Another prediction
The Atlantic's Derek Thompson spoke with Jonah Edelman, co-founder and CEO of Stand for Children, about the prospects for a 2011 No Child Left Behind rewrite. Is Edelman optimistic that 2011 is the year? ?I am,?
The Atlantic's Derek Thompson spoke with Jonah Edelman, co-founder and CEO of Stand for Children, about the prospects for a 2011 No Child Left Behind rewrite. Is Edelman optimistic that 2011 is the year? ?I am,?
RiShawn Biddle appreciates measured analysis but thinks?the K-12 realm?could also stand some ?bomb-throwing, bombast, even plain and blunt talk.? I agree, which is why every week I try to toss at least few grenades into the ed-policy echo chamber. But I am a writer, not a public official.
School Controversies abound. From challenging school plays to removing ?college' from school discourse, no one seems to agree.
During Ohio's gubernatorial race former Governor Ted Strickland's campaign placed Race to the Top funding in the spotlight.? Strickland asserted that Ohio's $400 million in RttT winnings could fall into jeopardy if John Kasich scrapped the ?evidence-based? model of school funding.
?They need the arts.?When I hear music called an ?extracurricular activity,' it makes me cringe because it's part of becoming a well-rounded human being.''* ?Condoleezza Rice, Former U.S. Secretary of State
Our next event will quite appropriately take place on Groundhog Day and it's getting some buzz out there in the blogosphere this week.
This article, written by an insane Chinese woman who is merely ginning up publicity for her just-published book, has sparked much debate. I have no idea why.
The one question on everyone's mind: Will 2011 be the year that Congress revises No Child Left Behind? Arne Duncan says yes. ?The president is ready to move on this,? he told the Washington Post.
Did you notice Flypaper's ?quotable? bit from yesterday? It comes from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: ?Teaching can no longer be the only profession where you have no rewards for excellence and no consequences for failure to perform.? I get it. Christie is a politician, and making broad, charged statements is what politicians do (when they aren't making narrow, vapid ones).
?The best way to assess what students encounter is regular surveys of teachers and students. But like all true school improvements, that requires school leaders strong enough to listen and react intelligently to bad news. Such people are in short supply.''
Twenty-six Catholic schools?all but one of which are elementary-level?in New York City are slated for closure. That may not seem like a big number, but the closures will affect some 4,700 students in the Big Apple, and represents the largest school consolidation in the history of the state's archdiocese.
Kevin Carey of Education Sector has a great post out today looking at the use of teacher quality data in personnel decisions. He's writing about higher education, but the point applies to K-12 as well:
The Los Angeles Times wants a change to California's Constitution, which, through its division of educational powers?an elected superintendent of public instruction, and an appointed secretary of education and Board of Education?has contributed to the bureaucratic clog
We have no answers as to whether textbook errors ought to be considered teachable moments or if
?Teaching can no longer be the only profession where you have no rewards for excellence and no consequences for failure to perform'' * ?Chris Christie, New Jersey Governor
You?may have already seen this, but there was a bit of a development earlier this week in the ongoing fight over New York City releasing the names and rankings of thousands of teachers. On Monday, a Manhattan judge ruled that the city can indeed publicly release the names/rankings of the teachers.
Liam calls the ???chance for success??? index in Education Week's ???Quality Counts??? rating of state school systems misleading.
On Friday, Rutgers education professor Bruce Baker issued a 4,600 word rebuttal to a 4,000 word policy brief released by Marguerite Roza and me the da
??for education reform, 2011 could be the best of times.'' * ?Michelle Rhee, Former Washington, D.C.? School Chancellor
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said yesterday that he would like to see Kaya Henderson, Washington, D.C.'s interim schools chancellor, stay in her position ?for the long haul.?
Education Week's ?Quality Counts? 2011 is out and contains, as did its earlier iterations, the misleading Chance for Success Index, albeit with some mitigating modifications.
The College Board is redesigning A.P. Next month, reports the New York Times, the nonprofit ?will release a wholesale revamping of A.P. biology as well as United States history?
Michelle Rhee's new education advocacy group, Students First, just released its policy agenda and is garnering the former chancellor of DC Public Schools (and Ohio native!) more
Education Week just issued their Quality Counts 2011 report. Expect a proper analysis of the report and what it means for Ohio and K-12 education in tomorrow's Ohio Education Gadfly. But one thing jumped out at me in the fine print. In a section of the report headed ???An Engine of Job Recovery???
Note: This piece originally appeared in the January 6th Education Gadfly. Love what you see? Sign up to receive the Gadfly in your inbox.
?To cover the underfunded pension obligations to teachers and other public employees, cities and states have little choice but to divert money from what would otherwise be their operating budgets?education will get significantly shortchanged as we make up for past underfunding.?*
I wanted to flag an?Associated Press?piece?about Michelle Rhee and her new group, Students First.
The Washington Post's prescient economics columnist Robert Samuelson wonders if perhaps the American-schools-are-losing-ground-to-China-et-al panic isn't overblown, its premises mostly wrong. For one, ?economic competitiveness depends on more than good schools,?