Topics

TV can be good for you!

At least when you can watch Fordham's event, "Can Budget Cuts Catalyze Education Reform?" on C-SPAN right now! (And for the next 90 minutes.)

Hope springs eternal

"Can Budget Cuts Catalyze Education Reform" event video now available

Fair play

Russ Whitehurst, the former head of IES (the body responsible for the DC voucher study), gives a thorough and authoritative explanation of the final report's release. It parallels the argument I made here.

Get your Gadfly

If you haven't read this week's Gadfly, you should do so ASAP! Up first, Paul E. Barton, formerly of ETS and author of "'Failing' and 'Successful' Schools: How Can We Tell?" explains the grand illusion that is NCLB.

Marguerite Roza event airing on C-SPAN

Arne Duncan, Superintendent-in-Chief?

Do you ever dream about what you'd do if you were Secretary of Education? If you're a teacher, no doubt you'd work to make federal policy more teacher-friendly. If you're a researcher, you'd strive to make it more evidence-based (and to increase the R & D budget). And if you're a big-city superintendent?

Dirty pool or unfair accusation?

Obama administration education cool-o-meter?

Ok, hmmm........so maybe we need to institute an Obama Administration Education "Cool-O-Meter." Seems Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently jumped onstage at DC's crowded and popular 9:30 Club (at a Neko Case concert) to plug the new administration, talk about education and encourage people to go into teaching.

Mike discusses longer school year on FOX

Check out Mike's recent appearance on FOX News. He discusses an issue that's sure to raise heated debate around dinner tables across the nation: lengthening the school year! Arne Duncan favors it . Find out if Mike does.....

Teachers who fear teachers

Teach for America hopes to place 20 corps members in Boston in the fall--but the Boston Teachers Union doesn't want them. "We already have hundreds of good 'surplus' teachers; we don't need [Teach for America] to provide us any help," claims BTU president Richard Stutman. "By coming here, you will only make matters worse." Clearly Mr. Stutman could learn a thing or two from Miss Manners.

Baggy exposure

Got sagging pants? Not if you go to Plantation High School in Broward County, Florida. That's because two teachers, inspired by President Barack Obama's comment last year that "brothers should pull up their pants," have launched a crusade against baggy offenders.

Evaluating evaluation

While D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee's battle over salary and tenure has gained much media attention, less heed has been paid to her plans to overhaul the District's teacher evaluation systems. Yet a consensus is growing that they need dramatic reform, too.

A mayor shall lead them?

To the long, familiar list of reasons urban education has failed--too-powerful teacher unions, underfunded and mismanaged schools, poverty's ill effects--Education Secretary Arne Duncan has added another: lack of "leadership from the top." He's talking about mayors in particular, and he wants more of them in charge of urban school districts, à la Chicago, New York, Boston, and Washington

Pension tension

In case it wasn't clear that teachers' pensions are about as sustainable as daily print newspapers, New Jersey is here to remind us.

Effects of Teachers' Unions on Qualification-Specific and Incentive-Based Teacher Compensation

Kristine Lamm West and Elton MykereziUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesPresented at National Council on Teacher Quality conference, "Help or Hindrance? The Impact of Teacher Roles, Rules and Rights on Teacher Quality," March 26, 2009

Catholic schools echo private sector?

While the phenomenon of unionized charter schools is only budding, parochial schools have a longer tradition of collective bargaining. But two Catholic schools in Staten Island may have found a way to shed the union albatross.

Superintendent-in-chief?

Do you ever dream about what you'd do if you were Secretary of Education? If you're a teacher, no doubt you'd work to make federal policy more teacher-friendly. If you're a researcher, you'd strive to make it more evidence-based (and to increase the R & D budget). And if you're a big-city superintendent?

Grand illusions

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act establishes the lofty goal of holding schools to account for all children achieving "proficiency" in reading and math by 2014--now barely five years away. As the nation now faces up to what to do next, it needs to squarely face the fact that NCLB's authors conjured four illusions--possibly because they were engaged in self-delusion.

ED vs. ARRA

A little common sense in the Buckeye State

As a homeowner whose property taxes recently went up to support the Columbus City School District's November 2008 levy and bond issue, I was pleased to see

Arne's not-so-stimulating stimulus guidance

I was meeting with the good folks at the National Council on Teacher Quality yesterday, and Sandi Jacobs, its V.P. and a former NYC teacher, reminded me of the norms of niceness within our education system.

Rhee evaluating teachers

The Post writes up Chancellor Rhee's attempt to overhaul the District's teacher evaluation system. ????This is tougher work than it may seem.

Detroit and skunk works

The power-hungry P-21

Lynne Munson of Common Core has the latest low-down, here.

Public pensions in the spotlight

The Cincinnati Enquirer has been running a powerful series of articles about the troubles facing that city's generous public pension systems. The newspaper's editorial board says enough is enough:

So much for burying this story

As Mike noted, the third-year report on the DC voucher program, showing statistically significant benefits for scholarship recipients, presented a challenge for the folks at ED, who responded by using the time-honored tactic of releasing unwelcome news on a Friday afternoon.

Putting things into perspective

Think of all of the energy that some folks are putting into killing the $13 million DC voucher program. Then consider the following:

The Washington Consensus, alive and well

While the name "No Child Left Behind" might be history, the law's animating principles are here to stay. So it appears from Secretary Arne Duncan's recent policy letter. Note this passage:

Arne Duncan's Title I regulations redux

After sitting idle for a week, our Obama Administration Reform-o-Meter is about to get a workout. That's because things are finally happening over at 400 Maryland Avenue.