The conversion of seven Catholic schools in Washington, D.C., to charter schools is off to a rough start, as the Washington Post reports today that the city's budget failed to provide funding for these schools, and they won't get their first payments in July.
Gadfly wasn't pleased with the Philadelphia Inquirer last week, as the paper saw only bad news in the Philadelphia School District's decision to take back six of the 38 schools that have been managed by private op
If you're the type of Flypaper reader who only has time for the latest postings, not those published a whole two hours ago and invisible without scrolling, I commend to you Liam's update to this post; after reading it, I think you'll agree, you'll be better informed about blogging etiquette a
The forthcoming debate between Sol Stern and Chris Cerf, over at Eduwonk, should be must-see blogging.
If you're looking for a solid primer on schools in the U.K., you could do worse than this article from the London Review of Books, which breaks down nicely that country's educational evolution. Britain is a famously class-oriented society, and until 1944, its educational system was class-based, too.
At first glance, this New York Times article on Brooklyn's Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice looks to be another feel-good story about the small schools initiative.
Checker takes to the Wall Street Journal's op-ed pages to communicate to Ohioans this message: Wake up.
Video footage from the panel discussion of Fordham's recent report, High-Achieving Students in the Era of No Child Left Behind, is now online for your viewing pleasure:
Does anyone out there believe that the dramatic test-score increases coming out of the Empire State are legitimate? Sol Stern, for one, highly-knowledgeable on all educational goings on in New York, is with the naysayers.
The newest issue of The Economist has a piece on international comparisons that offers a couple interesting lessons. The first is to be wary of them.
As a fellow insect-themed edu-blog, we feel a certain kinship with our friends at BoardBuzz, produced by the National School Boards Association.
Performance-based pay (PBP) programs for teachers have been??growing, especially since the advent of the federal Teacher Incentive Fund program a couple years ago. ProComp out of Denver is probably the best known PBP and rather unique since it's being funded by a $25-million mill levy approved by taxpayers.
A new AP poll out today spends some time asking respondents about the state of public schools.
Don't miss this important new study by the National Council on Teacher Quality regarding the preparation of competent elementary-school math teachers. Titled No Common Denominator, it finds, after reviewing a national sample of ed-school-based undergraduate teacher prep programs, that fewer than 15 percent of them require enough of the right kinds of courses. It names names, too!
I'd wager that stupid immigration policies, which George Will assails in today's Washington Post, pose a much greater threat to long-term American competitiveness than sub-par
The X Prize Foundation is teaming up with British telecoms giant BT to expand its offerings. The Financial Times says
The newest Gadfly is up. Amber's editorial is a fair-minded evaluation of the relevant research that seeks to clarify whether school-based childcare centers are a smart idea. She finds in favor of common sense.
...that William F. Buckley, Jr., spoke no English until he was seven years old? Spanish was his first language, French his second. We read volumes about the need to offer pre-K in large part to ensure that a pupil begins Kindergarten??in possession of words the number of which does not substantially trail that of those at the beck and call of most of his classmates.
From: U.S. Department of Education [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:06 PM To: U.S. Department of Education Subject: FYI - Reading First Letter from Secretary Spellings
We were pretty busy yesterday with our event, so I didn't get the chance to comment on a surprising advertising supplement in Wednesday's Washi
Center for American ProgressJune 2008
Directed by Alan Raymond and Susan RaymondHome Box OfficeJune 2008
Perhaps a few Texans have been reading our report on the flaccidity of most alternative-certification programs for teachers.
This is school-reform week in the Bay State, where Governor Deval Patrick is finally announcing a series of policy proposals that would amount to the biggest changes in state education law in fifteen years. What's not clear is whether these will be, ahem, changes we can believe in, or whether the legislature will even find the money to fund any of them.
New Orleans, June 25, 2008: In all the obvious ways, this week's National Charter Schools Conference resembled other major conclaves in big-city convention centers: thousands of people being beckoned by hundreds of "exhibitors" with their stands, stalls, slick pitches, and free samples, as well as by dozens and dozens of "break out" sessions on every imaginable topic.
Kristen Graham of the Philadelphia Inquirer begins her reportage about the city's experiences with private operators of public schools with this sentence: "In a blow to the Philadelphia School District's historic privatization experiment, the School Reform Commission voted yesterday to seize six schools from outside managers and warned them that they are in danger of losing 20 others i
