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Ed stats go streamin'
Who knew education data were so trendy? Yes, that's right, tickets to our data conference are almost as hot as for the inauguration.
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Edubailout or edumiracle?
Mike and Stafford tackle the edu-bailout—should the Administration’s pet projects be spared a haircut when everyone else has gotten clipped?—and cyber bullies. Amber gives us the final report on D.C.’s voucher program and Janie wants just one valedictorian.
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Education and campaign finance reform's "reform"
There’s been much talk about the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Citizens United v.
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Education and the Democrats
This week, the Democratic Convention adopted a platform containing an education plank that offers something for everybody but nothing in particular.
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Education, courts, and a great new book
Remember that top-notch conference that we hosted with AEI last year on the courts and education? Well that material has now been compiled into a stellar new book, From Schoolhouse to Courthouse, to be published jointly by Fordham and Brookings Institution Press on September 8.
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Education Leaders Council's Annual Meeting, Dec. 3-4, 2004
The Education Leaders Council's (ELC) is hosting its 9th annual conference, which it says will be the first major post-election education reform conference focused on both policy and practice - in Orlando, FL, on December 3-4. For details, click here.
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Education Next seeks manuscript editor
Education Next: A Journal of Opinion and Research seeks a manuscript editor. The ideal candidate would have excellent writing, editing, communication, and organizational skills and a substantial knowledge of education policy and research. Openness to school reform and an appreciation for the journal's mission is necessary.
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Education policy, up in smoke
This week, Mike and Rick light up California for its half-baked jurisprudence, smoke out why Tampa Bay-area teachers are so sullen, and have an enlightened conversation about whether students caught with drugs should lose their federal student aid. Tom Loveless talks arithmetic, and News of the Weird is a scream. Whoop there it is, all in 15 minutes!
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Education professors take on...immigration?
Fresh off the plane from AERA, Rick takes on Mike over The New York Time’s front page charter story, the new philanthropic overtures to the Department of Education, and the Arizona immigration law’s implications for schools. Then Amber tells us about math teachers around the world and Rate that Reform hates on T.I.
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Education statistics and research: 2 steps forward, 1.93 back
For those tracking Washington's handling of federal education research, statistics and assessment (you can find previous Gadfly commentaries on this subject at http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=66#983 and http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/
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EduJobs: Brother, Can You Spare a Million?
So, my tiny school district (1,950 students, $43 million budget) just got word that we will be getting over $580,000 from the Education Jobs Fund (Ed Jobs) program (otherwise known as Public Law No.
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Edupistemology
How do we know if education policy is actually based on good research, or if it's stemming from shoddy data? How do we use (and misuse) education reports, publications, and statistics? A daylong discussion at the American Enterprise Institute on Monday, May 21st, will seek to answer such questions.
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Elven shoed
This week, Mike and Rick talk Georgia social studies exams, Texas English standards, and art and P.E. in Washington, D.C. Jeff Kuhner is outraged about madrassas in Fairfax County and Education News of the Weird is off the island. Click here to listen through our website and peruse past editions.
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Embrace the mess
…In my own education circles here in Connecticut, I once heard someone describe the results achieved by places like Achievement First and KIPP as the education equivalent of discovering penicillin—that these schools had discovered what works, and all we had to do now was implement it across the country and weren’t we all being so silly and selfish to keep this magic elixir fr
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End of an era
This week, Mike and Rick chat about reform in Massachusetts, alt-cert in Texas, and eighth-grade bacchanalia. Today, Jeff Kuhner considers himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth, and Education News of the Weird is tainted.
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Entrepreneurial leaders sought for urban schools
New Leaders for New Schools seeks entrepreneurial leaders in the Washington, D.C. area who yearn to become principals of urban schools. Applications are due April 9. For details, see www.nlns.org.
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EQI to merge with AIR
The new Education Quality Institute (EQI), launched in 2001 to put research on successful education programs into the hands of consumers, has merged with the American Institutes for Research (AIR), a DC-based research firm specializing in education and health policy. EQI is now a subsidiary of AIR; both are partners in the What Works Clearinghouse.
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Erratum
Gadfly, like the New York Times, occasionally makes a mistake. Unlike the Times, however, we will not bore you with a four-page analysis of said errors. So: in a recent item on H.R.
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Free Publication
Schoolwide reform is capturing the attention of policymakers, parents and educators across the nation, and Congress is appropriating huge sums to promote the adoption of dozens of "whole school" designs. But how to choose among these designs? Better By Design, written by distinguished journalist James Traub and published by the Thomas B.
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Crumpets, coffee, and charter school funding
Washington-area education reformers ought not let October 14th pass by without attending the Progressive Policy Institute's Charter School Funding Gap forum. Starting at 9:30 am (breakfast will be served), the event features a glittering panel including Bryan C. Hassel, co-author of the Fordham Institute report, Charter School Funding: Inequity's Next Frontier.
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Cyber-learning lessons from Georgia
Like every state, Ohio has been hard hit by the Great Recession. It has been well chronicled (see article below) that the state’s current $50.5 billion biennial budget was made whole in 2009 by one-time federal stimulus dollars, billions in budget cuts, and clever accounting maneuvers. It is estimated that the state will face an $8 billion deficit in its next two-year budget.
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Data-based fellowship opportunity
Do you believe that data can make a difference in education reform? The Strategic Data Project Fellowship at Harvard's Center for Education Policy Research is a unique opportunity to use your analytic, leadership, and education sector experience to change the way leaders in education make decisions about teaching and learning.
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David Driscoll joins Fordham's boards
The boards of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Fordham Institute voted unanimously this week to elect former Massachusetts Education Commissioner David Driscoll as a trustee. Read about it here.
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Dayton organization seeks director of education programs
Keys to Improving Dayton Schools, Inc. (k.i.d.s.), a non-profit organization based in Dayton, Ohio, seeks an exceptional educator to work closely in partnership with area charter schools to guide, assist and strengthen their academic improvement efforts.
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Dear Checker (advice for life from Chester E. Finn, Jr.)
This week, Gladfly presents a reprise of the popular lonely-hearts column, "Dear Checker," by renowned relationship expert Dr. Chester E.
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(D)ED in '08, the kitchen sink version
Gladfly hasn't been shy about his skepticism regarding the well-funded and well-intended but hapless (D)ED in '08 campaign. This video, for example, smacks of something like desperation: