Commentary
Boo-Hoo, Part 2
Gail Collins weighs in?on our bawling Speaker?elect in this morning's Times. She too noted the school connection during?the?60 Minutes story on John Boehner, pointing out that?
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Washington micro-managers, there you go again
After months of inactivity on Capitol Hill, D.C. is humming today as the Omnibus Appropriations bill rushes toward completion. It's not a pretty picture to watch, particularly as the supposedly reform-friendly Obama Administration sells its soul in order to keep its beloved Race to the Top program alive. (OK, ?sells its soul?
Commentary
Starbucks Stadium at Halliburton High
The New York Times reported yesterday that, on Tuesday night, the school board of the Los Angeles Unified School District ?unanimously approved a plan . . . to allow the district to seek corporate sponsorships as a way to get money to the schools.?
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The party of ?no??
United Teachers Los Angeles held a news conference yesterday, at which its brass proclaimed that they were not ?the villains of education.?
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Food for thought
Julie Gunlock, a senior fellow at the Independent Women's Forum,* writes on NRO that the newly signed Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act will ?lead to a greater
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Quotable & Notable
?You cannot be trusted to provide your child a nutritious meal because ultimately the government is smarter than you.'' * Julie Gunlock, Senior Fellow, Independent Women's Forum, on the Child Nutrition Bill
Commentary
Reform School: Tony Bennett
We call it ?Reform School: Lessons from Today's Leading Reformers.? We'll hear from Education Reformers in their own words. Our very first comes from Tony Bennett, the Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction. Who would you like to hear from?? Comment below or send us a Tweet with #reformschool
Commentary
Boo-Hoo Boehner: Future Speaker Overcome by the American Dream
I am still recovering from last Sunday's 60 Minutes tear-jerker.
Commentary
Ready, Aim, Fire: California's Parent Trigger
This may or may not be the answer to eternally bad schools, but a little parent revolution surely can't be any worse than any of the other attempts at getting poor kids a good educati
Commentary
Class Warfare, Republican Style
Politicians clearly revel in class warfare. Democrats?always rage at the well-to-do and try to present themselves as champions of the less prosperous. (See current goings-on in Congress regarding federal income and estate taxes.)
Commentary
Education News Nuggets
In case you missed it, Obama signed the Child Nutrition Bill into law on Monday?click here to see the ?before & after? school lunch menu.?
Commentary
Reflecting on 2010
In my other life (as a Hoover Institution fellow and chairman of the Koret Task Force on K-12 education), I've lately?had the pleasure of joining Bill Evers and other task force members in distilling the most important education events of the past year and sorting them into ?best? and ?worst? columns.
Commentary
Even under the best of circumstances, turnarounds fail
There's plenty of sobering news in Fordham's new report, Are Bad Schools Immortal? The Scarcity of Turnarounds and Shutdowns in Both Charter and District Sectors.
Commentary
He's fed up
Last week the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, while speaking in front of?loads of legislators?at a public forum of the Public Policy Institute of California, said this: ?At every step of the way, when Los Angeles was coming together to effect real change in our public schools, UTL
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Stuff is going down down south
During the Florida gubernatorial campaign, most voters were paying attention to then-candidate Rick Scott's past?as head of a hospital chain that paid $1.7 billion in fines in the largest Medicare fraud case in history. Now that Scott is the governor-elect, those voters (and?the press)?are turning their focus to the policy plans he released several months ago.
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Quotable & Notable
?I think we have schizophrenia in the U.S. that we believe all U.S. schools are lousy except the schools we send our kids to.? * Larry Cuban, Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University
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Quotable & Notable
?Until we start seeing assessments that ask kids to write research papers, ask them to solve unfamiliar problems, ask them to defend their ideas, ask them to engage with both fiction and nonfiction texts; until those kinds of assessments are our state assessments, all we're measuring are basic skills.'' *
Report
Accountability & Testing
Are Bad Schools Immortal?
This study from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute finds that low-performing public schools—both charter and traditional district schools—are stubbornly resistant to significant change. After identifying more than 2,000 low-performing charter and district schools across ten states, analyst David Stuit tracked them from 2003-04 through 2008-09 to determine how many were turned around, shut down, or remained low-performing. Results were generally dismal. Seventy-two percent of the original low-performing charters remained in operation—and remained low-performing-five years later. So did 80 percent of district schools. Read on to learn more.
Commentary
Education News Nuggets
There seems to be quite a blame game going on in education these days: see here and here.
Commentary
Get Smart: New York's New Number Two
This morning's Times has a nice profile of Shael Polakow-Suransky, New York City School's new #2 (defined, oddly enough,?as ?the educational counterpart to Cathleen?P. Black, the businesswoman chancellor?). ? Among the highlights,
Commentary
Tough time for tenure
The Wall Street Journal reports today that a higher percentage than usual of New York City teachers will not receive tenure this year ?as the city moves to make more difficult the path to lifetime employment.?
Commentary
NEW REPORT: Are Bad Schools Immortal?
This new study, Are Bad Schools Immortal? The Scarcity of Turnarounds and Shutdowns in Both Charter and District Sectors from the Thomas B.
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Education news nuggets
Low on cash for the holidays? You can always save by eating cheese sandwiches.
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You can blame the youth
Americans may overwhelmingly believe that education is vitally important to the nation's economic success. But that doesn't mean they're willing to keep footing the bill for it.
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The marriage gap
At Commentary's blog, Contentions, Peter Wehner directs readers to a new study (from the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values) that is, according to Wehner, ?both somewhat encouraging and quite ala
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Ask the kids
?Kids know effective teaching when they experience it.? So says Harvard's Ronald Ferguson, a researcher who designed questionnaires that were given to thousands of students across the nation and which asked those students to evaluate their teachers.
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Quotable & Notable
?Attracting good talent is a challenge in the best of circumstances. And this is not the best of circumstances.'' [In reference to Atlanta schools] * Mike Casserly, Executive Director of the Council of the Great City Schools
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Absurdly inappropriate behavior can't be only reason for teacher dismissal
This week the Cleveland Plain Dealer announced that the district and teachers union will begin working on a new teacher evaluation that will include ?evidence of student learning.?
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Atlanta burning? At least, hoping that tomorrow is another day
Last summer it was the cheating scandal that ?haunts? Atlanta's schools chief, as reports of widespread efforts by teachers to change test scores mounted.