Mike and Rick raise the bar this week, discussing high achievers, Duncan's digital promise, and the textbook-company oligarchy. (Oh, and Rick confesses he has a reform-crush on L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa). Amber tackles minority-teacher retention and Chris dives head first into an NCAA lawsuit. [powerpress]
?Do I go hat in hand trying to raise money, or find some politicians whose heads I can bang together?''* ? Shelli-Anne Couch, parent, trying to save her children's school library
Yesterday, Fordham released a groundbreaking study examining the achievement of individual high-performing students?or ?high flyers??over time.
As part of the release of our new study, Do High Flyers Maintain Their Performance: Performance Trends of Top Students, we are hosting a forum for
?Widespread cheating ? whether it's steroids in baseball or false information in mortgage lending ? usually is more a symptom of broken systems than an outbreak of venality''* ? Rick Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute
"Do High Flyers Maintain Their Altitude? Performance Trends of Top Students," is the first study to examine the performance of America's highest-achieving children over time at the individual-student level. Produced in partnership with the Northwest Evaluation Association, it finds that many high-achieving students struggle to maintain their elite performance over the years and often fail to improve their reading ability at the same rate as their average and below-average classmates. The study raises troubling questions: Is our obsession with closing achievement gaps and "leaving no child behind" coming at the expense of our "talented tenth" and America's future international competitiveness? Read on to learn more.
We asked a few experts to weigh in on our new study, "Do High Flyers Maintain Their Performance: Performance Trends of Top Students," as part of an online forum we'll be hosting on Flypaper over the next couple days.
If America is to remain internationally competitive, we need to maximize the potential of our top students. Over the last decade, however, federal and state education-accountability systems?particularly in the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001?have placed primary emphasis on moving low-performing students toward proficiency.
?I want to stress this. All these ideas came from the 'hood'?. We're advocating for our children, the same as in well-to-do neighborhoods.?* ?Woodcrest Elementary School parent
I gave up bashing teachers years ago, when I realized that, as with soldiers in the trenches, they had their hands full just staying alive.
On August 29, 2011, the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) released its draft of ?Content Specifications with Content Mapping for the Summative assessment of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics? (henceforth, Draft).?
?It's Florida's prerogative to apply for the grant. You can't fault a state in the current fiscal crisis for wanting to get Race to the Top dollars.?* ?Amber Winkler, Research Director of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute
In the introduction to her new book, Peg Tyre quotes a Dad frustrated by the process of choosing a school. ?It's absurd. When you purchase a house, you get an inspector's report. When you buy a sports car, at least you get to check under the hood.
?Where you have great performance, you have great principals, period, full stop. Where you have low performance, you have struggling principals. It's not that complicated.'' * ? Cami Anderson, Newark Schools Superintendent
For months?no, years?the ESEA discussion has been nothing short of maddening. While many pundits decry the lack of a ?clear route to reauthorization,? an obvious bipartisan solution has been sitting there, ready for the picking.
A new generation of affluent, educated, urban Americans is beginning to send its children to school.? Their dissatisfaction with the lack of choice and the status quo of failure in urban education will be far more personal than their elders'?and it represents a golden opportunity for choice advocates able to mobilize these parents.
Before embarking on a moral crusade, Mike and Rick laugh in the face of ESEA reauth and downplay the statistical importance of the SAT. Amber makes Third Way's new report look silly and Chris applies for medical stress leave. [powerpress]
?Regular working folks don't have tenure. Why should bad teachers?'' * ? Lane Wright, Press Secretary for Florida Governor Rick Scott
Stretching the School Dollar: How districts and schools can save money while serving schools best (Harvard University Press, 2010), edited
?It is no secret that charter schools are having to deal with the idea that there is a selection process which would seem to prevent the kids who need it most from getting into the schools.'' * ?Gregory Morris, Children's Aid Society staff member
Do you have a voracious appetite for education policy news and views? Do you need to stay abreast of the latest school reform debates? Do you want to have access to breaking news, as soon as it's reported? Are you always looking for new ways to waste time? Then Twitter is for you!
We were about half-way through our four-hour school board ?Governance Team Retreat? when I saw an opening.? ?The facilitator, sent to us by the New York State School Boards Association (for a nice fee), had handed out a 27-page document that covered the standard ?roles and responsibilities? of...
