Let the budget battle begin: New York style

New York's new governor, Andrew Cuomo, unveiled his proposed state budget yesterday and, as expected, it's not pretty.

Kumbaya? Not quite yet in Gotham

It must have been quite an event, last night's storm-tossed public meeting of New York City's Panel for Education Policy, a Bloomberg created group that makes recommendations to the mayor on key education issues.?According to Elizabeth Green of Gotham Schools

Kumbaya ? not quite yet in Gotham

It must have been quite an event, last night's storm-tossed public meeting of New York City's Panel for Education Policy, a Bloomberg created group that makes recommendations to the mayor on key education issues.?According to Elizabeth Green of Gotham Schools

Reinventing the Empire State

As Peter noted earlier, we're witnessing something rare in New York right now ?

Reinventing the Empire State

As Peter noted earlier, we're witnessing something rare in New York right now ?

Here we go

Man the battle stations. The Miami Herald reports that ?the chairman of the [state] Senate's education policy committee filed a measure this week that would partially base teacher salary increases on student test scores.?

Big questions

?The snowstorm kicked out electricity last week,? writes Jay Mathews on his Washington Post Class Struggle blog. ?It was hard to write the column without access to the Internet.?

Education news nuggets

Do you have the blues?

Quotable & notable

?Why aren't governors standing up and saying, ?In our state, we'll devise a system where nobody will ever get into a classroom who isn't competent'? Instead they are saying, ?Let's make it easy to fire teachers.' That's the wrong goal'' * ?Dennis Van Roekel, President of the National Education Association

Mike talks NCLB

In case you missed it, Mike?Petrilli?was a guest yesterday on the Pat Morrison (radio) show on Southern California Public Radio (the NPR

A decade of researching, refuting and remaking reform. That's all?

Indeed, Happy 10th Anniversary, Education Next!? Co-founder, and editor-in-chief Paul Peterson has a nifty review of the journal's founding ? at a meeting with Checker Finn, Jay Greene, and Marci Kanstoroom in 2000 ?

The Walls Come Tumblin' Down: Is Tenure Next?

It began with punching holes through the ?firewall? between teacher evaluations and student performance, which many states have done thanks to Race to the Top prompting.

Keeping poor kids out of good schools is a nationwide phenomenon

Stimulus funds iPadded the pockets of Apple

When Congress starts to debate education funding in coming weeks and months, keep the following headlines in mind. All of them refer to federal dollars that flowed from the $100 billion education stimulus. At Avondale Elementary, 90 new iPads help students ?app'ly themselves

Field notes: Big ideas interrupted by guns, drugs, and eviction

I was just finishing up my ?Sunday morning, big picture memo about school district priorities when the phone rang. I should know better by now than to answer a phone on Sunday morning.? But I did.

It must be the beginning of the beginning*: Negotiations 101

Now it's an AP report, via the Wall Street Journal, telling us that Mayor Bloomberg will have to lay off lots of teachers ?unless teacher seniority rules are changed.?

Real talk about virtual education

Don't miss Bill Tucker's new post on the Education Next page. He takes out?after the Times for a piece they did about digital learning in Florida.

Education news nuggets

Maybe we need to stop worrying about the kids; teenagers are the ones coming up with real solutions (if they aren't suspended, that is).

Education news nuggets

In a world where snow days are now e-days, it comes as no surprise that we have problems on our hands.

Quotable & notable

?Given my choice, I'd much rather absorb the cost of running the assessment office than taking on the teacher pensions?'' * ?Bud Church, Worcester County, Maryland Commissioner President

Is this the beginning of the end? Or of the beginning?

Reuters is reporting that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is set to lay off 15,000 teachers in New York City in anticipation of State deficit crunches.

A new ?Washington Consensus? is born

A decade ago, when federal lawmakers on the left and right came together to design and then enact No Child Left Behind, it solidified what was already a ?Washington Consensus? in education policy.

Blah blah blah

It's not that I think it's my job to point out when education-related writing is bubbling over with clich?s; with tear-soaked appeals to care for the children; with flag-waving vapidities about vague, now-nearly-meaningless things like ?international competitiveness?; with trying-to-be-stirring phrases like ?now is the time? and ?we must act for?the future? and suchlike.

Forget the gap

Arne Duncan was in Minnesota last week. He talked of a ?sense of urgency.? And he talked about how Minnesota, which has a large achievement gap, really should feel terrible about it and should be doing more to shrink it.

Quotable & notable

?When you have 92 percent of your employees receiving a bonus, you've got to ask yourself, ?Is it really a bonus program, or is it a program where you're spreading out $42 million?''' * ?Terry Grier, Superintendent of the Huston Independent School District

Co-location in L.A.

It's not a new sci-fi movie ? but it's a longstanding issue for charter schools: finding space ? that's not outer!

SOTU, en toto

I've been trying to figure out what to say about a State of the Union address that, on education at least, offered plenty of encouraging rhetoric but nothing new of substance.

Debating the president's education message

Rhee, Ravitch, and others give their opinions on Obama's State of the Union address over at the New York Times?s Room for Debate. ?Liam Julian, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow

Oh so many Sputnik moments

At Commentary?s blog, Contentions, Ted Bromund cuts up Obama's ?Sputnik moment? talk:

A nation of Gatsbys?

As we rhapsodize about the talents of Indian students, the country's burgeoning middle class, its phalanxes of engineers and its high-tech hubs, let us not forget that India is a country in which 421 million people are desperately poor (more destitute people there, in fact, than in all sub-Saharan Africa) and some 800 million depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.