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Teach us
Ed school professor Brad Olsen writes in the San Francisco Chronicle that "we don't much hear from, or about, teachers' experiences in--and perspectives on--what's happening in schools these days." Really???Just yesterday we published in The Gadfly
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If the think-tank thing doesn't work out...
Eduwonkette flatters us. Unfortunately, Mike can't carry a tune, and he's just too damn honest to lip-sync.
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My teacher is stupider than yours
Coby's latest spark--that students (or their parents) who rated their teachers online could provide useful feedback--is intriguing. He's right that such k-12 rating websites exist (see here) but haven't reached a critical mass of users.
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Hyper-unionized higher ed?
Several people questioned my argument the other day that bad ideas tend to flow from higher education to our K-12 education system (e.g., here and here).
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Math education
Science writer Jonah Lehrer on algebra: "Abstract concepts, untethered to experience, are never internalized by our neurons." Or are they?
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K-12 2.0
The website RateMyProfessors.com has been the subject of much criticism as it has grown in popularity.
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Anybody for Catholic charter schools?
Left unspoken* at yesterday's White House summit on faith-based schools was whether the idea of religious charter schools has any merit. Of course, this is no surprise.
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Goodwill
George Will has a nice column today on A Nation At Risk. He mentions Checker's book, too. Update: Mike says the column doesn't just mention Checker's book; it "summarizes it!" Let's compromise on "highlights."
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The real problem with Bill Ayers
According to Sol Stern, it's not his (literal) bomb-throwing past but his (figurative) bomb-throwing present:
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Pessimism or realism?
You can find a different take on George Will's column over at The Quick and the Ed. The author, Kevin Carey, is a very detail-oriented guy, but one wonders if today he hasn't missed the forest for the trees.
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Fordham Fellows: The deadline looms
Now is as good a time as any to mention that the deadline for Fordham Fellows applications--the day by which all those who wish for Fellowship must submit the apposite materials--is nearing: April 30th it is.
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Think virtual
The Economist has an article about the challenges confronting South Dakota's rural schools and school districts.
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Hairy
Are you a teacher looking for field trip ideas, now that testing season is over? Do you live in the greater Washington, D.C., area? Would you like to totally gross out your students? This oughta do the trick.*
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P.U. to B.U.
Not so many moons ago, Boston University's college of education was the brightest spot in the dim universe of U.S. ed schools, full of heterodox thinkers on important issues (e.g., Charles Glenn, David Steiner, Kevin Ryan, Steve Tigner).
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Thoughts on today's White House summit on faith-based schools
The White House Summit on Inner-City Children and Faith-Based Schools, underway at this moment, has about 300 attendees, all of whom already agree with each other about nearly all the issues on the table. No bad thing to rally the troops or (changing metaphors) preach to the choir.
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This Week's Fordham Factor: More tweaks to NCLB
Mike and Christina discuss Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings's latest round of changes to No Child Left Behind. httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=dwkaKllgyBY
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Charter school of hard knocks
Whitney Tilson, who blogs on education here , reflects level-headedly in today's New York Daily News on the struggles facing the UFT's c
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Pizza
This Wired Magazine article sheds some light, however obliquely, on why it's so difficult to replicate successful school models in different places.
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Battle of Britain
In the United Kingdom today, over 8,000 schools were shut down by a strike of the National Union of Teachers, angry because its members' pay, which has risen 19 percent in real terms since 1997, is scheduled for only a 2.45 percent bump next year. Thus, no school for little Nigel.
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Practices from the Portfolio, Volume I
NewSchools Venture Fund & FSG Social Impact AdvisorsMarch 2008
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Tendentious on tenure
Perched atop a soap box in the New York Daily News, United Federation of Teachers boss (and upcoming AFT chieftain) Randi Weingarten steps up her ongoing assault on logic and reason. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein wants to consider student test scores when awarding tenure to teachers. Almost everybody in the real world (i.e., outside the field of education) concurs.
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Outback setbacks
Seems Australia's new government has pulled a bait and switch, promising citizens Down Under significant education reform and then forgetting about most of it.
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Revisions required
You have to hand it to U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and her team: they are hardly dawdling during their Administration's closing months.
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All you need is love
Finally, we know what separates great teachers from their more-middling peers: "unconditional love." So writes educator Mark Ryan in an op-ed for The Arizona Republic, a respected newspaper that doesn't usually print pieces about love, joy, sunshine, and kittens. But this is a time of hope, we're told, and Ryan's article fits the bill.
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ANAR and the denial industry
Denial of hard facts and unwelcome implications runs the gamut. At its outer edge, we find a few sorely misguided folks denying that the Holocaust occurred, doubting the wickedness of Stalin, contending the greatness of Lincoln. Once upon a time, the Catholic Church denied Galileo's discovery that the planets revolve around the sun.
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Value-added isn't a panacea
Regarding the April 17th story, "Failing schools usually are," the research is consistent and clear: there is a low statistical correlation between the performance of schools measured by point-in-time, year-end test scores (as used in NCLB to measure "Adequate Yearly Progress") and those measured by ho