This Week's Fordham Factor: Reading First

Amber and Christina discuss the good and bad of the Reading First interim evaluation report: httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=KCgR_VC2KTk

Required Reid-ing on Reading First

Reid Lyon, former Reading Czar and one of the creators of Reading First, posted a comment about Shep Barbash's Education Next article

Keegan jumps in full-time

Lisa Graham Keegan, school reform trailblazer and former state superintendent of Arizona, has quit her day job to spend most of her time working on behalf of Senator John McCain's campaign, reports the Arizona Republic:

Mississippi miscue

Mississippi has passed legislation, and the governor has signed it, that would fire superintendents whose districts are labeled "under

Straight from the union's mouth

Here's another interesting video from The New Yorker Conference (those New Yorker people are always so darn interesting!). In this one, the magazine's financial columnist, James Surowiecki, chats with Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern about the future of unions.

Re: High stakes

Mushy Mike knows it's not news that college graduates live longer than high-school graduates. The article??to which he refers??is a comment on the lousy healthcare that many poor Americans receive, and it really doesn't have??much to do with getting a college education.

For the RF evaluation, some bruising from the Buckeye State

Ohio AG Marc Dann isn't the only one coming in for a beating.

Re: Can Google fix our schools?

At the very least, probably it could fix our schools' cafeterias.

Eduwonkette plagiarizes Obama's logic

Back when the controversy over unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers exploded (no pun intended) in the middle of the 2008 Democratic primary, Senator Barack Obama used an unfortunate analogy to defend his association with the bomb-thrower:

Renaissance 5280

Can Google fix our schools?

Google announced yesterday that it will launch Friend

Two enterprising gentlemen

Welcome, Amber Winkler, Ph.D.

Fordham is thrilled to welcome Amber Winkler to our ranks.

The dental hygiene gap

Today at a big wing-ding on federal education research sponsored by Education Sector and several other groups , former Deputy Secretary of Education Marshall (Mike) Smith agreed that it was probably a mistake to have carved the Education Department (ED) out of the old Department of Health, Education, and Welfare

Reading First, miracle worker

While Americans feel no particular love for the U.S. Department of Education (see this graphic from Sunday's New York Times Magazine), I have found that, in education circles at least, particular scorn is heaped??upon state departments of education and their civil service employees.

From the op-ed pages

The Wall Street Journal reviews Mark Bauerlein's new book, The Dumbest Generation, and Marion Barry defends vouchers for D.C.

The dog that doesn't bark--or bite

"No Child Left Behind Lacks Bite." This is not exactly news to Flypaper readers, but it's great that the Wall Street Journal is spreading the word:

Willful blindness at Quick and the Ed

Flypaper does not relish the role of policing The Quick and the Ed, but that blog's latest item simply demands rebutting.

Crack in the voucher movement

Parental choice advocates might think that Sol Stern's critique of school vouchers has harmed the cause, but surely

Teaching: Just as screwed up as sports

Malcolm Gladwell, kicking-off last week's New Yorker Conference, spoke about the mismatch problem--i.e., the hiring of people based on qualities or characteristics that have little or nothing to do with what delivers success in the position being filled.

Roy Romer endorses Obama

The Ed in '08 chairman told ABC News:

Quizzing for reading data

I started my career teaching British, American, and world literature to high school kids.

A thought-provoking analogy

Megan McArdle reflects thoughtfully on teachers unions today at Atlantic.com. I found this bit especially interesting:

You don't say

"Revenge killing negatively impacts education system"

Hot off the press

The newest issue of Education Next is now on newsstands--or on the internet, at least. Check out Mike's piece, which is a unique look at how the editorial boards of major newspapers present charter schools and No Child Left Behind.

Social promotion exposed

Standards and accountability hawks (Fordham??swirls among them) have never adequately explained how top-down accountability systems avoid situations such as this. After an exhaustive investigation of Tucson's schools, the Arizona Daily Star reports:

Memo to the AERA: Breaking up with Bill Ayers isn't hard to do

Anyone who's been following politics lately knows that Senator Barack Obama's relationship with unrepentant bomber and former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers has become a matter of debate in the 2008 campaign.

In defense of education

You might not agree with this column's political bent, but Stanley Crouch is right to blast away at anti-intellectualism in American life:

Florida Dems warming to vouchers

So reports Ron Matus in the St. Petersburg Times.

Soft bigotry further hardens

We know that the best schools "sweat the small stuff"; they do not overlook untucked shirts, they do not permit poor posture, they do not deign to??hold different students??to different standards of discipline.