Checker talks about testing on Fox & Friends
Checker was on Fox & Friends this morning, discussing state high school exit exams.
Checker was on Fox & Friends this morning, discussing state high school exit exams.
We haven't even gotten the results of RTT round one and Obama is already asking for another $1.35 billion to continue the competition a third year. Honestly, this is absurd. We've seen some good and some so-so legislation come out of the promise of RTT dollars.
Check out Quick and the Ed on Iowa's faux RTT reforms. Looks like the state is barely changing its weak charter law and selling it as more. As Chad Aldeman writes:
Per the Universal State Application Theorem (that stakeholder support varies inversely with proposal strength
I took a hiatus from doing these "read your Gadfly" posts...but this edition is just so juicy, so??tantalizing, that I would simply be a terrible person to deny you the pleasure of reading it. We termed it the "Breaking News Issue," because the edition was just so timely you might wonder how we even got it out with all that recent material.
If you missed our excellent joint-conference with AEI on Monday, no need to beat yourself up! You can watch it (over the long weekend) on C-Span, here.
Quotable: ???Every other profession in Alabama and America has a strong code of ethics. It is beyond me as to why the Senate majority thinks educators should not have one.??? ???Joe Morton, Alabama State School Superintendent
Another great event is coming up on January 27th, over at the American Enterprise Institute. The title says it all -- Education Reform: Reviewing the Obama Administration's First Year.
This post is from guest blogger??Marci Kanstoroom, Fordham's Senior Editor and Education Next's Executive Editor.
Quotable: "[Gov. Rick Perry's] argument against applying [for RTT] boils down to the fact that he doesn't like the teacher that will grade his test. This is an application that even awards points for his own pet policies - teacher incentive pay and charter school expansion."
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, my old stomping grounds, has released an important document on charter school laws. A while back, the organization created a "model law," ideal legislation that would support charter growth, quality, and accountability.
Per this??post and graph below, Kentucky just confirmed the equation.
Texas has become the first state to rebuff the Obama administration's Race to the Top. Governor Rick Perry made the call, deciding that the size of the investment wasn't worth the strings. Texas, he believes, can do education reform on its own.
Quotable: "I think it would be a tragedy to talk about Martin Luther King Jr., while not being able to talk about the fact that he had a strong Christian faith. I'm hoping that's not the direction we're headed." - Jonathan Saenz, Lobbyist, Free Market Foundation
The Dayton Public Schools, in Fordham’s hometown, rang out 2009 with an announcement that it faces a $5 million budget shortfall caused by rising home foreclosures and delinquent property taxes.
Enrollment in Buckeye State charter schools was up eight percent last year, to 89,000 students statewide, according to the Ohio Department of Education’s annual report to the governor about the state’s community schools.
Alliance For Excellent EducationBob RothmanDecember 2009
Last week Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eugene Sanders released his long-awaited district transformation plan. It is an ambitious proposal that seeks a substantial reorganization of CMSD and looks to spur innovation for the long-suffering urban district.
Welcome to Ohio Education Gadfly’s newest section, “Editor’s Extras,” where you can catch up on important education news that you might have missed over the past two weeks. Editor’s Extras
Center for Research on Education OutcomesJanuary 2010 This brief report supplements CREDO’s June 2009 national study on charter performance in 15 states and the District of Columbia. The January 2010 report focuses on the school years 2003-04 through 2008-09, and looks at roughly 20,000 students in grades 3-8 across 49 New York City charter schools.
This post by my Ohio colleagues is very important. It forecasts a major challenge for Race to the Top (RTT) scoring.
Quotable: "To maintain the union and the trade, we need young men and women. So we thought maybe we should start our own charter school." - Armand E. Sabitoni, General Secretary-Treasurer of the Laborers' International Union of North America
Former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings gave a speech at the Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club last week and -- no surprise here -- she is still defending No Child Left Behind. According to this Naples Daily News story, she told a luncheon crowd of 300 people that:
If you haven't seen it already, this article in this month's??Atlantic is well worth a read, and will certainly get a lot of attention from people on all sides of the education debate.
The Fordham/AEI "Penny Saved" conference has been great so far! (A Penny Saved: How Schools and Districts Can Tighten Their Belts While Serving Students Better).
Quotable: "Everybody's trying to teach preschoolers how to read and nobody is trying to teach them how to do math." - Cyma Zarghami, President of Nichelodeon
The complexities and challenges of ensuring the Race to the Top's success are expanding rapidly, and I'm hoping the Department is prepared for what lies ahead. I'm concerned that, because so many of us have been focussed on the policy changes states have been adopting, two entirely more pressing issues have been given insufficient attention.