What (ed-reformer) parents want
What (ed-reformer) parents want. Read What Parents Want: Education Preferences and Trade-offs and take the quiz to see if you fall into one of our parent categories.
What (ed-reformer) parents want. Read What Parents Want: Education Preferences and Trade-offs and take the quiz to see if you fall into one of our parent categories.
Panelists Include: Stan Heffner - Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction Michael Cohen - President of Achieve, Inc. Steve Dackin, superintendent of Reynoldsburg City Schools Eric Gordon, CEO of Cleveland Metropolitan Schools Debe Terhar, president of the State Board of Education Deb Tully, director of professionals issues for the Ohio Federation of Teachers Moderated by Chester E. Finn Jr., President, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Panelists Include: Stan Heffner - Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction Michael Cohen - President of Achieve, Inc. Steve Dackin, superintendent of Reynoldsburg City Schools Eric Gordon, CEO of Cleveland Metropolitan Schools Debe Terhar, president of the State Board of Education Deb Tully, director of professionals issues for the Ohio Federation of Teachers Moderated by Chester E. Finn Jr., President, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Recorded December 7, 2011 Communities across the country are struggling to meet parental demand for high quality school options, including high-performing charter schools. Yet, with hundreds of new charter schools opening every year, not nearly enough of them offer the quality education that parents crave and kids deserve. Indeed, far too many fail to deliver education any better than the troubled neighborhood schools that they are meant as alternatives to. But a new model for charter school growth has taken root in several cities and it appears to be boosting quality as well as quantity. Charter "incubators" are accelerating the launch and development of top-flight charter schools in communities that need them most. Incubators offer the promise of not only more school choice but schools that reliably deliver academic results. Join us at the Fordham Institute to hear from leaders that are running some of the best of these new organizations. Co-sponsored by the Cities for Education Entrepreneurship Trust (CEE-Trust), this discussion will analyze the key findings from a new policy brief by Public Impact, and provide lessons on how federal, state and local policymakers can help launch new quality charter schools while encouraging the culling of weak ones.
A teacher's effectiveness has a tremendous impact on a child's learning and academic trajectory. Ohio has debated for many months about how best to strengthen the quality of its teaching force. The biennial budget adopted in June calls for the state to develop a model teacher evaluation framework by the end of 2011 and to adopt policies tying teacher evaluations to key personnel decisions such as compensation, placement, tenure, and dismissal. Likewise, school districts and charter schools must implement their own local evaluations, based on the state model, starting in 2013-14. It's evident that Ohio schools are about to undergo a major shift when it comes to how teachers are evaluated and developed, a change with great potential to impact student achievement. For this reason, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, along with the Nord Family Foundation and Ohio Grantmakers Forum, are convening this public discussion (and another one in Lorain) on assuring highly effective teachers for students across the state. Featured speakers include: Mike Miles, superintendent of Harrison School District 2 in Colorado, a school system on the cutting edge of teacher compensation reform, will review the teacher-effectiveness work his district is doing and the results they're seeing. Kate Walsh, President of the National Council on Teacher Quality, will discuss the state of teacher effectiveness nationally and what can be learned from research about teacher quality. Eric Gordon, new superintendent of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, will provide an Ohio voice on the panel. Gordon was one of the major architects of CMSD's Academic Transformation plan, which garnered national recognition for its approach to school reform. Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, moderated the discussion.
BASIS DC held a symposium on the new charter school they hope to open in the fall 2012. Panelists include DC At-Large Councilmember Sekou Biddle, Richard Kahlenberg, Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation, Jeanne Allen, President of Center for Education Reform, and Sam Chaltain, a DC-based educator and former chair of Inspired Teaching School. Fordham's Executive Vice President Mike Petrilli will moderate. For More information about BASIS DC, please contact Mary Siddall, [email protected]
Terry Ryan talks about his testimony on Senate Bill 5 and what it means for Ohio.
Mike and Checker explain how NCLB got it backwards, and what "reform realism" would look like in practice.
Tim Kitts of Florida's Bay Haven Charter Academy explains his "plus" model of school improvement, and the axes of curriculum and department structures.
Growing numbers of parents, educators, and school administrators are calling for a local "opt-out" from state tests and accountability systems. Is this opt-out a cop-out? Or would students benefit from a system that their own teachers and principals devised? Should all schools be offered an opt-out alternative, one in which they propose to be held accountable to a different set of measures? What about opt-outs for high-achieving schools or schools with good reason to be different? Would such a system move us toward or away from the goals of the Common Core? As for charter schools, must they continue to be tethered to uniform statewide accountability systems? Or should we rekindle the concept of customizing each school's charter and performance expectations?