Predictable "poverty"
What’s something that’s happened nearly every year for the last 100? (No, we’re not talking about the dashed hopes of Chicago Cubs’ fans.) School budgets have grown.
What’s something that’s happened nearly every year for the last 100? (No, we’re not talking about the dashed hopes of Chicago Cubs’ fans.) School budgets have grown.
They say you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. That just about sums up the difference between the Race to the Top’s “proposed priorities” and the final versions released today.
According to the Superintendent of Denver, Tom Boasberg, "Charter schools are public schools, and they must be public schools in every sense of the word." That's why he wants Denver's charters to accept all students within their geographic boundaries. The idea isn't really new, surprising, or troublesome; most charters must take all students who apply and some even abide by boundary rules.
At least four states have halted, and three others have slowed, their standards-revision processes in anticipation of the Common Core version.
The Department of Education reported the other day that, of the $97.4 billion in economic-stimulus funding that Congress steered its way, 69 percent was “obligated” by September 30th. (The balance--including Secretary Arne Duncan’s much-discussed “Race to the Top” money--must get out the door by September 2010.)
Iowa is also dealing with confidentiality issues--for the accusers of teachers. For the last nine years, the state attorney general’s office has been violating a law that protects investigatory documents by sharing filed complaints (for fraud, sexual misconduct, gross incompetence, and abuse) with teachers, including the identity of the complainant.
Some folks are worried about the efficacy of closing persistently failing schools because of a recent study out of Chicago.
Regarding the RTT's ability to drive change, I wrote this not too long ago (emphasis added):
Quotable: ???It might even be a reason for dismissal. We're teaching kids something that if they were to do it later, they could get in trouble for???If a student in college were to approach a professor to buy a grade, we would be frowning on that.???
We've debated in the past whether it's a good idea for schools to reward s
On October 29, the Ohio Grantmakers Forum, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the Frank M.
As we consider changes and improvements to the Ohio Education Gadfly, we want to know what our readers think. We invite you to take a short survey about the Gadfly (accessible online at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=J3kL2UiqJG3CBosslxNEzQ_3d_3d).
In the last decade the Dayton Public Schools (DPS) have contracted by more than 10,000 students; seeing enrollment decline from 24,916 students in 2000 to 14,393 students in 2009. During this same period Dayton has become one of the country’s leading charter school markets.
Teacher quality is arguably the most important variable impacting student achievement. Americans have generally accepted this truism, either through common sense or nostalgia, and policy wonks and politicians (armed with substantive evidence that good teaching matters) are elevating teacher quality as a primary focus of reform and pursuing relevant policy changes.
Alongside putting in place Governor Strickland’s “evidence-based” model of school funding, House Bill 1 – the state’s biennial budget – called for an advisory panel to issue “recommendations for revisions to the educational adequacy components of the school funding model,” among a slew of other charges.
The Columbus Dispatch writes that "the truth about Columbus middle schools is brutal." More than 70 percent of the district’s middle schools are rated "D" or "F" by the state and none of them met federal Adequate Yearly Progress targets.
Yesterday, the US Department of Education released documents related to the second and final batch of funding (~$11 billion) under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund.
Much has been made of the new New Haven collective bargaining agreement--by President Obama, Secretary Duncan, AFT President Randi Weingarten, and even reformers in Connecticut, like Alex Johnston of ConnCAN, who sees it as promising.
What child hasn't shrieked with glee upon hearing that it's a "snow day" and school is closed?
Quotable: "Charter schools are public schools, and they must be public schools in every sense of the word...Effectively, there will be absolutely no distinction between charter schools and district schools." -Tom Boasberg, Superintendant of Denver Public Schools
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.