Commentary
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No Struggle No Progress: A Warrior's Life from Black Power to Education Reform
Lessons from a legend. Ellen Alpaugh
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Common Core State Standards in 2014: Districts' Perceptions, Progress, and Challenges
A worm’s-eye view of implementation. Victoria Sears
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Late Bell: October 8, 2014
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.
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Howls of protest? Check!
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.”
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Charter Schools
Ed reform's blind spot: Catholic schools and social capital
[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.
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Late Bell: October 6, 2014
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.
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Accountability & Testing, Standards, Charter Schools
Time for a Reboot
Ed reform is dead. Long live ed reform. Chester E. Finn, Jr.
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Character strengths can be taught
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.
Video
VIDEO: The Health of the Public Charter School Movement: A State-by-State Analysis
Twenty-six state-by-state rankings of charter school quality, growth, and innovation.
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Charter Schools
New OCR guidance on equitable resources: A godsend for charter schools?
On the whole, the new guidance from the U.S.
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The Health of the Public Charter School Movement: A State-By-State Analysis
Some good results, but there’s work to be done everywhere. Megan Lail
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Standards, Curriculum & Instruction
How to kill reading achievement
There’s more to Common Core than “close reading.” Robert Pondiscio
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Standards
In the Common Core era, different kids need different credentials
We need two kinds of high school diplomas. Chester E. Finn, Jr.
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District school authorizers and next-generation accountability
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.
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The one question that should determine NCLB waiver renewals
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.
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The one question that should determine NCLB waiver renewals
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.
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Charter Schools
It’s time for Annenberg and AFT to be a little bit more “progressive”
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?).
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First Bell: September 25, 2014
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.
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Standards, Curriculum & Instruction
Leveled reading: The making of a literacy myth
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.
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Standards, Accountability & Testing
A new start on accountability
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.
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The high cost of misinformation
On Monday, Paul Peterson penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that American politicians ought to stop exploiting the common, mistaken belief that most schools are getting by on a shoestring.