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Special education, back in the spotlight
The twin pressures of budget cuts and accountability are spurring calls for change
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New Fordham report about charter authorizing work
The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has been authorizing (aka sponsoring) charter schools in Ohio since 2005, and each year we submit an ?accountability report? to the state that documents our authorizing work, our schools' performance, and more. Sharing lessons from our charter authorizing work is important and so we spend a lot of time and energy on it.
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Yale Program Bites Dust
It's just a brief news item in Education Week, but it caught my eye:? Yale is ending its masters degree program in urban education.
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Digital learning's skeletons in the closet
Over the past decade, digital learning at the K-12 level has exploded?from a national enrollment of 40,000 to 50,000 in 2000 to an estimated 3 million in 2010. And this mushrooming isn't likely to slacken any time soon. Forgive the melodrama and trite adages.
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The dadgum unions are in their sights
?There is no way in our state right now that the dadgum unions are going to agree with this kind of stuff.?
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Jump rope and judges
The?California Court of Appeal ruled 3-0 yesterday that a parent can sue a school in order to compel it to provide the physical education that state law mandates?viz., 200 minutes of kinetic exertion every ten days in elementary schools, and 400 minutes in middle and high schools.
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Quotable & Notable
?These days it seems anyone with any degree of managerial success is qualified to run whole school systems. But only school systems. I'd love to see someone make the argument that private sector managerial experience entitles you to run the NYPD.'' * Ta-Nehisi Coates, Senior Editor, The Atlantic
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WEBCAST: Are Education Schools Amenable to Reform?
Many reformers and funders have written off schools of education as beyond repair, and much of the current energy for teacher preparation is centered on non-traditional programs like Teach For America. But are schools of education more ready for reform than the conventional wisdom supposes? The event is LIVE on December 2 at 3:30pm.
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Arne Duncan Talks Tough
Fordham's Mike Petrilli and AEI's Rick Hess have penned a thoughtful piece that you can find on <
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More Race to the Top drop-outs
A week ago, upon hearing that the Ohio Department of Education rejected the majority of districts' and charter schools' Race to the Top proposals, we pondered whether this would instigate a dropping-out effect among
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Does Competition Improve Public Schools?
Cassandra M.D. Hart & David FiglioEducation NextWinter 2010
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Measuring Teacher and Leader Performance: Cross-Sector Lessons for Excellent Evaluations
Public ImpactJulie Kowal and Emily Ayscue HasselNovember 2010
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Are Education Schools Amenable to Reform?
Many reformers and funders have written off schools of education as beyond repair, and much of the current energy for teacher preparation is centered on non-traditional programs like Teach For America. But are schools of education more ready for reform than the conventional wisdom supposes?
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You're Leaving? Sustainability and Succession in Charter Schools
Center for Reinventing Public EducationChristine CampbellNovember 2010
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Of dropout factories and budget scissors
Much has been made lately of the idea of lengthening school days, but one school district in Marysville, Ohio, is thinking about shortening them.
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Value-added can help schools keep the best teachers
Taxpayers invest a lot in their teachers, and good ones are worth every penny. Nothing affects student performance more than great teachers. Conversely, weak teachers can do irreparable damage to children and their learning. This alone should prompt Ohio to glean as much information as possible about teacher effectiveness.
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Video profiles of Fordham-authorized schools
Want to learn more about the schools Fordham authorizes? Check out these video profiles of each school.
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International Benchmarking: State Education Performance Standards
American Institutes for Research (AIR)Gary W. PhillipsOctober 2010
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Education and immigration
Education Secretary Arne Duncan is pushing lawmakers to pass during?Congress's lame-duck session the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act, before the new year brings with it a new, more conservative?legislative body. The act in question would make legal residency a possibility for those immigrants who came, illegally, to the U.S.
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They're not going to take it
The kids are rioting in Italy (the Italian protesters are calling today ?Block Everything Day?) and the UK, their fury fanned by cuts and changes to education.
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?A' for obsequiousness
An article in the New York Times Week in Review section tells the story of Ellis Middle School, where the teachers, after examining four years of data, discovered that the pupils earning As and Bs often did worse on end-of-year tests than those who habitually received Ds and
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A new voice
This morning the interim chancellor of Washington, D.C.'s public schools gave her first interview to National Public Radio's D.C. affiliate, WAMU.
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Quotable & Notable
?Three in four students graduating from high school is nothing to celebrate in a country like ours.? * Andrew Rotherham, Co-founder and partner at Bellwether Education
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Education News Nuggets
Need a new way to advertise your business? Looks like school buses may soon be a viable option.
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Quotable & Notable
?[But] political winds are shifting, with the growing likelihood that policy and procedures will change so as to catalyze more school choice.'' Bruno V. Manno, Senior Adviser for K-12 education, Walton Family Foundation
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Rahm Emmanuel: The education mayor?
The former White House Chief of Staff and current candidate for mayor of the Windy City announced last week that he wanted Chicago to be the first city to adopt the ?Common Core standards.??