Much ink has been spilled in the past week over what the pay for performance experiment in New York City's public school system means. Roland Fryer's finding that the NYC pay scheme didn't improve student achievement does not imply that differentiated pay for teachers doesn't work, however.
??children don't need another reform imposed on them. Instead, they need to be the authors of their own education.'' ' * -Susan Engle, Author of Red Flags or Red Herrings: Predicting Who Your Child Will Become
The president said today he wants a No Child Left Behind rewrite before students' summer vacations end this September. And he wants other things, too.
The Ed Next book club podcast is back for round two.
?[Teachers] are America's heroes, and they should be recognized as such. Sadly, they aren't.'' * -Joel Klein, Former Chancellor of New York public schools
I don't always agree with Marc Tucker but he knows a heckuva lot about how other countries organize their education systems; and it turns out that knowledge extends to how their teacher unions have evolved, what roles the unions play, and how their bargaining processes work. The differences set forth in his exceptionally interesting new paper?between the U.S.
I almost didn't get past the second sentence of Nicholas Kristof's brilliant NY Times essay this morning, as he opened with mention of Wisconsin and the ?pernicious fallacy? he?said the fracas there had generated: that teachers are over-paid.
Over in the more feverish corners of the blogosphere, and sometimes even in saner locales, the Shanker Institute's call for "common content" curriculum to accompany the Common Core standards has triggered a panic attack.
Here's to hoping we can learn from other countries at the world education summit next week. Not only are more foreign-born men and women leading U.S.
In a provocative new school funding case, a federal court judge in Kansas City ruled against parents from the suburban Shawnee Mission school district who had wanted to increase property taxes above the state mandated limit
Don't miss Katie Couric's 60 Minutes report this Sunday on a New York City charter school that pays teachers lots of money but gives them no tenure.
Even if you can spell i-o-n-i-z-e, you might be attending a high school that is failing under NCLB.
There continues to be a lot of discussion around the idea of creating a ?common? curriculum to supplement the Common Core State Standards. Robert Pondiscio over at Core Knowledge applauds the move, arguing that, while the CCSS are ?praiseworthy,?
?It's not enough to teach kids how to "read hard stuff." You have to show them how reading hard stuff in AP Literature is different than reading hard stuff in biology, European history, or trigonometry.'' * -Catherine Gewertz, Writer for Education Week
So what else is new?? Isn't this just the statistic that confirms the message of Nation at Risk or the flat NAEP scores for the last forty years?
?Taking on the status quo is no easy task.'' * -Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="359" caption="Photo courtesy of the National Governors Association"][/caption]
I know it's an article of faith in the school-reform community that we should "differentiate" among teachers and pay them "differentially" too.
The New York Times is on a roll with its education coverage, today reporting on everything from Obama in Boston to Rick Scott in Florida and rich schools in Bronxville.?
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="307" caption="Photo by Stacy"][/caption]
?[Common academic standards] will end the practice of lying to children and adults that dummied down standards will prepare students for success" * -Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education
Of the many dumb ways to close budget holes, perhaps the one most worthy of the title "self-inflicted wound" is the move to reduce the number of extra-curricular activities offered to students (or to pass along the costs to families in the form of fees).
I don't relish piling on, but David Brooks's column today, ?The New Humanism,? timed to coincide with the release of his new book The Social Animal, is intellectual cotton candy. ?Over the course of my career,? he begins, ?I've covered a number of policy failures.?
It is encouraging to see the New York Times continue its blanket coverage of education issues and events, even if the nation's putative paper of record sometimes misses the mark (see my Inside the Bubble) and even though it insists on giving reform nemesis Michael Winerip full rein.
Take a look at this graph from Robert Costrell and Mike Podgursky's new report on pensions for the TIAA-CREF Institute:
