American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Report: Summary of Programs and State-by-State Data
U.S. Department of EducationNovember 2009
U.S. Department of EducationNovember 2009
Victor Bandeira de Mello, Charles Blankenship, and Don McLaughlinNational Center for Education StatisticsOctober 2009
Consortium on Chicago School ResearchUniversity of Chicago Urban Education InstituteOctober 2009
Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. HasselPublic ImpactOctober 2009550px;height:500px">
Arne Duncan may continue lambasting teacher preparation programs nation-wide, but Texas could soon give him something to smile about. The State Board for Teacher Certification recently gave initial approval to a proposal authored by veteran state Senator Florence Shapiro that would impose stricter standards on the state’s 177 traditional and alternative teacher prep programs.
In perhaps the worst decision since the resurrection of the legwarmer, the North Carolina General Assembly has effectively granted retroactive diplomas to scores of high school seniors who failed graduation tests.
“I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep…Those numbers completely changed my professional life,” says Sarah Fanning, referring to 1999 test scores that revealed a full third of freshmen at Buckhorn High School in New Market, Alabama, where Fanning oversees curriculum and instruction, read at or below the seventh-grade level. In response, Buckhorn became an earl
Call before you print--that’s the lesson for Linda Vista Elementary School in Yorba Linda, California. That school’s PTA recently made tee-shirts for a student jog-a-thon that featured the school mascot (a lion) and an inspiring seven-letter slogan transformed into a 1-800 number.
Education schools are under attack--yet again. But don’t yawn and assume that this, too, shall pass. For unlike innumerable previous assaults, which these institutions withstood with awesome obstinacy, this one may actually crack their fortified walls. That’s no sure thing, of course, given the history of failed attempts at reform in this area.
When the Gates Foundation announced in July that it would give up to $250,000 grants to fifteen states to help them with their Race to the Top applications, it was exercising the right of a private organization to be selective with its funds. But then the neglected 35 cried “unfair.” And the financial floodgates opened.
The Parent Revolution in Los Angeles continues to bring home the bacon, having managed to put organized parents squarely in the center of local education politics.
Last week’s editorial “Remembering Ted Sizer” misidentified the outreach program at Harvard Graduate School of Education as "Outward Bound," a well-known outdoors program.
You can now watch the live webcast of our event on national education standards . No registration required. The webstream will work on both PCs and Macs.
National Journal's "education experts" are having a discussion about my Ed Next article on turnarounds and the Obama administration's fidelity to this strategy.
Quotable: "I don't see any other state that has thrown the brunt of its budget shortfall onto the laps of our students." - Celia Molina, Hawaii parent
A week ago, I posted this in response to Secretary Duncan's speech about education schools at Teachers College. Over the course of several days, there were 11 comments posted that, when printed out, clocked in at 20 pages (single spaced, mind you).
Just in time for Halloween, schools around the country sent letters home to parents about what constitutes an "appropriate" costume. Out are masks, fake weapons, and gory make up. In are innocuous food items (carrots! pumpkins!) and cute furry animals.
Quotable: "I'm talking about the law. Why bother to have a legislative body if the people in the executive branch do whatever they choose because they don't like the decision of the legislative body?" -D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D)
A new study on school closures in Chicago reports an unsurprising but important finding: the quality of the school a student attends after he/she is displaced by a closure is extremely important.
The 2009 edition of my favorite annual report has just been released.
As Amy indicates, the latest findings from the just-released National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) report contain few surprises, especially since we're well
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is out with a new report today that looks at state achievement levels using the common yardstick of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). Not great news. According to the AP story:
Quotable: "There are places in America where if you really saw what was going on, as Americans, we would be totally embarrassed. It's Katrina happening without the floods....It's so ugly we have decided not to look at it." -Geoff Canada, president and CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone
Susan Moore Johnson and John P. PapayEconomic Policy Institute2009
Thomas Toch and Chad AldemanEducation SectorSeptember 2009
Jean Johnson, Andrew Yarrow, Jonathan Rochkind, and Amber OttPublic AgendaOctober 2009
Having touted teacher quality as an important spoke of his reform wheel, it was only a matter of time before Education Secretary Arne Duncan took on the largest purveyor of teacher training: education schools.
In this excellent biographical article in City Journal, Sol Stern takes a closer look at the life and works of E. D. Hirsch, Jr. Father of the Core Knowledge movement (and foundation by the same name), Hirsch started as a scholar of English.