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How's your number sense?
Did you routinely win the estimate-the-weight-of-a-pumpkin contests at the state fair? Always know how to sneak on an already too crowded train? You may be stupendous at math!
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She's smarter than a fifth grader (thank goodness)
My doubts were unfounded. Kathy Cox, the state superintendent of Georgia, is officially smarter than a fifth grader and is $1 million richer to prove it. The money will go to three special needs schools in her home state.
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Do two left turns make a right?
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Hoo-ree for Rhee's 'Plan B'
I failed to fulfill my promise to write a post about Michelle Rhee's appearance before our reporter roundtable on Friday, and now the Washington Post's B
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Reader contest winner: Mia Munn
Thanks for all of you who wrote in with ideas for Mike Lach about how he can reinvigorate Chicago's social sciences curriculum.
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Back to school
It's "Education Week" over at National Review Online. Mike and Amber get in on the fun.
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To the moon!
Paul Tough's New York Times article, which Mike referenced, is really something. It's fascinating to watch stale education ideas rejuvenated, and to hear their proponents tout their supposed freshness.
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Welcome Fordham Fellows 2.0
We're thrilled to introduce the second cohort of Fordham Fellows and the reborn Fordham Fellows blog to the edusphere.
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Re: McCain on education
It's no surprise that McCain failed to utter the four dirty words ???No Child Left Behind???
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Where would the Obama or Palin girls go to school?
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Crew cut
Seems that Miami's superintendent, Rudy Crew, who starred on the cover of our Leadership Limbo report (though I've long suspected that Crew, second from left, is actually flouting limbo rules and bolstering himself with Arne Duncan-obscured hands),
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Poor Rheesoning
I'm told that Michelle Rhee, who moments ago wrapped up a "Reporter Roundtable" here at the Fordham offices (I knew I noticed a soft glow emanating from our conference room), defended her plan to pay students for right behavior by pulling out the KIPP Card.
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Re: Poor Rheesoning
Perhaps we can shed light on Rhee's obvious confusion of KIPP and American dollars with the following factoid, also revealed this morning at the Reporter Roundtable: Michelle Rhee pays her children to do their chores .
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Teachers union bashing, a bipartisan sport
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Gadfly is here
This week's Gadfly is ready to be read. In the top slot, I write about why paying students (bribing them, really--let's call it what it is) to study and attend class is a terrible idea. Some say, "Why not try it out?
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Actually, Palin did talk about education
She wasn't forthcoming on the policy side, but she did say something, at least. Talking about her newest child, Trig, who has Down Syndrome, she opined: And children with special needs inspire a special love.
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You are not alone
In his latest editorial, "What to do about mediocre teachers?," Mike Petrilli writes that he cannot think of any national foundations that are experimenting with using technology to turn average K-12 faculty into effective teachers.
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Zelman reviews a near-decade as top school super
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Tave Zelman announced this week that she will become the senior vice president for education and children's programming at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting beginning Nov. 3.
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No vote for you
It is indeed disappointing that Floridians will not have the opportunity to vote this November for educational choice in their state.
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Palinism
We've learned much, much over the past week about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (is she really the reason compasses point North?). But Gadfly was left wondering: What have been her stands on education? Thanks to the crack reporters at Education Week, he now knows.
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Poop plan eyed to pay for scholarships
AKRON, Ohio - Voters will decide Nov. 4 if leasing the city sewage system to a private contractor and using the money to finance college and technical-school scholarships for Akron public high-school grads is a good idea (see here).
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Internal combustion?
As far as Gadfly knows and as of this writing, not one major orator at the Republican convention has uttered the phrase "No Child Left Behind" or any anagram thereof (e.g., flinched in the bold).
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Categorically imperative?
Students in Philadelphia's public schools need not bother slogging through Kant. School system employees are less lucky. Arlene Ackerman, the city's new superintendent, has already made clear that she intends to break with her predecessor's approach to management.
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Fordham teams with Whitman to explore inner-city achievement
The most exciting innovation in education policy in the last decade is the emergence of highly effective schools in our nation's inner cities, schools where disadvantaged teens make enormous gains in academic achievement. In his new book, Sweating the Small Stuff (published by Fordham), freelance journalist David Whitman, a former senior writer for U.S.
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Johnny says: Show me the money!
Michelle Rhee, the still-newish, no-nonsense, hard-charging, and usually savvy schools chancellor of Washington, D.C., has succumbed to a dubious idea.
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Arrested development
Everyone knows that the internet is changing the way the world works, plays, and connects. Yet its most powerful applications only seem obvious after some entrepreneur (Amazon, Netflix) has brought them to life.