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Most wonderful time of the year

It's National Charter Schools Week, and the Alliance has all kinds of activities planned and news to share. Here are a couple highlights:

More from the to-read pile

If you've ever hired anyone, you know that that colleague you get is nearly always quite different than the candidate you interviewed--sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always different.

Twitter

If you're like me, you're generally skeptical of this Twitter business. ????It seems kind of like LoJack but for people. ????But I've come around lately, thanks in part to my colleagues here at TBFI.

Kidding ourselves

In the midst of the school-funding battle here in the Buckeye State, it is easy to lose sight of the other major education reforms on Governor Strickland'

International Lessons about National Standards Conference live

It started at 9 am this morning and Jim Shelton is currently giving his remarks. Watch it live via webcast here.* *The webcast is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Stay tuned for more information. A video of the event will also be available later this week.

Discussing education standards

What would help Jim Shelton--at the Education Department's Office of Innovation and Improvement--do his job better? Clearer standards in this country.

And the common standards discussion continues

This afternoon, Dane Linn , director of the education division for the National Governors Association and Gene Wilhoit , executive director of the Council of Chief State School O

Buzzzzzz about our conference

Our conference today--on national education standards and the lessons that might be learned from other countries--is spurring some discussion.

America needs independent education achievement "audit agency"

I'm reminded again and again of America's need for an independent education-achievement "audit agency" to sort out the claims and counterclaims about student performance and school achievement and when it has risen and when it has flat-lined or fallen--and why.

Schnur leaving ED

According to Gotham Schools, ED Senior Advisor Jon Schnur will NOT be joining the Obama administration despite his leading education role during the campaign, transition, and early days of the Duncan regime.

Empathy is job #1

Bleeding-heart conservative

Post columnists on the edu-beat

Checked out, or never checked in?

Ohio's governor and House of Representatives are supporting a state budget bill that would add billions of dollars in state spending on public education over the next decade and would mandate more decisions about public education at the state level.

The problem with "culture is the problem"

Pedro Noguera attacks David Whitman's book, published by Fordham last year, in

Man in the Arena

Advanced Placement report in the news

Our Advanced Placement report has garnered quite a bit of national attention in the past two days as it addresses the question of whether the program's expansion is affecting its quality.

Arne Duncan speaks to the nation's education writers

Arne Duncan spoke to a packed room last night at the Education Writers Association conference, and got some chuckles by promising not to use his three favorite words during the speech: extraordinary, dramatic and incent.

Re: The GOP on education: Where's the next big idea?

Mike Umphrey, an AP English Teacher in Polson, Montana, (and a loyal Flypaper reader!) offers??a great response to my post from a few days ago: My main reaction tends to be "Bah, humbug."

News from the Hill

This guest post was written by Fordham research intern Katie Wilczak. She attended the House hearing yesterday morning.

The world needs firefighters, too

Within the education establishment, it's taken as an article of faith that schools should face budget cuts only after all other options have been exhausted. How about public safety? That's the debate playing out in Prince George's County, Maryland, a big Washington suburb now facing a massive budget shortfall.

Taxpayer chutzpah

Say you're a parent in a school district whose population is largely Haitian, African-American, and Hispanic. And say this district's board is dominated by Orthodox Jews who don't send their children to public schools and aren't happy about paying both high taxes and huge private school tuition bills. And say the board just voted to close an under-enrolled district school to curb costs.

Postsecondary Preparation and Remediation: Examining the Effect of the Early Assessment Program at California State University

Jessica S. Howell, Michal Kurlaender, and Eric GrodskyCalifornia State University, SacramentoApril 2009

Weighted Student Formula Yearbook

Lisa SnellReason Foundation2009

Charter School Achievement: What We Know, 5th Edition

Anna NicoteraNational Alliance for Public Charter SchoolsApril 2009

Gun Control in the Wild West

What's the best way to improve a negative perception? Change the reality feeding it. That's the constructive tack being taken by the new leaders of the Arizona Charter Schools Association (ACSA) as they crack down on their state's surfeit of low-performing charters.

Growing pains in the Advanced Placement program

The Advanced Placement (AP) Program is enjoying a growth spurt in the United States. Over the past five years, the number of high-school students taking at least one AP exam increased more than 50 percent. There's probably no education program in America that's been expanding faster.

Growing Pains in the Advanced Placement Program: Do Tough Trade-offs Lie Ahead?

Fordham's latest report is out this morning; it focuses on the dramatic expansion of the Advancement Placement program in recent years. In 2002-2003, 1 million students participated in AP by taking at least one exam. Five years later, nearly 1.6 million did???a 50+ percent increase.

Randi Weingarten going to the "dark side"?

Certain segments of the edu-sphere like to call those of us at Fordham silly (though, I'll admit, colorful) names, like "