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Balanced Scorecards and Management Data

Frederick M. Hess and Jon FullertonCenter for Education Policy Research at Harvard UniversityFebruary 2009

Missed opportunities

The recent saga of the District of Columbia's federally-funded "Opportunity Scholarship Program" is one of opportunities missed or squandered, mostly by the Obama Administration.

"From an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest"

That's where President Barack Obama says??he wants to take us. But does anyone else find this statement a little bit ironic, as we've just borrowed $100 billion from future taxpayers and spent it on bailing out today's education system?

Arne's tepid teammates

The hiring machine is finally cranking up over there at 400 Maryland Avenue, in fact outpacing the Reform-o-Meter's ability to keep up. (Well, I shouldn't blame the Reform-o-Meter. It is always willing. I'm the one who has fallen behind!)

NYT on NCLB reauthorization

Sam Dillon from the NYT turns in an????article that speculates on the contours????of an NCLB/ESEA reauthorization. There's no new news to report, and I doubt that we'll see any real movement on legislation this year--ED is too busy with the ARRA and too short-staffed to push this hard themselves.

Former Mayor to mediate

Kurt Schmoke, the former mayor of Baltimore, has been chosen to mediate contract negotiations between Michelle Rhee and the DC teachers union.

What charter lotteries have taught us

NYC has been going through the tragic annual ritual of charter school lotteries, during which thousands of parents hope to beat the odds and get their kids into much-demanded, high-performing charters.

The eight-percent solution sounds like a gamble

The board of the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) of Ohio told members last month that it could not rely on a nine percent return on investment to fund future retirement benefits. The implication is that the board will continue to rely on a long-term return of eight percent.

Reassessing NCTAF's apocalypse

Hey, that's no howler monkey....it's Blago!

19th Century Skills

Will Fitzhugh, founder of The Concord Review, has an interesting column in EducationNews.org today. He, like many others, bemoans the fact that so many students are ill-prepared and forced to take remedial college courses.

The Accountability Illusion policy brief now available

Would a school deemed "healthy" under the No Child Left Behind Act remain so if it were plopped down in another state? That was the basic premise of our major report, The Accountability Illusion, released earlier this year.

The eight-percent solution sounds like a gamble

The board of the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio told members last month that it could not rely on a nine percent return on investment to fund future retirement benefits. The implication is that the board will continue to rely on a long-term return of eight percent.

The governor could benefit from a sit-down with the president

Tis the season for school reform and both President Obama and Gov. Strickland are pushing their school reform agendas hard. In comparing and contrasting the efforts of these two Democratic leaders some similarities emerge, but so do some interesting differences.

Evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program: Impacts After Three Years

Patrick Wolf, Babette Gutmann, Michael Puma, Brian Kisida, Lou Rizzo, Nada EissaInstitute of Education SciencesMarch 2009

Expert to offer guidelines for improving state's academic standards

The national education curriculum expert who helped design the country's premier standards and accountability system in Massachusetts will tell an Ohio Senate panel today that the 21st century skills-based program being proposed for Ohio will actually retard student learning.

about proposed funding levels for charter schools

Myrrha P. Satow, CEO and superintendent of EdVantages Inc., took issue with an April 1 Ohio Gadfly editorial concerning Gov. Strickland's proposals for funding charter schools.

School funding and weak evidence

Gov. Strickland's school funding plan has come under heavy fire in recent weeks. Republican lawmakers-and outside experts on school finance-have criticized it for lacking any real evidence (see here).

Re: Tyranny of the majority

Mike points out that the Obama administration isn't in full control of the fate of the D.C. voucher program, as the appropriations bill funded only current students--and, we are to assume, the program's opponents on the Hill could have cut that funding too were Duncan or Obama to fight them.

WWMXD?

Former DC mayor Anthony Williams and former DC councilman Kevin Chavous channel Malcolm X in a Post op-ed on the DC voucher programs.

Cleveland rocks!

With all of the attention directed toward the DC voucher program, we could be misled into believing that this represents the current and future of the private school choice debate. Not so.

The more things change...

So there was this report written to help a major US city improve its public schools. Local leaders had gone to Boston to learn about a number of????groundbreaking reforms that had generated????some pretty impressive results. They came back particularly impressed by Boston's new types of schools, well-trained teachers, and well-respected administrators.

A-1 sauce, anyone?

Ok, so last week we saw a story or two out of New York describing how the teachers union gave city council members cue cards telling them what questions to ask during a hearing on charter schools. Yes, that definitely makes for an interesting discussion.

Supplant or supplement?

The Washington Post reports??that Loudoun County, Virginia, is using the federal stimulus funds intended for schools to prop up its county budget:

"Now comes Mr. Duncan with the sword"

So concluded the Washington Post's editorial page on Saturday with a piece aptly subtitled,

Voucher program dies, OII lives

Tyranny of the majority

"Bo" joins the Administration

Nope, no new Department picks to withstand some reform-o-meter treatment, but a dog. A Portuguese water dog, in fact, which will shortly take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Re: supplant or supplement?

As Eric just reported, Loudoun County is playing games with its stimulus dollars. Specifically, it's asking schools to return county dollars and replacing them with federal dollars, presumably to help plug holes in other areas of the county's budget.

Diane v. Arne

Diane Ravitch is not as enamored with mayoral control as Arne Duncan is. Read her new New York Times op-ed to see why.