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The Effectiveness of Secondary Math Teachers from Teach for America and the Teaching Fellows Programs

This study of Teach For America (TFA) and Teaching Fellows secondary math teachers explores how their students compare to peers taking the same course, in the same school, from teachers who entered the profession through traditional certification programs (or other programs not as rigorous as TFA or Teaching Fellows).

Indiana Common Core Implementation: Fiscal Impact Report

Among the provisions of Indiana’s so-called Common Core “pause” legislation was a requirement that the state’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) provide an estimate of the cost of implementing these standards and their assessments.

Don’t say you weren’t warned!

Don’t call me and my friends Chicken Littles or “boys (and girls) who cried wolf.” The sky was beginning to fall down—and the wolf was approaching the lamb—three decades ago when we joined the National Commission on Excellence in Education in warning that the country’s future and the career (and income and social-mobility) prospects of millions of its citizen

Charter school restarts: Let’s give them a try

Harlem Day is one of the oldest charter schools in New York City—and, historically, one of its most troubled. It has had nine principals in the nine years since its founding in 2001, and fewer than 25 percent of its students could read and do math at grade level.

You can’t fight something with nothing

For the past year, much of the ed-reform world has been concerned about the (seemingly) growing opposition from the right to the Common Core standards. But the closer you look at these critiques of Common Core, the weaker their case appears. Can something as solid as CCSS really be stopped by such an intellectually flimsy attack?

We add to Duncan's statement: Making sense of tragedy requires a solid education

Arne Duncan was right to call attention to 9/11 as an important opportunity for teaching children about the heinous events of that day twelve years ago, about honoring those who perished, and about the value of "coming together" as Americans.

By the Company It Keeps: Preston Smith

I liked Preston Smith from the very start. We talked about sports and music, teased each other like high school friends, and bonded over stories of our young kids and smart, loving wives. We also shared a hardscrabble past and a set of small shoulder chips that produced in both of us a forward-leaning posture and an abiding passion for education reform.

Transparency should be for parents and taxpayers (not just policymakers)

Jason Bedrick at Cato is out with Cracking the Books, a new evaluation of the extent to which states are being transparent on education spending.

Conservatives on the Common Core: A media round-up, back-to-school edition

Do Ohio's schools deliver "what parents want"?

Supply meets demand in Ohio's schooling marketplace.

Don’t oversleep! Duncan and Petrilli make it to the Diane Rehm Show

If you missed “A Back-To-School Conversation About Education” on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show with education secretary Arne Duncan and a panel of experts (including our own Mike Petrilli), here are the key takeaways:

Voucher opponents shouldn’t be rooting for a Holder victory in Louisiana

Eric Holder's Justice Department recently announced it would not target states that had chosen to legalize marijuana due to its "limited prosecutorial resources." The Obama presidency has shown us that "insufficient funds" is an exce

De Blasio is off the mark on pre-K

Behind the rise of Bill de Blasio in the race for New York City Mayor is his proposal to raise taxes (mainly on the rich) to pay for universal pre-K throughout the city.

Netflix Academy: 10 best dinosaur videos available for streaming

I love the dinosaur stage. Love, love, love. And when your child is ready to graduate from Dinosaur Train and take in some lifelike depictions of prehistoric monsters, this is where to start.

Indiana AG sets a precedent on school choice others should follow

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller recently published an opinion that should be good news for school-choice advocates who favor customized education for low-income students

Governance Matters

Through examples of how other lands organize their education systems, Amanda Ripley's fine new book reminds us that governance matters

The misuse of Common Core tests

Why I’m for the Common Core but Against Teacher Bashing and Misuse of Tests; part three of three posts

Cities are for strivers

Challenge their children or watch them depart

Suspicious motives

The Washington Post (and many others) roundly

Next-generation science and college readiness

The recently released Appendix C, intended to clarify key choices made by writers of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), addresses College and Career Readiness. It is lengthy and rich in self-praise and in repetition of claims made earlier in the evolution of the NGSS and their initiating Framework.

Common Core can reduce teacher bashing

For many years, my son Ted has been principal of the elementary grades of a K–12 public charter school in Massachusetts. It uses the Core Knowledge Sequence (a grade-by-grade outline of essential content) as a primary tool for developing its curriculum.

Why I’m for the Common Core

Getting Back to the Head Nod on Common Standards

For the broader public, the idea that reading and math standards should be the same across the country is so sensible that to make the case for the Common Core, you sometimes first have to explain that common standards don’t already exist.

Some late summer reads

If you’re itching for some edu-reading over the long weekend (what else would you do while grilling?), here are some suggestions.

The civil-rights fight today for one leader

It has always puzzled me why the Rev. H.K. Matthews hasn’t drawn more attention for his support for private school choice. His name may not carry the weight of King, Randolph, or Rustin, but it’s doubtful that the civil-rights movement would have quickened in Florida at the pace it did without the sacrifices Matthews made.

By the Company It Keeps: Joanne Weiss

I’m a big admirer of Joanne Weiss. She recently left the U.S. Department of Education after a tremendously consequential tenure. Working behind the scenes—never seeking the limelight for herself—she had a hand in the most important federal education decisions over the last five years.

A sobering explanation for stalled racial progress, in one chart

Today’s commemoration of the March on Washington—including President Obama’s much-anticipated speech—will no doubt bring discussions of how far we’ve come in closing white/black divides—and how far we still have to go.

What parents want—and how policymakers can provide it

The dominant approach to public education for most of our nation’s history was for local districts to offer standard-issue schools, mainly neighborhood-based and essentially identical, that reflected some version of the community’s general preferences and values. Because those preferences differed somewhat from place to place, public schools differed somewhat, too.