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Education news nuggets
While we eagerly await the Education Department's announcement about Race to the Top round 2 winners (here's a sneak peek for Ohioans and New Yorkers),
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Quotable and notable
?We cannot become so affixed on the spotlights that we constructively ignore the headlights from the train wreck facing our country.'' ?John H. Jackson, C.E.O. of the Schott Foundation, commenting on the scatter-shot approach to school reform nationally
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The Nation's Best (and Worst) Cities for School Reform
The question: Which cities are in the mix when it comes to being the ?Silicon Valley? of K-12 schooling? Or, more simply: If you're a problem-solver with some successes under your belt, where will you be most welcome? Cities rounding out the top ten include Charlotte, Austin, Houston, Fort Worth, and San Francisco.
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What college costs
U.S. News & World Report has a handy graph. The National Center for Education Statistics has the details. ?Liam Julian
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The Seattle Times says ?false?
This month, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington (cherries, not cherry blossoms), emphasized in a speech on the Senate floor the?gravity of mailing billions of federal dollars to states in order to avert the dismissal of scads of public-school teachers. ?In my home state, nearly 3,000 jobs are at risk,?
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Fordham looking to hire its next ?new media? guru
The irreplaceable and immensely talented Laura Pohl is moving on, following her passion for international relief work. So we're looking to hire our next Director of New Media.
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Race to the Top finalists to be announced tomorrow
So reports Fritz Edelstein in his daily e-mail blast. (We're working on confirming this with the Department of Education.) If true, the timing is quite a surprise?at least a few weeks earlier than expected. Why is Arne Duncan rushing out this news in the dog days of August? To get a big splash during a slow news week? To connect with back-to-school stories?
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Education news nuggets
It's back to school this week for many, and Michelle Rhee has a tough love message for principals.
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Quotable and notable
?Damn near anything is going to be an improvement on the status quo.'' ? Daniel Willingham, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia, commenting on the way teachers are evaluated
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Cui bono?
Slowly, slowly, I work my way through the latest issue of Washington Monthly, in which America's colleges and universities are ranked.
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Waiting for solutions
Alex Johnston, the CEO of ConnCAN (I yearn for someone in Topeka to found KanCAN?or, better yet, someone in Montparnasse to start CancanCAN), writes that he is waiting for the coming of ?the
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Como se dice ?delusional??
The Boston Globe reports that Beantown teachers are culturally insensitive, inclined to boorish behavior that, according to ?some students and advocates,?
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The wheels on the bus go??? late, off-route, and terribly mismanaged
School started last week for one of the highest performing middle schools in Columbus, the Columbus Collegiate Academy (one of Fordham's sponsored schools). With the start of school comes the start of familiar problems with student transportation.
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Maybe there's no ?teacher quality gap? after all
It's taken as an article of faith in the education reform community: we're screwing poor kids by giving them less effective teachers than their more affluent peers enjoy. The evidence seems pretty much open-and-shut. Poor schools are home to more rookie teachers, those with less subject-matter knowledge, lower certification exam scores, you name it.
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Quotable and notable
?The success of a student can't just be one measurement. We need lots of different ways of looking at a kid.? ?Marcy Raymond, Metro School Principal
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Squeezing the Last Words out of Summer
The Ohio Gadfly was ahead of the curve with its summer reading list.? And yesterday Liam told us what Diane Ravitch was reading.?
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Time to Sweat It: a New Approach to P.E.
Don't miss Marci Kanstoroom's??Holding Students Accountable for Changing into their Gym Clothes? on the Ed Next blog this morning:
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Proof Positive in Harlem? You Know It When You See It
Paul Tough, a former staff editor at The New York Times Magazine, has a lengthy op-ed piece in today's Times titled ?Don't Drop Out of School Innovation,?
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Education news nuggets
It's Friday, and I am telling you to stop fearing fun. You may be asking, ?do I even have a (school) choice??
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Quotable and notable
?Rather than stick with the same strategies and hope things somehow magically change, Congress should find more room in the budget to support the Obama administration's declared approach: to try new strategies and abandon failed ones; to expand and test programs with strong evidence of success, even if that evidence is inconclusive; and to learn from mista
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I've got mail
The newest Washington Monthly just came?and it's the college rankings issue, with articles by Ben Miller (?College Dropout Factories?); Kevin Carey (?The Mayo Clinic of Higher Ed,? and ?America's Best Community Colleges?); and Erin Dillon (?America's Best Master's Universities and Baccalaureate Colleges?).
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Ravitch's reading list
In this Sunday's Washington Post one?will find Diane Ravitch's selection of three books that ?have the power to change the national discussion of what now passes for ?school reform.'? And the winners are:
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What we talk about when we talk about innovation
Paul Tough's op-ed in today's New York Times is called ?Don't Drop Out of School Innovation.? The innovation in question is the devotion of millions of dollars to construction, in cities across the land, of ?Promise Neighborhoods?
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The Post eats its own
The columnist Dana Milbank's newspaper has allowed its pages to be used against him.
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Fewer than 1 in 4 college-bound students ready for college-level work
Yesterday, the ACT released its 2010 ?Condition of College and Career Readiness,? and the results are less-than-encouraging. According to the results, fewer than 1 in 4 students who took the exam is actually ready for college-level coursework.
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The L.A. Times did the right thing
I wasn't going to wade into the L A Times teacher brouhaha, but the responses to Liam Julian's Flypaper post yesterday have goaded me into the ring.
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Quotable and notable
?You know who that chronically truant 6-year-old is going to be? The ?menace to society' that everyone will be knocking on our door about, asking me to prosecute.'' ? Kamala Harris, San Francisco district attorney and candidate for state attorney general
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Dear Left: Leave Obama alone
So entreats the New Republic's Jonathan Chait in his new TRB column. Chait compares Obama's current struggle to straighten a sclerotic school system to?the president's?earlier exertion to even out an entangled medical establishment.
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Field Notes: School Boards R Us (Unfortunately)
Emerging from a two-and-a-half hour school board meeting the other night ? a short one! ? as I emerge from most of these sessions (drained), I was anxious to read Rick Hess's Ed Week post, ?School Boards as a Sympton, not the Cause,?