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Another gap
?Closing the Talent Gap,? a new report from McKinsey & Company, uses data to usefully describe ideas we already know, specifically that:
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Education News Nuggets
Want to mentor a child? Plan on sticking around for awhile. At least ?till they make it to college.
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Quotable & Notable
?Suppose for a minute that the child care industry were as well organized as the teacher's union, do you think that preschool would be considered such an unquestionably good public investment?? ?Rob Manwaring, Senior Policy Analyst at Education Sector
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Quotable & Notable
To grab your attention: maybe we don't really live in a left brain/right brain world.
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McKinsey's "Closing the Talent Gap"
McKinsey just released its much-awaited report, Closing the talent gap: Attracting and retaining top third graduates to a career in teaching. To those of us in the education world the findings aren't a total surprise?
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?Dominick, Go Frisk ?em?**
Catholic schools are back in the news as the New York Diocese prepares for what the Times is calling an ?aggressive effort to close or consolidate elementary schools?? ? as many as 30 of the 216 in the system, reports the Times.
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Poor methodology and research cloud charter school report
Earlier this week, Policy Matters Ohio released a report on charter school accountability, the main finding of which is that when charter schools are operated by management organizations, for-profit and non-profit alike, too often the management organizations are running the show, not the independent boards that
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It still pays
. . . to attend college. So says the College Board in a study released today that finds, according to the New York Times, that ?the pay premium for those with bachelor's degrees has grown substantially in recent years.?
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Teachers won't vote Democrat this November
On the Washington Post's Answer Sheet blog, Anthony Cody, a longtime science teacher, offers some words of warning to Democrats:
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?Cracking the code,? or ed reformers on crack?
Hubris alert! My friends in the education reform community are feeling triumphant, now that Waiting for Superman is about to hit the theaters with its ?to the barricades? message. Count me as worried; just consider what happened to Adrian Fenty when he got over-confident and morally righteous.
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Education News Nuggets
?The nation's approach to teaching reading is analogous to a builder laying the foundation of a house, but not following through to assist with the walls, windows, doors, and roof.? ?Bob Wise, President of Alliance for Excellent Education
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One Hand Clapping in Neshaminy
Though it is named after a nearby creek that is thought to mean, in the language of the Lenni Lenape First Nation, ?place where we drink twice,? teachers in the Neshaminy School District, a Bucks County district somewhere between Trenton and Philly, have apparently drunk from something other than the creek.
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Forget the iPad ? Get me a livescribe smart pen
It's hard to know any more how information gets packaged, but many of us still buying print were pleasantly surprised yesterday to find the New York Times magazine?opening the 3-pound Sunday Times is still a little like Christmas?devoted to education.
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A promising future for charter schools in Dayton
There was a terrific editorial in Saturday's Dayton Daily News about the storied 12-year charter school history in Fordham's home town and why we can be optimistic about the future of charters there.
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Quotable & Notable
?You can't be proficient at some academic tasks without having certain knowledge be automatic? you need something like drilling.'' ?Daniel Willingham, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia
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Don't bring that weak stuff up in here
Kevin Welner asserts that a recent blog post in which I criticized him, his organization, and his colleagues ?avoids substance? and includes a ?broad intimation?
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Education News Nuggets
It's not surprising that there are health benefits for kids who walk to school, but now research indicates that it might make them smarter, too (if you can even
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Eureka!
Natalie Hopkinson has figured out what has caused all the preternatural perennial [look, they both start with the same letter and it's Friday afternoon, okay?] problems in Washington, D.C.'s public s
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?Chilling?
That's how the Washington Post's Valerie Strauss, on the paper's Answer Sheet blog, described the D.C. premiere of Waiting for Superman. ?D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee,? Strauss wrote, ?used the occasion of the D.C.
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Alfie Kohn on Robert Samuelson
Education writer Alfie Kohn takes on the Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson. Some of Kohn's points are fine, but really: Is Samuelson so wrong?
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Flypaper's Michelle Rhee poll
It's missing an answer option: ?She should go. She has already made clear that she doesn't want to work with Vincent Gray, and so their relationship could not be a productive one.? ?Liam Julian
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Quotable & Notable
?Most days I wake up and think, gosh, we've just begun to scratch the surface of issues that plague this school system.'' ?Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools
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Should Rhee stay, or should she go?
The DC Democratic primary?which had Vincent Gray ousting Adrian Fenty?has many in the edu-blogo-sphere wondering: what will happen to Michelle Rhee once Gray takes the reins?
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DC Reformers: To the suburbs!
All the buzz is about education reform in the District of Columbia in a post-Adrian Fenty (and, probably, post-Michelle Rhee) world. Here's a thought: the massive attention on the D.C.
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Quotable & Notable
?Mr. Fenty's defeat could send a discouraging signal to other big-city mayors considering far-reaching education overhauls.? ?Michael J. Phillips and Stephanie Branchero, Wall Street Journal
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Movie review: Waiting for ?Superman?
Feeling just a bit sheepish about being one of the few people in the throng who hadn't already seen this film, I went last evening (with Fordham research director Amber Winkler) to the big Paramount/Viacom-sponsored Washington premiere of Waiting for ?Superman??the much-discussed new education movie.
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