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RTT math
In a previous post, I discussed the probability that Secretary Duncan will have reason to forgo spending down the remaining Race to the Top funding and send money back to the Treasury.
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Sector agnosticism in Philly
On a number of occasions, I’ve written about what I call “sector agnosticism” in urban education. It’s a simple concept: We shouldn’t care what sector a school belongs to (traditional public, charter public, or private); instead, we should judge schools based on their quality.
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Texas being Texas or more to the story?
Texas has become the first state to rebuff the Obama administration’s Race to the Top. Governor Rick Perry made the call, deciding that the size of the investment wasn’t worth the strings. Texas, he believes, can do education reform on its own.
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Thanks and best wishes to Nelson Smith
In 2004, after realizing that the Charter School Leadership Council, a loose coalition of pro-charter school organizations, couldn’t meet the needs of the burgeoning charter school sector, a number of the nation’s top charter leaders created the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools...Over the next five years, the leader they
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Why are union contracts the third rail?
The WSJ penned an interesting editorial yesterday on Secretary Duncan and Michelle Rhee, noting that, while the secretary supports important reforms, he hasn’t helped the chancellor in her donnybrook with the union.
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Wise investment? Lottery tickets
The Hassels have a new post up on Eduwonk about turnarounds. I’m generally a big fan of this talented duo and have been for years....But I think they’re still way off base regarding the doomed venture of school turnarounds.
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Calling for independent research
Economist Roland Fryer's Educational Innovation Laboratory is off to the races, thanks to the Broad Foundation, experimenting with new ways of incentivizing kids to learn in three big cities (New York, Chicago,
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Thinking differently
"I still don't like the snarky title of Mark Bauerlein's new book on how technology is blunting our reading and comprehension skills, but a recent piece in the Atlantic persuades me that he's at least right to claim that computers are changing how we think...." Read it here.
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Creating useful education data systems (it takes more than Race to the Top funds)
The L.A. Times describes California’s attempts to qualify for Race to the Top Funds both by changing state law to allow teacher- and student-level data to be connected (for teacher evaluations), and by laying plans for new databases.
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Detroit's new teacher contract
I wondered in October whether Robert Bobb, Detroit Public School’s Emergency Financial Manager, would be able to deliver on this goal for a transformative new union contract, in which the problems with tenure and teacher seniority are addressed.
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Is a financial day of reckoning for schools here yet?
There’s a lot to chew over in yesterday’s New York Times article by Sam Dillon, “Schools Aided by Stimulus Mone
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Panic in Detroit?*
John Merrow of Learning Matters has an interview here with Robert Bobb, Detroit Public School’s “Emergency Financial Manager,” who was brought in to help right a school district with a $259 million deficit that’s hemorrhaging student
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More on Ayers
"Nothing is more emblematic of the rampant intellectual incoherence and moral equivalence of our age than the current debate about whether Bill Ayers is a ‘terrorist....'" Read it here.
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Weighing NY charter school and district school demographics
New York City’s United Federation of Teachers (UFT) recently published a report in which it said the area’s charter schools don’t serve at least the district-wide average of neediest students, despite serving an overwhelmingly poor population.
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Poor Rheesoning
"I'm told that Michelle Rhee, who moments ago wrapped up a 'Reporter Roundtable' here at the Fordham offices (I knew I noticed a soft glow emanating from our conference room), defended her plan to pay students for right behavior by pulling out the KIPP Card... Why, Rhee wondered, is her plan to pay D.C. students in cash any different from KIPP's program?
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If at first you don't succeed
"I hope the College Board catches the flack it deserves for its decision to (starting in 2010) show colleges only the SAT scores that the students who earn them choose to reveal--i.e., if Johnny takes the test 10 times, Johnny gets to show State U.
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More on integration (racial, socioeconomic, etc.)
"Interesting to note that liberals Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias have both blogged recently about how socioeconomic and racial integration (the 2008 kind of integration, which seeks to overcome housing patterns; not the 1950s kind, which sought to overcome de jure separation of black and white) won't work...." Read it
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Voinovich, the last of his breed
When U.S. Senator George Voinovich retires at the end of his current term in 2010 it will signal the end of progressive Republican education reform in Ohio.
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Pick the next Deputy-Assistant-to-the-Assistant-Associate-Deputy-Secretary-for-School Safety!
Today marks the 23rd week of our Pick the next Deputy-Assistant-to-the-Assistant-Associate-Deputy-Secretary-for-School Safety contest! It looks like President Obama is holding out as long as possible before appointing one lucky American to this post, which means he basks in our continuing patience as we continue to lose it.
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The education lives of team captains: ESP & GER
[Wednesday] is a European showdown: Spain and Germany [go] head to head to determine who will face Netherlands on Sunday for the final…We turn our comparison to Iker Casillas of Spain and Philipp Lahm of Germany to compare what their educational lives (on average) looked like, given their countries of origin…Read it
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An innovative use of Catholic education
Martin West and Ludger Woessmann have published a fascinating study in the winter edition of Education Next.
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Another take on merit pay
When I first read this article, I was skeptical. Giving bonuses to teachers and principals at failing schools? Doesn't that undermine the whole concept of merit pay-as in, rewards for meritorious performance?
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DC voucher program saga turns into DC rights issue
As Andy reported last Friday, the DC Council has sent a letter to Secretary Duncan urging him to reconsider the fate of the DC Opportunity Scholarship program.
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Is education really the exception?
The unemployment rate dipped last month…[e]xcept the employer doing almost all of the hiring was…the government…That’s part of the point that David Brooks was m
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Michelle defends herself?
The lady with a mission has a soft side. This morning's Washington Post featured an editorial from DC Chancellor of Schools herself. I couldn't help but hear a sharply defensive tone throughout and be somewhat mystified by the whole thing.
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Of tertiary education graduation rates
The recent NCLB regulations focus on high school graduation rates. Mark Schneider (as in former Bushie and now at AIR Mark Schneider), however, wants to know the stats on college graduation rates.
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Open source education
You can find whatever your heart desires on the internet, and that’s in part thanks to something called open source. It’s a bit of an amorphous term, but that hasn’t stopped this Utah virtual charter school from diving in to this potentially revolutionizing movement. Open source is just as its name implies--open.
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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.
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Jay is from Mars, Stafford is from Venus
"...Wow, Jay, stereotype much? After we get a good chuckle from imagining General Patton reading to some wee babes on his knees, let's talk about how Mathews has illuminated an actual problem: most teachers really are women...." Read it here.
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Rhee inspires reforms in South Korea
"'We Need Someone Like Michelle Rhee' proclaims an editorial headline in the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo...." Read it here.