This week, Mike, Rick, and guest co-host Dave DeSchryver talk about K-Fed, Argentina and Mexico, waterfalls, money, and, of course, elections. We have an interview with a real political insider (a Gadfly Show convert, to boot!), and News of the Weird is soooo dramatic.
Mike and Rick are together again. This week, they discuss indoctrination in Minnesota ed schools, the worst education ideas of the decade, and whether David will slay the 21st Century Skills Goliath. Then Amber tells us about the new NAEP TUDA results in math and Rate that Reform locks the facilities.
Education Sector is holding an event to chat about its recent report on rethinking the school day and how schools use it. It will be at 8:45 a.m. on Wednesday, February 7th, at the National Press Club. More info here.
Every day, sometimes several times a day, the media report more rounds of layoffs at major American firms, from Microsoft to Caterpillar to Fidelity to Macy's and beyond. But the private sector is not the only one hemorrhaging jobs in the current recession; school districts from coast to coast are letting go of employees, too.
Don’t miss this week’s edition, wherein Rick and Mike discuss Fordham’s new charter autonomy study, Duncan’s “stakeholder buy-in” mess, and the pending downfall of “last hired, first fired.” Then Amber reports on twins and teacher effectiveness, and Stafford tells Big Brother to sign up for P.E.
In catching up on local news from late last week, there were at least six news articles about school snow days in Ohio.
The New York Times has had a veritable flock of noteworthy education stories the last several days and, at the risk of bursting readers' 20 article bubble, I would recommend all five.
Okay, it's not exactly what Rupert might condone, but since he and his crew are preoccupied and because our News Nuggets shop has plenty to do, I offer some education highlights from my weekend reading:
Which of the five states competing to be America's next Education Reform Idol did the most to collective bargaining and benefits during the 2011 legislative session?
Something about Liam's post calling Boston-based Sociedad Latina's campaign for cultural training for teachers ?delusional? rubs me the wrong way. I concede his point about one thing: The Boston Globe reports that ?culturally relevant instructional practices?
Diane also proposes that Ken Kay rename??his group the "Partnership for 21st Century Skills and Knowledge." There's a reason people believe P21 is all about skills...it's in the name! And that's a wrap for today.
I'm currently on the Amtrak back from Philly, where I spoke before the education committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures. I decided to be provocative, purposely trying to raise their blood pressure a bit.
Here's a general rule: when you see sentences like the one??above, know to be very, very skeptical.
A few days ago I wondered what Secretary Duncan was planning to do to hold private schools ?accountable,? as he promised the National Urban League. I've now received word from his press shop that the word ?private?
The movie is out, the reviews are written, and now the ground game has begun.
Some reformers mistrust school boards almost as much as they despise teachers unions. It's not that they have any particular beef with democratic control of public schools. It's that they've come to see the unions on both sides of the bargaining table. That's because said unions often manage to capture the very boards with which they then negotiate.
Have you missed all of the polls and prognostications of the election season? Here's the antidote to your data withdrawal: Fordham's pick-the-next-secretary-of-education daily tracking poll!
The Core Knowledge national conference is taking place February 22-24 in Washington, D.C. Don't miss Thursday's special sessions and keynote addresses from E.D. Hirsch, Jr. and acclaimed teacher and author Rafe Esquith. They also have a nifty panel moderated by Diane Ravitch.
You may have noticed in today's email announcement about Stretching the School Dollar that we misspelled the word "school" in the email's header. Outsourcing our own editorial capacity to India as a cost cutting measure seems to have backfired. As an education shop, we felt we had to apologize for the orthographic mauling of the institution we work daily to improve.
In a move that K.T. Hayloft has called "dastardly" and "akin in awfulness to the hypothetical love-child of Genghis Khan and Amy Winehouse," the California Department of Education plans to randomly select "superstudents" in each public school, youngsters whose test scores will count for those of all their peers.
Whither educational entrepreneurship? asks Rick Hess and a glittering array of experts who will speak at an American Enterprise Institute conference all day long on October 25, 2007. Find out more about the event and RSVP here.
About a year ago we published a major new look at high-achieving charter schools by exceptional story-teller David Whitman. You responded by buying every last copy we had (including the personal copies of our staff!). Well, good news: A new and improved second edition of Sweating the Small Stuff is now available for purchase on Amazon.com.
Think your child is going to school too young? Don’t move to Sweden. In Mother Svea, children enter preschool as young as twelve months.
This week, we welcome guest co-host Andy Smarick. He and Mike discuss the DC voucher program's slow death, Obama's overseas mea culpas, and Tucson's plans to ditch principals. Then, Amber tells us about the updated Calder study on high school TFA teachers and Rate that Reform talks old-school poisoning.
This week, Mike and Rick debate school discipline in Las Vegas, firing teachers in Iowa, and academic freedom in Florida. Jeff Kuhner is outraged about students who punch their teachers, and Education News of the Weird investigates a local retail area. Click here to listen through our website and peruse past editions.
Sometimes you have to take one step backward to go two steps forward. That's more or less what happened in New York State when the clock struck midnight on July 1, the long-scheduled date for "sunset" of mayoral control of Gotham's schools.
The Education Gladfly is published once a year by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. It ordinarily appears on April 1, but may never appear again if this issue is poorly received.
For information on Fordham's first year of experience as a charter sponsor in Ohio, there's no better source than the Foundation's brand-new Sponsorship Accountability Report 2005-06.
Are you a K-12 administrator or teacher? Or an education researcher? The Fulbright Scholar Program (one of the many Fulbright programs) invites you to apply for 2010-2011 academic year grants. The program, sponsored by the State Department, is geared towards academics and scholars looking to participate in international intellectual exchange. The deadline is August 1, 2009.
Do school turnarounds work? Come learn more at Fordham on January 28, 2010 from 2pm-3:30pm.
