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Arne Duncan: We're going to hold private schools ?accountable?
The Administration's number-one pitchman thinks I'm being overly critical about the Race to the Top, but what does he have to say about
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Will we ever get past race and class?
For the better part of a week, Washington has been consumed by the Shirley Sherrod pseudo-scandal, leading many pundits to ponder race relations in America circa 2010.
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Quotable and notable
?To suggest that a charter school started by community members who want to help kids in their community cannot serve 100 percent Hispanic kids in a community that's 100 percent Hispanic ? that they should be penalized for that or they shouldn't be allowed to open up ? that doesn't make sense.''
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Race to the Top: ?avalanche? is a relative term
Arne Duncan just announced 19 finalists for Race to the Top round two, including Ohio, saying that these applications represented the boldest reforms (and by ?bold,? that means those in the top 51 percent of the 36 states plus?DC?to submit).
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Back to the education future: Liberal arts and creativity
An interesting article in the July 10th edition of Newsweek illustrates a growing ?Creativity Crisis? facing US students. Creativity has always been considered a key to continued US strength, but general creativity scores for US students have been falling consistently since 1990.?
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Race to the Top
Well, as you've probably seen/heard by now, there are 19 finalists for the federal Race to the Top Phase 2 competition (35 states and the District of Columbia had applied.) Education Secretary Arne Duncan made the announcement during a speech at the National Press Club earlier today.
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Back to the education future: National assessments
With the common core standards seemingly on their way to mass adoption it's time for us to turn our eyes to the next step of the Common Core: nati
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The Race to the Press Release
Arne Duncan is going to announce the finalists in the second round of the Race to the Top tomorrow, the significance of which is?nothing. The Secretary is free to name as many states as he wishes, which is precisely what I suspect he'll do.
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Mike on ABC News
Mike appeared on ABC News on Saturday, discussing the North Carolina school busing fray. If you haven't heard, the Wake County school board recently decided to stop busing students, thus prompting accusations of school resegregation. Watch the video for more.
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Quotable and notable
?Every child in a District of Columbia public school has a right to a highly effective teacher ? in every classroom, of every school, of every neighborhood, of every ward, in this City. That is our commitment. Today . . . we take another step toward making that commitment a reality.''
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The long-term outlook for common education standards
The??common core? state standards for grades K-12?have been released. Much will need to happen if these standards and related assessments are to get traction in American education over the next few years. But we at the?Fordham Institute are looking even further ahead: we're considering the issues that will determine the long-term viability of this endeavor.
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Back to the education future: College crisis
Today in the New York Times, reporter Tamar Lewin wrote about the growing college-completion rate gap between the U.S. and other countries. The US previously led the world in 25-34 year olds with college degrees, but now ranks 12th out of 36 developed nations.
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Education news nuggets
We've all learned from Mel Gibson that recorded racial epithets are very poor for job security. Could a republican controlled Congress save the Obama presidency?
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District of Columbia, school choice mecca
I was on a panel yesterday with Josh Edelman, the director of the Office of School Innovation at the District of Columbia Public Schools. Just 20 percent of DC students attend their neighborhood public school. I asked him how many DCPS students attend school ?out-of-boundary.? His answer? 70 percent.
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Quotable and notable
?But the reality is, if we don't do something, all of the important programs, not only public defense but we're talking about children's programs, after-school programs, education, senior programs, everything that we care about as progressives is going to be lost because it's being sucked up by the cost of pensions?
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Education news nuggets
Attention parents: if you can't get your boys to read, why not try some potty-humor? It might make him more productive.
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Back to the education future: National education standards
The Common Core is the latest chic accessory for states to adopt. As of today, 29 states and counting have adopted. But look back four years, and national education standards weren't even a twinkle in Arne Duncan's eye. According to a Thomas B.
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Quotable and notable
?[The National Standards are] a beginning point for us all to be on the same page in education.'' ?Dotti Love Wade, Member of the D.C. State Board of Education
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National education standards that even conservatives can love
After votes yesterday in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, twenty-nine states have now embraced the new “Common Core” standards for primary and secondary education.
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A heady dose of realism
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is on a cost-cutting warpath in the Garden State. His latest bull’s eye: superintendent pay. New Jersey has a whole lot of notoriously small school districts—591 of them—which not only adds up when it translates into paying 591 supes, but also encourages bidding wars between districts that drive up salaries.
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Pass central office; go straight to kids
It was a bit slow on the uptake, but Rhode Island last month finally created its first ever state education funding formula. (It was, in fact, the only state without a formula until now.) These formulae are usually a big muddle that give districts and schools little autonomy, even as they try to even out dollars between property-tax rich suburbs and lower-income urban areas.
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Earthquake in Wake
Gadfly has generally been skeptical of Wake County, North Carolina’s busing plan, overturned this year by a new school board majority, focused as it was on making schools socioeconomically diverse more than on ensuring that their pupils lear
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Special Report: Fighting the Dropout Crisis
Richard Lee Colvin, Betsy Hammond, Dale Mezzacappa, Sarah Garland, and Thomas TochWashington MonthlyJuly/August 2010
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Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids--and What We Can Do About It
Andrew Hacker and Claudia DreifusTimes Books2010
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The Harlem Children's Zone, Promise Neighborhoods, and the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education
Grover J. Whitehurst and Michelle CroftBrown Center on Education Policy, Brookings InstituteJuly 2010
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Scaling the Digital Divide: Home Computer Technology and Student Achievement
Jacob Vigdor and Helen LaddNational Bureau of Economic ResearchJune 2010
Report
Standards
The State of State Standards—and the Common Core—in 2010
This study weighed existing state education standards against the Common Core education standards. The findings? The Common Core standards were clearer and more rigorous than English language arts standards in 37 states and math standards in 39 states.
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?Common Core' Adoption: Raising the bar
As you know if you've read the New York Times, Associated Press, Washington P