We've got a true multimedia experience for you in this week's Education Gadfly. Mike and Checker lead the way with an editorial on a little thing we like to call ?Reform Realism?
Esther Quintero, a research associate at the Albert Shanker Institute, blogs today that focusing on teacher quality and accountability is un-American, because it "views students exclusively as passive recipients of their own learning." She goes on to criticize school reformers for portraying students as "devoid of agency."
Former Bush White House adviser (and NCLB drafter) Sandy Kress turned in a very compelling New York Daily News op-ed on Monday arguing that President Obama has gone "wobbly" on education accountability.
Students come to the rescue in response to the smackdown of those ?spoiled teachers." Thank goodness
?The funding available for performance pay represents an opportunity to provide meaningful incentives and rewards for exemplary teachers in a significant number of Virginia schools.'' * ?Robert McDonnell, Governor or Virginia
In my interview with outgoing New York education commissioner David Steiner, whose passion for curriculum has been no secret, I asked about curriculum and the common core and I think it is worth excerpting some of our conversation:
Kelley Williams-Bolar made national headlines back in January when she was caught sending her two daughters across district lines from the woeful Akron Public Schools to the plusher Copley-Fairlawn School District.
Political leaders hope to act soon to renew and fix the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, also known as No Child Left Behind). In this important paper, Thomas B. Fordham Institute President Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Executive Vice President Michael J. Petrilli identify 10 big issues that must be resolved in order to get a bill across the finish line, and explore the major options under consideration for each one. Should states be required to adopt academic standards tied to college and career readiness? Should the new law provide greater flexibility to states and districts? These are just a few of the areas discussed. Finn and Petrilli also present their own bold yet "reform realist" solutions for ESEA. Read on to learn more.
If Michael Winerip is to be taken at his word, then his latest New York Times piece, published Sunday, is meant merely to make the reader ask?himself?whether the fact that?lots of?so-called ?education reformers?
?We will never get a new paradigm of learning in our schools unless we change our assessment system.'' * ?James Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University
Michael Winerip has released the flood gates with his Sunday column in this week's New York Times. In it, he calls into question the resolve, capacity, and genuineness of education reformers (Fordham's own Checker Finn included) who attended private high schools.
The other day Jay Greene unveiled his Tight-Loose Travel Agency, as a followup to his Fordham Report Drinking Game.?
We at Fordham strongly believe school districts can and should learn to spend their dollars more effectively. That said, I can't agree with Kristi Bowman's idea that Congress should mandate "fiscal accountability measures" in its reauthorization of ESEA:
The District of Columbia's rapid gentrification provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create racially and socio-economically integrated public schools. But misguided public policies might be allowing this moment to slip through our hands.
Unlike Fat Tuesday or St. Patrick's Day, April 19th may not strike you as an unofficial drinking holiday. But then you haven't been reading Jay Greene lately, who has created a nifty little drinking game to accompany Fordham's ESEA reauthorization proposal to be released tomorrow.
?The success of our society depends largely on the amount of confidence its citizens have in it... But too often, inequities in our tax system erode that confidence.''' *
Sean Cavanagh's recent blog in Education Week depicts cautionary warnings from Byong Man Ahn, the former South Korean Minister of Education.
A New York Times-Chronicle of Higher Education collaboration yields a story about the lowly undergraduate business department, where slackers slack with impunity.
?There is something about the authenticity of the real thing?a letter, an ordinance, a battlefield, or photograph?that moves people and often makes them want to come back for more.''' *
No one ever said that education reform was easy.? And no one said that Race to the Top, the Obama administration's signature education law, was perfect.? But when David Steiner, a reformer's reformer, announced last week that he was giving up the reins as New York state's Commissioner of Education, the education world seemed to take a collective deep breath.
In a post on Tuesday, I quarreled with Kevin Carey's argument, in The New Republic, that Republican lawmakers are wrong to embrace federalism when it comes t
Feeling fed up with bans on packed lunches, potential bans on breast cancer bracelets,
Recent pieces by Jay Greene and Kevin Carey serve as effective bookends on the current ESEA debate picking up steam in Congress. They both appear to dislike the ?tight-loose?
The man who gave us Dilbert, that irascible cubicle-dweller, his tie perpetually upturned, whose daily?panel-by-panel ordeals presented a particularly pointed satire of the modern workplace with its indigestible euphemistic business-speak and mawkish sign-the-card rituals, has written a piece for the
Ah, the trouble with teacher quality: While some hold grade-ins, others hold mock slave auctions.
?With the stars aligned, we have to seize this opportunity, let's stop dictating at the District level and let our local schools make the calls.''' * ?Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor of Los Angeles, CA
