Topics

Another smart call to cull the charter school herd

Over at????U.S. News & World Report, Andy Rotherham and Richard Whitmire make the case for closing underperforming charter schools and rewarding successful ones.????

Here's a story...

We hear that USA Today's Greg Toppo met a lovely lady today--"Brady Bunch" Mom Florence Henderson. Apparently she joined other celebs and music groups outside the Department of Education to push for more music education in schools.

Forty-five thousand students. Four lessons. Two Years. One Woman.

"Michelle, why would you agree to be photographed with a broom on the cover of Time magazine?" That was D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray's top query when he sat down with the no-nonsense schools chancellor a few months ago.

Setting the record straight

To the Editor:The Gadfly review of NYC Schools Under Bloomberg & Klein: What Parents, Teachers and Policymakers Need to Know was perfunctory and unfair. As one of the editors and a contributor to the volume, I would like to set the record straight.

Say Shalom to another quasi-religious charter school

Can you really take religion out of a religious school? That was the question on many minds when seven D.C. Catholic schools went charter last fall (and when NYC Catholic schools pondered a similar strategy this spring).

Understanding and Reporting on Academic Rigor: A Hechinger Institute Primer for Journalists

Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, Columbia UniversityJune 2009

Charlotte's lemons get squeezed

The Charlotte-Mecklenberg school district blazes another trail: making teacher lay-off decisions based on performance evaluations, not seniority. If that raised your eyebrows, prepare to have them meet your hairline.

Summer bummer

If there's a riot in the Chino, California schools next month, blame it on...an accounting error? The state requires that pupils spend at least 54,000 minutes in instructional time each year and no fewer than 180 minutes on any one day.

Global grades for U.S. states

How much more "international benchmarking" does American education actually need? Gary W. Phillips's inspired new study of how U.S. states and (some) districts are doing vis-à-vis the rest of the world suggests that we already have a heckuva lot of performance information available right under our noses.

On scaling-up and turning-around

Progress in Charm City

Big things are underway in Baltimore's schools, despite a hiccup during in the last week. Here's my take in a Baltimore Sun op-ed.

If I were in charge of the Reform-o-Meter

Jazz clinic for students + White House = Red Hot

Backsliding on turnarounds

Duncan writes about turnarounds????in Ed Week commentary.

Mike Petrilli on CNN

There's much talk of common education standards these days; recently the Obama administration pledged to put some money towards the??tests that will assess those standards. In this CNN segment from June 15, Mike sheds some light on the topic and what we might expect??as the common standards effort moves along.

Elegy on a lost cause

Ever since The Education Gadfly critically reviewed NYC Schools Under Bloomberg and Klein: What Parents, Teachers, and Policymakers Need to Know, we've been bombarded with messages from aggrieved contributors and editors of that 172-page volume (which you can find??

Sweating the Small Stuff is now an award-winning book!

Arne ups the ante on national standards

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced last night that he's making a big bet on the NGA and CCSSO Common State Standards initiative, putting up $350 million to fund the te

More ED personnel (and commentary)

ED lands another honest-to-goodness reformer. Michael Robbins, formerly of SEED and continuously a good egg, is joining the Department to work with Peter Groff in the????Faith-Based and Community Initiatives office.

Stemming the brain drain

Type "Ohio" and "brain drain" together into Google and you get 86,600 hits. In 2007, Ohio saw 6,981 more resi????dents between the ages of 25 and 34 leave the state than mi????grate into it.

Keeping Mass. standards high

We've long lauded Massachusetts' standards as setting an example for other states.

More ED staffing

David Whitman, all-around smart and nice guy and author of Sweating the Small Stuff, a stellar tale

Today's 'Quotable and Notable'

Quotable

Gadfly, so groovy

Should parents decide curriculum?

A few weeks ago on Rate That Reform, I reported the story of a little girl in California who was not allowed to give a history presentation on Harvey Milk because his sexual orientation made the material too sensitive. And they used a loophole in the sex ed regulations (i.e.

Data-driven schools

A piece in today's Wall Street Journal describes how some schools systems are using high-tech systems to track students' performance in great detail, emailing each grade home to parents as soon as the teacher logs it in.

Choice for grown-ups at least

Guest post by Fordham Ohio Policy and Research Intern, Rachel Roseberry.

The Opportunity Equation: Transforming Mathematics and Science Education for Citizenship and the Global Economy

Commission on Mathematics and Science Education, Carnegie Corporation of New York and Institute for Advanced StudyJune 2009

A sloping buttress

Substituting portfolios for conventional tests to assess students with special needs is hardly a new practice. But when "special needs" takes on an ever-expanding definition, Gadfly begins to wonder: Is this really about making schools look more effective than they actually are?

'Because of You,' Tony Bennett

Indiana state superintendent Tony Bennett is crooning an aggressive school reform tune these days.

Fill in the blank

When the news broke last week that math scores were up across the Empire State, Gadfly's initial impulse was to be skeptical.