Five Ideas for Quality Control in K-12 Digital Learning

The following is a guest post from Bill Tucker. Bill regularly blogs at The Quick and The Ed and is the managing director of Ed Sector.

Quotable & notable

?We're kind of building the airplane as we fly because we know we need to get something done and turned into the state?*

Education news nuggets

What would the ed reform debate look like in Pink Panther terms?

NEW Podcast: The bro-mance continues

After his podcast sabbatical, Rick Hess is back?and he doesn't disappoint. After explaining his new Fordham paper on digital learning, he and Mike discuss the charter-voucher rivalry and what the debt ceiling means for education.

Summer Learning Loss -- Is It Any Worse in the Winter?

Jeff Smink's New York Times essay, ?This is Your Brain on Summer,? about summer learning loss, makes me think of my childhood summers in Oregon's fertile Willamette Valley, where I am now vacationing.

What does it mean to 'fix the system'?

David Cohen of the University of Michigan complains at the Shanker Institute blog that "niche reforms" like DC's (substantial) overhaul of its teacher evaluation and retention practices under Michelle Rhee are a distraction. Cohen dismisses IMPACT and similar reforms, saying we need to "fix the system" and build "infrastructure" instead.

Quality control in K-12 digital learning: Hess calls for humility

Regardless of your views on the pros and

Education news nuggets

In other news, President Obama reminds David Brooks of his junior high principal and lazy high school students still have swag.

Quotable & notable

?We stress performance on state tests, even in first grade. We don't have time to teach science and social studies.?* ?Kirsten Holtje, first grade teacher in Fairfax County, VA

Promoting Quality Online Learning

This is a guest post by Tom Vander Ark that was originally posted on EdReformer.

Digital learning -- how do we ensure quality?

Today we've published the first of six papers, commissioned by the Fordham Institute, on the topic of digital learning/virtual schooling. The rest of the papers ? each exploring a different angle of this issue ? are set to be released on a rolling basis later this year.

Quotable & notable

?If you had a rally tomorrow on the Capitol to keep No Child Left Behind the same, there's not a single person that would show up for that rally.?* ?Michael Bennet, Senator (D-Colo.)

Education news nuggets

Still looking for a job? We empathize ? employment is a veritable pedagogical puzzle.

Florida protects charter school facilities funding

Florida deserves kudos for protecting about $55 million in funding for charter facilities in the face of budget cuts, but they're catching a lot of flak from traditional school advocates, EdWeek reports:

Scott Walker saved teaching jobs

It turns out Wisconsin's controversial labor law reforms have indeed helped districts cope with their budgets without resorting to layoffs:

Quotable & notable

?If I saw that [right-to-work states like] Texas and Florida were running a great K-12 system, but [heavy union states like] New York and Massachusetts have really messed this up, then I could draw a correlation and say it's either got to be the union?or the weather.?*

Seeing the Common Core for what it is

I've already wondered aloud (see here) whether states' quick adoption of the Common Core was more an example of people seeing what they wanted to see than evidence of some broad consensus about what the actual standards meant for curriculum, instruction, and

Education news nuggets

Does it make any sense to test students in art? I say absolutely! West Virginia gets a B+.

Enough about Finland

Quotable & notable

?The theory of evolution is based on almost as much evidence as the theory of gravity.?* ?Lorenzo Sadun, Math Professor at the University of Texas

Education news nuggets

As colleges drop the SAT requirement, death becomes the only real threat to job security, and

Bloomberg wins one...er, the kids win

So, the suit by New York City's United Federation of Teachers and the NAACP to block 22 school closures and 15 charter school "co-locations" in Gotham came to naught. And? Mayor Michael Bloomberg, according to Gotham Schools, celebrated by mouthing off on a local radio show:

IMPACT anecdote

I talked for a bit last night with a DCPS teacher about IMPACT. While he expressed some concern about the system, he also said he was proof of it's effectiveness. See, he's a third-year elementary teacher at a struggling school in Northeast.

Deep IMPACT

A few days ago, 206 ?ineffective? or twice-rated ?minimally effective? teachers were dismissed from their positions at the District of Columbia Public Schools thanks to the District's new teacher-evaluation system, IMPACT.

Young, under construction, and on the move: A dispatch from Poland

Twenty years ago I taught English in a small town located in southwest Poland called Gora. At the time the country was just beginning its political, economic, and social transition away from communism. I was in Warsaw the night Lech Walesa gave his acceptance speech in 1990 as Poland's first freely elected president since before World War II.

Quotable & notable

?Geography is not just about maps.''' * ?David P. Driscoll,? Chairman, National Assessment Governing Board

Quotable & notable

?The DOE's policies are actually fostering divison and conflict, largely between charter parents and traditional public school parents ."* ?Bill de Blasio, NYC Public Advocate

The Secret to Successful School Reform

The following is a guest post submitted by John Thompson.

This Glass is Half-Empty, Maybe Two-Thirds

Mike isn't wrong when he notes with satisfaction that, on some indicators and at some grade levels, poor and minority students in the U.S. are doing better today than a decade a or so back. Only a churl would say that's not an accomplishment worthy of notice and some pride.

Teaching the Teachers: A Controversial New Report from NCTQ

If the country's schools of education have been one of the more prominent bulls-eyes for school reformers, this new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality, ?Student Teaching in the United States,? is bound to unnerve a few ed schools; 99 of them to be exact.?