During the Florida gubernatorial campaign, most voters were paying attention to then-candidate Rick Scott's past?as head of a hospital chain that paid $1.7 billion in fines in the largest Medicare fraud case in history. Now that Scott is the governor-elect, those voters (and?the press)?are turning their focus to the policy plans he released several months ago.
Politicians clearly revel in class warfare. Democrats?always rage at the well-to-do and try to present themselves as champions of the less prosperous. (See current goings-on in Congress regarding federal income and estate taxes.)
In case you missed it, Obama signed the Child Nutrition Bill into law on Monday?click here to see the ?before & after? school lunch menu.?
In my other life (as a Hoover Institution fellow and chairman of the Koret Task Force on K-12 education), I've lately?had the pleasure of joining Bill Evers and other task force members in distilling the most important education events of the past year and sorting them into ?best? and ?worst? columns.
?I think we have schizophrenia in the U.S. that we believe all U.S. schools are lousy except the schools we send our kids to.? * Larry Cuban, Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University
?Until we start seeing assessments that ask kids to write research papers, ask them to solve unfamiliar problems, ask them to defend their ideas, ask them to engage with both fiction and nonfiction texts; until those kinds of assessments are our state assessments, all we're measuring are basic skills.'' *
This study from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute finds that low-performing public schools—both charter and traditional district schools—are stubbornly resistant to significant change. After identifying more than 2,000 low-performing charter and district schools across ten states, analyst David Stuit tracked them from 2003-04 through 2008-09 to determine how many were turned around, shut down, or remained low-performing. Results were generally dismal. Seventy-two percent of the original low-performing charters remained in operation—and remained low-performing-five years later. So did 80 percent of district schools. Read on to learn more.
There seems to be quite a blame game going on in education these days: see here and here.
This morning's Times has a nice profile of Shael Polakow-Suransky, New York City School's new #2 (defined, oddly enough,?as ?the educational counterpart to Cathleen?P. Black, the businesswoman chancellor?). ? Among the highlights,
The Wall Street Journal reports today that a higher percentage than usual of New York City teachers will not receive tenure this year ?as the city moves to make more difficult the path to lifetime employment.?
This new study, Are Bad Schools Immortal? The Scarcity of Turnarounds and Shutdowns in Both Charter and District Sectors from the Thomas B.
Low on cash for the holidays? You can always save by eating cheese sandwiches.
Americans may overwhelmingly believe that education is vitally important to the nation's economic success. But that doesn't mean they're willing to keep footing the bill for it.
At Commentary's blog, Contentions, Peter Wehner directs readers to a new study (from the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values) that is, according to Wehner, ?both somewhat encouraging and quite ala
?Kids know effective teaching when they experience it.? So says Harvard's Ronald Ferguson, a researcher who designed questionnaires that were given to thousands of students across the nation and which asked those students to evaluate their teachers.
?Attracting good talent is a challenge in the best of circumstances. And this is not the best of circumstances.'' [In reference to Atlanta schools] * Mike Casserly, Executive Director of the Council of the Great City Schools
This week the Cleveland Plain Dealer announced that the district and teachers union will begin working on a new teacher evaluation that will include ?evidence of student learning.?
Last summer it was the cheating scandal that ?haunts? Atlanta's schools chief, as reports of widespread efforts by teachers to change test scores mounted.
I recently finished reading Frederick M. Hess's new-ish book, The Same Thing Over and Over, and found myself envisioning education policy as a bar full of drunks.
Florida's governor-elect, Rick Scott, was in my hometown on Thursday, speaking to a crowd at an evangelical church, when, according to St. Petersburg Times reporter Ron Matus, he said this:
For those of you anxious to hear the decision on whether NYC's Department of Education will be required to release teacher performance data, kee
?Things we've intuitively known, or thought about, or wished for about teacher effectiveness?there's some empirical evidence that they are valid.? Vicki Phillips, Director of Education Programs, Gates Foundation
???Things we've intuitively known, or thought about, or wished for about teacher effectiveness???there's some empirical evidence that they are valid.??? Vicki Phillips, Director of Education Programs, Gates Foundation
Do we care? The New York Times is reporting that Mayor Mike asked Harlem education guru Geoffrey Canada to be his Chancellor?before he picked publishing executive Cathie Black.
It wouldn't be New York if it weren't a bit of a media slugfest.?
In a case the NY Times said would ?propel New York City to the center of a national debate about how student test scores should be used to evaluate teachers,?
Perhaps you've noticed, but I haven't been blogging as much as usual lately. That's because I've started tweeting, by which I mean I've started wasting untold hours following thousands of mini-messages on Twitter every day, along with sending dozens of my own.
The Modern Language Association has a new report out?and it looks like interest in
