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Salt in Booker's wounds
A few weeks ago at the NewSchools Venture Fund summit, Newark Mayor Cory Booker's jealousy about Washington mayor Adrian Fenty'
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Progress toward what?
The last paragraph of Coby's latest post,??directly below,??contains this: "But once they're washed downriver by the unyielding tide of technological progress, they'll sound as quaint as Socrates' reminiscences about the days before writing." Progress has both a quantitative and qualitative definition, and one wonders if Coby doesn't concentrate overmuch on the former.
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Change we can disagree in
It's true--it's tough to predict the future. Of course, that doesn't mean we should be content to let the progression of technology sweep us up and take us where it may.
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Hyperbole at its finest
Education Week reports today that data collected from the states by the U.S. Department of Education show the percentage of core classes in the nation taught by highly-qualified teachers is around 94 percent for 2006-2007.
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Research question
Kevin Carey expounds upon the reasons that research doesn't always or even often make it to policymakers and into their policies. His suggested remedies are fine, especially the appeal for better writing.
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TMA in the WSJ
Washington, D.C.'s Thurgood Marshall Academy charter school is featured in today's Wall Street Journal.
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A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education: Our panaceas are better than your panaceas
Apparently tired of being called defeatist defenders of the status quo, the Economic Policy Institute (home of Lawrence Mishel and Richard Rothstein) just released a policy statement calling for a "broader, BOLDER approach" to education.
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The Great Society, Redux
Mike is too gentle with this broader, bolder initiative. First, a chicken and egg problem arises.
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More on McCain's NCLB problem
Here's another analysis explaining why it's "good politics" for the candidates to bash NCLB--something Senato
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Holding report cards hostage
I'm not one to beat up on teachers unions just for the sake of it, but this little news story out of Australia illustrates precisely how the interests of unions and students do not always intersect.
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Success for few in after-school
Oddly enough, on the same day that the Economic Policy Institute and friends release this manifesto recommending that we "pay more attention to the time students spend out of school" (see
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The price of culture
I'm all for building schools dedicated to the arts, especially for students hailing from low-income neighborhoods. I'm just not sure it's worth $230 million while kids in other districts learn in classroom trailers.
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Randi's partially right again
Several New York City high school principals are receiving performance bonuses under the terms of an old program even though their schools fared poorly under the district's new grading system.
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Unwelcome news
Sadly, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program seems to be on its last legs. Non-voting D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has lobbied hard to kill the program, said, "We have to protect the children, who are the truly innocent victims here."
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Priorities
As the D.C. voucher program comes under attack, where is Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose initial support for the program was instrumental in its birth?
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Face-off
Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews and Checker Finn debate: "Is AP Good for Everyone?"
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New Jersey's alternate route to teaching: Thoroughly unremarkable
The New York Times had a nice piece Saturday on the Garden State's alternative certification program, the first and largest
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New Jersey's alternate route to teaching: Thoroughly unremarkable
The New York Times had a nice piece Saturday on the Garden State's alternative certification program, the first and largest
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Eleanor Holmes Norton eager to sacrifice D.C.'s poor kids
It's unclear exactly what Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents Washington, D.C., in Congress, so dislikes about the Opportunity Scholarship Program that provides some 2,000 low-income students in the District an opportunity to receive their educations from private providers.
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It's not just OSP
Sounds like D.C.'s charter schools are taking fire, too. If you can't beat ???em, sabotage ???em.
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Lessons for the next education secretary
It must be kiss-and-tell season, what with Scott McClellan's recent riposte to the Bush White House , and now with former education department official's Susan Neuman's revisionist history as reported by Time :
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Would you like some hope with your hope?
Oh, brother. "Students [would] have a chance to recover," Martin said. "Getting a bad grade or having a bad day does not mean you are a failure. This is about hope."
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Unscientifically-based reading research for animal lovers
With all the talk about Reading First and scientifically-based reading research of late, this unusual reading strategy caught my eye. It claims reading to fido has its advantages:
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You down with OSP?
As you can see, we're not exactly doing cartwheels over here upon hearing what Eleanor Holmes Norton had to say about the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.
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George Bush food fight
Am I referring to a policy scuffle over No Child Left Behind? Alas, no, that would be so boring and predictable.