Late Bell: October 9, 2014
START SPREADING THE NEWSGreat news for students at underperforming district schools in New York City: On Wednesday, the Empire State
START SPREADING THE NEWSGreat news for students at underperforming district schools in New York City: On Wednesday, the Empire State
Lessons from a legend. Ellen Alpaugh
Analysts are half-right. Robert Pondiscio
A worm’s-eye view of implementation. Victoria Sears
NEW PRESIDENT FOR STUDENTSFIRSTJim Blew of the Walton Foundation will take over the helm of the advocacy group StudentsFirst after the resignation of founder Michelle Rhee, who announced she was stepping down two months ago.
In a recent EdNext column, Checker Finn proposed what he expected to be a controversial solution to the problem of low levels of college readiness among our high school graduates: namely, “different ways of completing—and being credentialed for completing—one’s primary and secondary education.”
[Editor’s note: This is the fifth in a series of personal reflections on the current state of education reform and contemporary conservatism by Andy Smarick, a Bernard Lee Schwartz senior policy fellow with the Thomas B.
Welcome to the new-and-improved Late Bell, Fordham's uncanny afternoon newsletter! We're starting off our bold new era with a special Fordham-in-the-news edition.
Ed reform is dead. Long live ed reform. Chester E. Finn, Jr.
As the founder and Executive Director of KIPP Philadelphia Schools, I was surprised to read Dr. Laurence Steinberg’s Flypaper post on how KIPP charter schools approach character development. In response to his portrayal of our character work, I want to offer a KIPP educator’s perspective.
Twenty-six state-by-state rankings of charter school quality, growth, and innovation.
On the whole, the new guidance from the U.S.
Some good results, but there’s work to be done everywhere. Megan Lail
There’s more to Common Core than “close reading.” Robert Pondiscio
We need two kinds of high school diplomas. Chester E. Finn, Jr.
I’m excited about a recent shift in the reform conversation. After years of focusing on Common Core, common assessments, and teacher evaluation, many of those interested in large-scale K–12 improvements are turning their attention back to state accountability systems.
As a premed student in college, I grew accustomed to being evaluated on just a handful of marks—two midterms and a final exam made up the entire grade. With so few assignments, the stakes to do well on each test were high. But there were a couple of professors who upped the ante even more. They’d toss out your shoddy midterm grades if you aced the final, no questions asked.
As a premed student in college, I grew accustomed to being evaluated on just a handful of marks—two midterms and a final exam made up the entire grade. With so few assignments, the stakes to do well on each test were high. But there were a couple of professors who upped the ante even more. They’d toss out your shoddy midterm grades if you aced the final, no questions asked.
There’s a lot of talk about disruptive innovation these days. It seems hardly a month goes by that we don’t see some sort of exciting new innovation that changes an industry. Sometimes it happens over and over again in the same space. First we had paper maps that were replaced by custom driving directions we could print out from MapQuest (remember those?).
DEPARTMENT OF GOOD NEWS:Hispanic children, the fastest growing group of young people in the U.S., are seeing improvements on many academic measures, including increased math proficiency and lower dropout rates.
Among opponents of the Common Core, one of the more popular targets of vitriol is the standards’ focus on improving literacy by introducing higher levels of textual complexity into the instructional mix.
Every child should be in a school where he or she can learn effectively. That’s not a controversial goal in itself, but the methods meant to accomplish it can become hot buttons.