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Big news
Teachers in Nashua, New Hampshire, have threatened to strike unless they reach a contract settlement by March 31.
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Strong American Schools for Obama?
Ed in '08 mastermind Roy Romer--whose lively career has also included stints as the L.A. superintendent, Colorado governor, and Democratic National Committee chairman--let it slip today that he thinks the Democratic candidate who amasses the most pledged delegates should get the nomination.
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Curriculum & Instruction
Too much
For the same reason I'm opposed to sex-ed class in schools, I'm opposed to clubs like this. A parent sends his students to a public school to receive a rigorous education in the core curriculum.
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Sayonara Spellings?
Rumors are circulating that the Secretary is about to announce her resignation from the Department of Education.
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Curriculum & Instruction
1.e4 e5 2.f4
The New York Times reports today that Idaho will set aside somewhere from $200,000 to $600,000 to fund a pilot program that will make chess education available to all second- and third-graders. The state will use a curriculum called First Move, which was developed by the Seattle-based nonprofit Foundation for Chess.
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NCLB giveth, Spellings taketh away
The Washington Post reported Monday that No Child Left Behind has pressured schools to raise the achievement of students with disabilities.
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Crash course
Buckle up and hold on. Not only has Baltimore's schools chief Andres Alonso pushed through plans that would slash the number of his district's central-office jobs, but he also won approval last week to create five new combined middle/high schools (which will be run by outside operators) and require the staff at three other Baltimore schools to reapply for their jobs.
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Making Professional Conduct in Education More Intelligent: Using Knowledge and Skills to Enhance Moral Sensibilities (Dispositions)
Jack Benniga, Mary Diez, Erskine Dottin, Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Peter Murrell, Hugh SockettTeacher Education as a Moral CommunityFebruary 2008
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Students First: Renewing Hope for California's Future
Governor's Committee on Education ExcellenceNovember 2007
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A catalyst for high-school reform
Despite enormous efforts to improve high schools, progress has been slow and uneven. But one important educational innovation, virtual schooling, can greatly accelerate the pace of reform.
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Traditional math > arithmetic
Just like many education philanthropists, education reporters tend to tread carefully around issues of curriculum and pedagogy. It's not hard to understand why; anyone who spends their working lives outside of the classroom is naturally leery about appearing to tell teachers how to do their jobs (myself included).
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On imitation and flattery
President Bush's "Pell Grants for Kids" proposal was dead on arrival but may nonetheless have a positive impact.
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Reading First: Replace the rug
Thank you ever so much for Sol Stern's fabulous analysis of Reading First and rebuttal to Bob Slavin. And thank you for turning the spotlight on Slavin's posturing and self-interest and on the U.S.
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Smart accountability, perhaps
Florida state Senator Don Gaetz is pushing a bill that would grade high schools by measures other than just the state test, the FCAT.
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Wrong about SES
In a "Friday Guest Column" at Edbizbuzz, the AFT's Nancy Van Meter goes on the attack against supplemental services providers.
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Peddling hate in Iran's classrooms
Iran's students are being taught the virtues of Islamic world supremacy and jihadism. This is the conclusion of a major new study on Iranian textbooks by Freedom House (read the full story here).
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Cahoots?
New Yorkers got a dose of d??j?? vu yesterday when New York's new governor, David A. Paterson, and his wife Michelle held a press conference to discuss their marital infidelities.
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Playing hooky
Ed Week reports on an interesting new study showing the impact of teacher absences on students: "taking into account the effects on student achievement that might be produced by various characteristics of the teachers,
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A bird in the hand
Liam, you're right to question whether Catholic schools are necessarily better than public schools or public charter schools. Of course not; there are great Catholic schools, and lousy ones, and everything in between, just as is the case for the other sectors.
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Accountability that even a teacher could love
The Mississippi Board of Education wants superintendents to be held accountable for student learning, the Clarion-Ledger reports.
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Beyond race?
Barack Obama said today that our currently segregated schools create and prolong achievement gaps. He compared them to segregated schools 50 years ago. These ideas are patently false--segregated schools circa 1960 are not, for a pile of reasons, analogous to the naturally, racially separated schools that exist today.
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Of babies and bathwater
Mike, I agree that holding superintendents accountable for the performance of their schools is entirely appropriate, but as with any new law, the devil will prove to be in the details.
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Tenure, the movie
According to Inside Higher Ed, Luke Wilson will star in an upcoming film that producer Brendan McDonald says will "lampoon the tenure process" in colleges and universities. Tenure 2: Back to K-12 would make a great sequel.
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This Week's Fordham Factor: Spellings's latest NCLB overhaul
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has announced a pilot plan to let some states "differentiate" between really bad schools and mediocre ones--i.e., those that fail just one or two of their subgroups instead of all of them.
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House of McCain
Peggy Noonan turns in another characteristically perceptive "Declaration" for Saturday's Wall Street Journal--though one with uncharacteristically hokey imagery about a new house (Obama) and an old house (McCain).
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Catholic education's savior?
I'm still not wholly convinced that the decline of k-12 Catholic schools in this country merits the sort of "save them!" mobilization that many are calling for (see Mike's post, below). If urban Catholic schools can't compete with charter schools, why do they deserve special help?