Today's Quotable and Notable
Quotable: "Most of the federal grants are organized around concentrations of poverty, we don't really have concentrations." -Rae Ann Knopf, Vermont Deparment of Education
Quotable: "Most of the federal grants are organized around concentrations of poverty, we don't really have concentrations." -Rae Ann Knopf, Vermont Deparment of Education
One of the great canards in public education is that no one should profit from the public schools.
Craig D. JeraldThe Center for Public EducationJuly 2009
Bryan C. Hassel and Daniela DoylePublic Impact In The Tab, ConnCAN (a well-connected Connecticut education advocacy group) and Public Impact (a crackerjack education research organization) make the case for Connecticut’s move to a school funding system that:
By J.B. Schramm & E. Kinney ZalesneDecember 2009
…I’m starting to see a pattern. Merit pay. Performance pay. Value-added. What is so bothersome to teachers (and unions) about these terms is not the words themselves but that they measure merit, performance, and value according to something they don’t like: student test scores.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) –also known as the “nation’s report card”—released district-level results last week for 18 urban districts including Cleveland.
Congratulations to our good friend Tom Lasley on his retirement from the University of Dayton’s School of Education and Allied Professions. Tom not only spent more than 30-years of distinguished service as an education professor but was also an unrelenting champion for students and schools in the Dayton area.
Dayton is famous for its innovators – the Wright Brothers; John H. Patterson, who founded the National Cash Register Company in the late 1800s; and Charles F. Kettering, who developed the first electric starter for cars, all come to mind. It’s not surprising, then, with such a history that one of the country’s great educational innovators today also comes from Dayton.
The holiday season is a great time to catch up on these 2009 Fordham-Ohio publications you might have missed during the year:
The first major component of Governor Strickland’s education reform plan, an all-day kindergarten mandate facing Ohio school districts in the 2010-11 school year, is making apparent why the “evidence-based” funding model cannot live up to the lofty expectations the governor and others have set for it.
The Department released the list of states that have submitted letters indicating their intention to apply in the first RTT round. ??I'm less surprised that there are 36 states (more than some expected) than by some of the names not on the list. Those who haven't sent in letters include:
The WSJ penned an interesting editorial yesterday on Secretary Duncan and Michelle Rhee, noting that while the secretary supports important reforms, he hasn't helped the chancellor in her donnybrook with the union.
Quotable: "If you say the next person who talks in class will be set on fire and rolled down the hallway, you're in trouble if someone talks and you don't set them on fire and roll them down the hallway."
I'll admit that it's a little off-topic (OK, a lot off-topic) but I have a piece by that name in today's Wall Street Journal. -Mike Petrilli
Eduwonk uncovers how FL is getting tough and specific about collective bargaining agreements in its push for RTT funds.
Student data to be 50% of teacher evaluations under LA's RTT application Big merit pay component of FL's RTT application
In his recent blog post, Mike rightly noted that in the tracking debate, "to track or not to track" is NOT the question.
Fordham's??new report (about tracking/detracking in middle school) is causing some buzz.
Quotable: "They could have took this test in French and done just as bad...No other city in the history of [NAEP] has done this bad." -Tonya Allen, Founding Member of the Detroit Parent Network
With 2010 fast approaching, I've been hearing from several reporters asking about the best or worst education ideas of this decade. (A decade that never really had a name, did it?) No Child Left Behind will no doubt be on both lists, depending on who you ask, and it surely qualifies as A Big Deal. But was it really the most significant education idea, for good or ill?
Yesterday, I called Maryland the nation's greatest Race to the Top disappointment. But the state superintendent appears to be trying to do something about that.
The role of teachers unions in education reform has been on my mind a great deal lately. The issue was front and center when I talked to school board members in California.
Anybody who thinks charter schools are plateauing or reaching some sort of natural limit had better think again.??The Texas Public Policy Foundation has just released the number of young Texans who were on waiting lists for charter schools in that state during the last scho
Maryland may be the biggest disappointment in the nation when it comes to the Race to the Top. It hasn't lifted a finger to change laws or policies, as perfectly noted in this scathing editorial.
Our latest report, "Tracking and Detracking: High Achievers in Massachusetts Middle Schools ," analyzes the implications of tracking, or grouping students i
When Emmy returned from a Midwest REL conference on educator compensation in October, she brought with her a Center on Education Reform report on "alternative compensation terminology." Not the most scintillating title, but the paper had some persuasive takeaways.
Miriam Kutzig FreedmanSchool Law Pro and Park Place Publications2009