macs.
National Journal's "education experts" are having a discussion about my Ed Next article on turnarounds and the Obama administration's fidelity to this strategy.
Quotable: "I don't see any other state that has thrown the brunt of its budget shortfall onto the laps of our students." - Celia Molina, Hawaii parent
A week ago, I posted this in response to Secretary Duncan's speech about education schools at Teachers College. Over the course of several days, there were 11 comments posted that, when printed out, clocked in at 20 pages (single spaced, mind you).