Twenty-six Catholic schools?all but one of which are elementary-level?in New York City are slated for closure. That may not seem like a big number, but the closures will affect some 4,700 students in the Big Apple, and represents the largest school consolidation in the history of the state's archdiocese.
Kevin Carey of Education Sector has a great post out today looking at the use of teacher quality data in personnel decisions. He's writing about higher education, but the point applies to K-12 as well:
?The best way to assess what students encounter is regular surveys of teachers and students. But like all true school improvements, that requires school leaders strong enough to listen and react intelligently to bad news. Such people are in short supply.''
The Los Angeles Times wants a change to California's Constitution, which, through its division of educational powers?an elected superintendent of public instruction, and an appointed secretary of education and Board of Education?has contributed to the bureaucratic clog
We have no answers as to whether textbook errors ought to be considered teachable moments or if
Liam calls the ???chance for success??? index in Education Week's ???Quality Counts??? rating of state school systems misleading.
?Teaching can no longer be the only profession where you have no rewards for excellence and no consequences for failure to perform'' * ?Chris Christie, New Jersey Governor
You?may have already seen this, but there was a bit of a development earlier this week in the ongoing fight over New York City releasing the names and rankings of thousands of teachers. On Monday, a Manhattan judge ruled that the city can indeed publicly release the names/rankings of the teachers.
On Friday, Rutgers education professor Bruce Baker issued a 4,600 word rebuttal to a 4,000 word policy brief released by Marguerite Roza and me the da
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said yesterday that he would like to see Kaya Henderson, Washington, D.C.'s interim schools chancellor, stay in her position ?for the long haul.?
Education Week's ?Quality Counts? 2011 is out and contains, as did its earlier iterations, the misleading Chance for Success Index, albeit with some mitigating modifications.
The College Board is redesigning A.P. Next month, reports the New York Times, the nonprofit ?will release a wholesale revamping of A.P. biology as well as United States history?
Michelle Rhee's new education advocacy group, Students First, just released its policy agenda and is garnering the former chancellor of DC Public Schools (and Ohio native!) more
Education Week just issued their Quality Counts 2011 report. Expect a proper analysis of the report and what it means for Ohio and K-12 education in tomorrow's Ohio Education Gadfly. But one thing jumped out at me in the fine print. In a section of the report headed ???An Engine of Job Recovery???
??for education reform, 2011 could be the best of times.'' * ?Michelle Rhee, Former Washington, D.C.? School Chancellor
Note: This piece originally appeared in the January 6th Education Gadfly. Love what you see? Sign up to receive the Gadfly in your inbox.
The Washington Post's prescient economics columnist Robert Samuelson wonders if perhaps the American-schools-are-losing-ground-to-China-et-al panic isn't overblown, its premises mostly wrong. For one, ?economic competitiveness depends on more than good schools,?
?To cover the underfunded pension obligations to teachers and other public employees, cities and states have little choice but to divert money from what would otherwise be their operating budgets?education will get significantly shortchanged as we make up for past underfunding.?*
I wanted to flag an?Associated Press?piece?about Michelle Rhee and her new group, Students First.
Kirti Baranwal and Gillian Russom are teachers in Los Angeles. Today the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed they wrote: ?Education Reform the Union Way.?
?This story shows California is behind the rest of the nation. We do not invest in education the way we need to. We have an emergency?* ?Tom Torlakson, California Superintendent of Public Schools
The New York Times ?most e-mailed? list can be hilarious in its predictability; as I write, the top three articles are about restoring children's play, cost-cutting travel tips, and strengthening individual marriages (where are the stories about getting accepted to college?and yoga?).
Now that it's alright to Huck Finn the Constitution, why not give kids the right to vote?
This policy brief lists fifteen concrete ways that states can "stretch the school dollar" in these difficult financial times. It is written by Marguerite Roza, senior data and economics advisor at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Michael J. Petrilli, executive vice president at the Fordham Institute.
Ben Yagoda is an author and professor and on to something when he identifies a new-ish sort of bad writing, which he calls ?clunk.? One reads about pupils who blithely insert into school assignments text-message phrases such as LOL and various emoticons?e.g., . And perhaps this does frequently happen?
Rarely do I agree with the New York Times editorial page; today I mostly do. The Times editorialists are ?horrified?
??if there is a ?national standard,' what prevents the same people who are using the present ?standardized tests' from continuing to demonize teachers???* ?Joel Shatzky, Former English Professor at SUNY-Cortland
This new policy brief lists fifteen concrete ways that states can ?stretch the school dollar? in these difficult financial times. Written by Marguerite Roza, senior data and economics advisor at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Michael J.
