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Eduwonk and charters
Eduwonk has a very good post on the NYT article on charters from this weekend. His take is worth the read.
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NCTQ research competition: deadline extended
We announced a few weeks ago in Gadfly that the National Council on Teacher Quality had opened up the second year of their bi-annual research competition.
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PEPG conference on merit pay
In two weeks, Harvard's excellent Program on Education Policy and Governance is hosting a conference on performance pay for teachers.
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RTT math
In a previous post, I discussed the probability that Secretary Duncan will have reason to forgo spending down the remaining Race to the Top funding and send money back to the Treasury.
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Forbes on data and schools
Make sure to check out the excellent Forbes article on the nation's best charters, forward-thinking districts, and the use of data. Lots of name-checking of ed reforms biggest stars, like Achievement First, Wireless Generation, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, the Gates Foundation, New York City Public Schools, and more.
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Losing LeBron isn't Cleveland's biggest problem
Reading results from NAEP's Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) have been released, and the news for Cleveland fourth and eighth graders isn't much better than when
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Tom Loveless: Accountability systems appear to close achievement gaps
Below is a comment from Tom Loveless, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, about my post from yesterday showing big declines for top U.S. students on the PISA math test from 2003-2006.
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Schools with big achievement gaps: Civil rights failures?or successes?
Try this thought experience. Picture an urban school in California (let's call it ?Malcolm X?) with one of the largest achievement gaps in the state?a whopping 44 percentage point difference between whites and blacks.
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LAUSD: School reform mecca?
Interpreting NAEP results is always an exercise in creativity, but how on Earth can you explain Los Angeles? We just learned that it's one of just two districts in the NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment program that posted gains in reading in 4th and 8th grades from 2002 to 2009.
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Tom Loveless: Accountability systems appear to close achievement gaps
Below is a comment from Tom Loveless, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, about my post from yesterday showing big declines for top U.S.
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Needle in a Haystack: King Elementary
King Elementary in Akron has a long tradition of academic excellence, delivering impressive results and outscoring the district by margins of up to 28 percentage points on state tests.?It's no wonder that about 45% of students enroll here from across the district through open-enrollment. Check out our video to see some of the school's
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Cristo Rey: Working their way through school
The?Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger turns in?a nice column today (subscription required) on the Cristo Rey network of schools.
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How charters are serving kids with special needs
There's an interesting book forum coming up?on Monday, May 24, that you might want to put on your radar.
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quotable and notable
?What's good for kids is what is good for teachers.? ? Tom Dooher, Education Minnesota President
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Odds and ends
RI's Gist gets unions to sign on to Rd 2 RTT app. This is big. Important SIF/turnaround post from Ed Week's Klein.
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MN, RTT, and the nuclear option
Huge news out of MN. The state is not applying in RTT round two, and the governor is blaming the legislature, which he accuses of being controlled by unions.
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Can the school-choice genie go back in the bottle?
Is school choice a genie you can put back in the bottle??? The Dayton Public School District, in Fordham's hometown, wants to try.
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Ballyhoo at Bighorn
Steven Brill thinks that Race to the Top era will be the teachers’ unions’ undoing.
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Central Office Transformation for District-wide Teaching and Learning Improvement
Meredith Honig, Michael Copland, Lydia Rainey, Juli Anna Lorton, Morena NewtonCenter for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of WashingtonApril 2010
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The Nation's Report Card: Trial Urban District Assessment Reading 2009
National Center for Education StatisticsMay 2010
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Match Quality, Worker Productivity, and Worker Mobility: Direct Evidence from Teachers
C. Kirabo JacksonNational Bureau of Economic ResearchMay 2010
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Now that's expensive!
What’s the price of common sense school reform? If Central Falls is any guide, the answer is sit-ins, protests, and demonstrations, a strongly worded rebuke by the President of the United States (and his Education Secretary), and grandiose rhetorical battles played out on the opinions pages of every major newspaper.
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Scientific reasoning
In our rush to reinvigorate science and math in our nation’s schools, have we left the humanities in the dust? Peter Berkowitz thinks so. “No doubt science and math are vital,” he writes.
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Skip college, go votech?
Conventional wisdom says that a college degree equals a better job, higher lifetime earnings, and a happier life. But is college the only way to live the American Dream?
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Don't punish schools for teaching white students too well
No Child Left Behind can be summed up in four words: good ideas gone awry. Unfortunately, one key part of the Obama Administration’s “blueprint” for overhauling the landmark federal law might perpetuate that legacy for another ten years.
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Dan Meyer
I haven't seen a great educator video in a while, so I particularly enjoyed this new one from California teacher, blogger, and part-time Googler Dan Meyer. It was given at the TEDxNYED conference in March.
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