The ???counter-manifesto??? released this week in opposition to national testing and a national curriculum is full of half-truths, mischaracterizations, and straw men. But it was signed by a lot of serious people and deserves a serious response. [quote]
In March, Fordham's Ohio team released a report based on a survey of Ohio school district superintendents and other local education leaders.
While concealed guns and chocolate milk continue to be big issues in education,
?What's worse: supporting public funding for private schools, or allowing poor children to stay in chronically failing schools? The research is clear -- a couple of years in a row in an ineffective classroom can change a child's entire life trajectory.
Fordham Institute President Chester Finn, has an interesting op-ed in the NY Daily News today.
David Brooks had a sobering column in yesterday's Times, warning that America is going soft.? Or, as he puts it, ?the country is becoming less vital and industrious?. One-fifth of all men in their prime working ages are not getting up and going to work.?
Living near D.C.?a city with a 40 percent charter market share?charter schools are a constant topic of discussion, with reform-minded Marylanders envious of D.C.'s friendliness toward charters.
?Time is running out. Without political leadership willing to take risks and build support for ?radical reform,? and without a citizenry willing to insist on those reforms, our schools will continue to decline.'' *
At first blush, it would appear that former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels have a lot in common. Both served as cabinet members in the George W. Bush Administration. Both are viewed as pragmatic centrists. And both hold strong school reform instincts. [quote]
Former New York Times education correspondent Gene Maeroff decided to get his hands dirty when he ran for his local school board in central New Jers
?We'll have to do more with less, and we'll see class sizes going up? the issue for me is making sure we have an effective teacher in front of the classroom'' * ?Dennis Walcott, New York City Schools Chancellor
Here we go again.? The newest buzz phrase in education:? deeper thought. Or deep thinking. Or deep learning. Deep is suddenly everywhere.
According to The Nation, ?thousands of working people, students, seniors, people on public assistance, and community activists? will be descending on Wall Street this Thursday ?to protest ?the city's billionaire mayor's?
The jury is out?should we leave it up to the growing proportion of young people or the elderly experts?
This is a guest post from Diana Senechal, written in response to my post, Private School Idolatry and the Case of the Missing Solution.
Diana Senechal wrote a thoughtful response to my post Private School Idolatry and the Case of the Missing Solution. In it, she argues tha
My name is Mike and I'm a Twitter-holic. It started innocently enough. My friends were doing it, so I decided to join them. I'd send a tweet here, a tweet there, maybe retweet something funny I read.
The New York Times reports on the creative and healthful lunches being cooked up at private schools in and near New York City.
?This current effort to portray teachers as fat cats, feeding at the public trough with no concern for their students, has got to stop. So, too, must the effort to spin research on the importance of quality teachers to suggest that quality teachers are the only thing that matters.'' *
I received a lot of responses to the ?Pedagogy of Practice? post I wrote the other day. Many were positive.
An article in today's Akron Beacon Journal ?about school turnaround caught my eye.
Yet more proof that to some anti-reformers, adults inside the education system are more important than everyone else ? a guest blogger at Valerie Strauss's place says reformers lack empathy:
While there is certainly a debate for the best ways of teaching this particular lesson, a few things are for sure: There should be
This is a guest post by Diane Ravitch, in response to "A Pedagogy of Practice" by Kathleen Porter-Magee.
"I like the fact that [my son] now has kids in his classes from all races, all ethnicities. Potomac was very homogeneous. I think he had maybe one African-American teacher at Hoover.'' * ?Roxana Moayedi, DCPS Parent
Mike and Rick are all sorts of punchy this week, talking civics lessons, philanthropic giving, and Arne Duncan's teacher pandering. Amber breaks the piggy bank with a look at teacher-pension plans while Chris gets meta in the Big Apple. [powerpress]
As you may know, last week we hosted a terrific event here at the Fordham Institute, Are Local School Boards Vital in 21st Century America?
Catherine Gewertz reports today that New Hampshire Republicans have introduced a bill that would, it seems, all but undo the State Board of Education's decision to adopt the Common Core last July. She explains:
