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Education news nuggets
Running a school is the toughest job around, especially when you are ill prepared.
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Quotable & notable
?It isn't about ?I-me-my.' It's about 'we-us-our.''' * ?Jerry D. Weast, Former Superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools
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A few smart Danish kids
Yesterday afternoon my colleague Chris Irvine and I sat down with three of Denmark's most promising. They're elected leaders of the Association of Danish Pupils, the nation's student-run education-policy organization.
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A sensible end to seniority-based layoffs in Georgia
Georgia is on the road to eliminating seniority-based layoffs throughout the state. The big news is that they're replacing it with a flexible, sensible option for performance evaluation to be determined by local school and district managers.
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The do-gooder's difficulty
Being a do-gooder is not easy, especially if one happens to be a multimillionaire celebrity attempting to do good in a?realm far removed from one's own land of expertise. Jamie Oliver knows all about this. He is an English chef who, for one reason or another, became incredibly famous and is now worth some $105 million.
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Ed Next Book Club: Alexander Russo's Stray Dogs, Saints, and Saviors
Turning around low-performing schools is on
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Quotable & notable
?Charter schools "are like the new Air Jordans, everybody wants to get them, and then when the dust settles, we realize that was a big mistake.'' * ?? Carole Tagoe, Mother, Global Village School
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Is Minnesota bowing out of the Common Core?
Last September, Minnesota Commissioner of Education Alice Seagren adopted the Common Core standards in ELA but not in math, arguing that the state's existing math standards were far superior than the CCSS. With a new Commissioner, Brenda Cassellius, selected by the new Democratic governor, Republican lawmakers are now working to ensure that that decision cannot be revisited.
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More from Minnesota: Revised social studies standards open for comment
When Sheldon and Jeremy Stern reviewed the Minnesota social studies standards earlier this year, there was certainly much room for improvement.
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M.S. 223: Tightrope walking in the South Bronx
There is a wonderful moment in Jonathan Mahler's arresting New York Times Magazine story this morning about an inner city public school, when its entrepreneurial principal wanted to start the school day ten minutes earlier than the union contract called for.?
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Charter Schools
DC Opportunity Scholarship Program renewed in budget deal
As you probably know by now, the President and Congress came to a budget agreement late last night that will keep the government operating through the end of the fiscal year.
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Shutdown, service-up
On Wednesday I suggested that furloughed federal employees might be a great source of volunteers for DC-area schools--if only someone could organize them.
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Education news nuggets
GOAL! Sign up for this soccer- focused charter! Or join this ?underground railroad' for geniuses.
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Quotable & notable
?If somebody were judging us like we're judging these schools, we'd probably be a failing Congress.'' * ?? Rep. Howard P. McKeon, R-California
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Duncan at EWA
I just wanted to give a quick shout-out from the Education Writers Association meeting in New Orleans.
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Reform School: Tim Kitts
Tim Kitts of Florida's Bay Haven Charter Academy explains his ?plus? model of school improvement, and the axes of curriculum and department structures.
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PODCAST: Reform skeptics week
Mike and Rick talk about what happens when the parent trigger misfires, raise serious questions about Florida's teacher-reform law, and wonder whether expanding vouchers to the middle class will do much good. Amber knocks Gary Miron's KIPP study down a few pegs, and Chris lobbies against state-mandated dress codes. [powerpress]
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Quotable & notable
?Too many of our kids are dropping out of schools.That's not a white, black or brown problem. That's everybody's problem'' * -Barack Obama, President, United States of America
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Curriculum & Instruction
Around the bend on Common Core
I was just re-reading sections of The Making of Americans by Don Hirsch, preparing to send out some encouraging words to my local district Board of Ed Curriculum Committee, when a new
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Steiner Follows Black Out the Door
?David Steiner got none of the negative press that Cathleen Black received when he was appointed Commissioner of New York State's Education Department in October of 2009.
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One down, six to go: Cathie Black on the out and out
[caption id="attachment_16080" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Photos by GothamSchools and Louise Docker"]
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Turn the government shutdown into a boon for DC-area schools
It's looking increasingly likely that large swaths of the federal government will shutter its doors come Friday at midnight.
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Curriculum & Instruction
A quandary resolved or restated?
The humanities are under attack, writes Nicholas Dames in the latest N+1.
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Curriculum & Instruction
No love-in for Finland here
Rick Hess strongly implies that I'm a Finland lover just because I signed the AFT plea for better curricular materials for teachers to use in connection
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Education news nuggets
?The prevailing sentiment that anyone can do the job of a teacher, or that anyone can direct teachers how to do their job, is ill-considered: Many have tried, and many have failed.'' *
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A more accurate "TFA teachers are like untrained doctors" analogy
Today's Columbus Dispatch features an anti-Teach For America op-ed by an OSU ed professor (Thomas Stephens). He says nothing surprising to any of us who've heard ed schools' views of alternative teacher preparation before.
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Doing more with less...professional development
?Good teaching cannot fall victim to budget cuts,? a post on Ed Week's ?PD Watch? blog implored last week.