If you wanted to dream up an example of the ill consequence of ?one size fits all? federal policy, you'd be hard pressed to do better than Arne Duncan and company's treatment of Massachusetts right now.
?We do a disservice to children when we shield them from the truth, just because some people think it is painful or doesn't fit with their particular views.? ? Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education
Eduwonk has a very good post on the NYT article on charters from this weekend. His take is worth the read.
Reading results from NAEP's Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) have been released, and the news for Cleveland fourth and eighth graders isn't much better than when
In two weeks, Harvard's excellent Program on Education Policy and Governance is hosting a conference on performance pay for teachers.
In a previous post, I discussed the probability that Secretary Duncan will have reason to forgo spending down the remaining Race to the Top funding and send money back to the Treasury.
Make sure to check out the excellent Forbes article on the nation's best charters, forward-thinking districts, and the use of data. Lots of name-checking of ed reforms biggest stars, like Achievement First, Wireless Generation, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, the Gates Foundation, New York City Public Schools, and more.
We announced a few weeks ago in Gadfly that the National Council on Teacher Quality had opened up the second year of their bi-annual research competition.
King Elementary in Akron has a long tradition of academic excellence, delivering impressive results and outscoring the district by margins of up to 28 percentage points on state tests.?It's no wonder that about 45% of students enroll here from across the district through open-enrollment. Check out our video to see some of the school's
Is school choice a genie you can put back in the bottle??? The Dayton Public School District, in Fordham's hometown, wants to try.
The?Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger turns in?a nice column today (subscription required) on the Cristo Rey network of schools.
RI's Gist gets unions to sign on to Rd 2 RTT app. This is big. Important SIF/turnaround post from Ed Week's Klein.
Huge news out of MN. The state is not applying in RTT round two, and the governor is blaming the legislature, which he accuses of being controlled by unions.
Below is a comment from Tom Loveless, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, about my post from yesterday showing big declines for top U.S. students on the PISA math test from 2003-2006.
Try this thought experience. Picture an urban school in California (let's call it ?Malcolm X?) with one of the largest achievement gaps in the state?a whopping 44 percentage point difference between whites and blacks.
Interpreting NAEP results is always an exercise in creativity, but how on Earth can you explain Los Angeles? We just learned that it's one of just two districts in the NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment program that posted gains in reading in 4th and 8th grades from 2002 to 2009.
Below is a comment from Tom Loveless, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, about my post from yesterday showing big declines for top U.S.
There's an interesting book forum coming up?on Monday, May 24, that you might want to put on your radar.
?What's good for kids is what is good for teachers.? ? Tom Dooher, Education Minnesota President
Steven Brill thinks that Race to the Top era will be the teachers’ unions’ undoing.
In our rush to reinvigorate science and math in our nation’s schools, have we left the humanities in the dust? Peter Berkowitz thinks so. “No doubt science and math are vital,” he writes.
Conventional wisdom says that a college degree equals a better job, higher lifetime earnings, and a happier life. But is college the only way to live the American Dream?
What’s the price of common sense school reform? If Central Falls is any guide, the answer is sit-ins, protests, and demonstrations, a strongly worded rebuke by the President of the United States (and his Education Secretary), and grandiose rhetorical battles played out on the opinions pages of every major newspaper.
No Child Left Behind can be summed up in four words: good ideas gone awry. Unfortunately, one key part of the Obama Administration’s “blueprint” for overhauling the landmark federal law might perpetuate that legacy for another ten years.
National Center for Education StatisticsMay 2010
C. Kirabo JacksonNational Bureau of Economic ResearchMay 2010
Meredith Honig, Michael Copland, Lydia Rainey, Juli Anna Lorton, Morena NewtonCenter for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of WashingtonApril 2010
