Perturbing progress

It feels as though every few weeks another disturbing development limps out of the sink of inefficiency and poor decisions that is the Wake County (NC) Public Schools. The topic of today's episode?

Election reflection

How should serious education reformers view the results of Tuesday's election? We find five causes for optimism and an equal number of worries.Reasons for Cheer

Impacts of Comprehensive Teacher Induction: Results from the First Year of a Randomized Controlled Study

Steven Glazerman, Sarah Dolfin, Martha Bleeker, Amy Johnson, Eric Isenberg, Julieta Lugo-Gil, Mary Grider, and Edward BrittonMathematica Policy ResearchOctober 2008

A Commitment to Quality: National Charter School Policy Forum Report

U.S. Department of EducationOffice of Innovation and ImprovementOctober 2008

Achieving Teacher and Principal Excellence: A Guidebook for Donors

Andrew J. RotherhamPhilanthropy RoundtableSeptember 2008

What the election results portend for education reform: Cheers and Frets

By Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Michael J. Petrilli Reasons for Cheer

Change

Reader contest: Name the next secretary of education!

After two years of campaigning and endless punditry and prognosticating, we finally know that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States.

School boards must be better stewards of hard-earned urban tax dollars

Passage of all the school levies on the ballot in Dayton, Columbus, Toledo, and Youngstown is a good sign of increasing support for education where it's needed most. The Gadfly knows that school districts don't always spend wisely or frugally but we also know that, in Ohio's largest and most economically depressed urban areas, public schools are getting hammered financially.

You 'bet'ter vote!

As the country decides who'll be the next president, Marylanders may take a gamble for even more ???change??? ??? quite literally. They're deciding whether to legalize slot machines!

The teachers unions' great get-out-the-vote strategy

Two years ago I complained about the ???apple

Another way to know that Democrats are ascendant

...is that Andy Rotherham is giving advice to Republicans.

Of tertiary education graduation rates

The recent NCLB regulations focus on high school graduation rates. Mark Schneider (as in former Bushie and now at AIR Mark Schneider), however, wants to know??the stats on college graduation rates.

Religious entanglement and charter schools

It's no secret that some of us (though

Apparently Margaret Spellings didn't get this memo*

???A Last Push to Deregulate: White House to Ease Many Rules???

Apparently Margaret Spellings didn't get this memo*

???A Last Push to Deregulate: White House to Ease Many Rules???

Get ready for the third Bush term

So says Jay Mathews in his

A sign of what's to come?

Boston charter school growth prompts desire to change funding formula

Fall Intern Molly Kennedy offers up this reading:

Apparently Margaret Spellings didn't get this memo*

???A Last Push to Deregulate: White House to Ease Many Rules???

Apparently Margaret Spellings didn't get this memo*

???A Last Push to Deregulate: White House to Ease Many Rules???

Halloween princesses at Fordham but alas, no Gadfly

(Left to right): Fordham staffers in costume: Alice takes a peek through the Looking Glass, Sleeping Beauty catches some Zs, Snow White hums to the birds, Concert Goer #1 chills and a Wake Forest track star stretches.

Gadfly: hot off the press

This week, we start off with a double header on the education system's economic woes--and what to do about them. First Checker explains why districts have so much trouble cutting the fat. Enlightening, surely, but not too surprising.

H is for hummus...S is for salmon

You gotta love California. Seems the Golden State, worried that their wee toddlers' arms are too short for proper tree-huggery, will inculcate them with the prerequisite environmentalism another way: through their stomachs.

The little federal office that could

Ted Mitchell and Jonathan Schorr of the NewSc

Gifted program enrollment down in NY

Fall Intern Molly Kennedy offers up this reading:

In the name of love

It's hard to miss the media firestorm over Chicago's latest educational innovation, the School for Social Justice Pride Campus. The school would cater to gay students who are teased and bullied at their current schools.

Why school systems cannot lose weight

There's plenty of evidence that state and municipal budgets are strapped these days, due to shrinking tax revenues from a faltering economy, declining property values, etc. It's also clear that a number of school systems are feeling the pinch.

Windbag city

Chi-town, home of deep dish pizza, The Band, and an education reform powerhouse? That's John Simmon's take.

Red tape reprise

Remember those halcyon days of the late 1990s?