A perennial question: How does the performance of students in charter schools and students in traditional schools compare? CREDO set out to answer this question in a longitudinal analysis of roughly 2,400 charter schools, operating in 16 states and comprising roughly 70 percent of the US charter school population. Let's break it down. Fundamental study design: Sound. Findings: Mixed.
Center on Education PolicyJune 2009
Corinne Herlihy, James Kemple, Howard Bloom, Pei Zhu, and Gordon BerlinMDRCJune 2009
Teachers from myriad Philadelphia high schools are complaining of palpable pressure to pass undeserving students on to the next grade. It comes in the form of memos, meetings, and even personal phone calls. "We have to give fake grades," revealed one teacher. "We're not asked to educate our kids. We're asked to pass them," explained another.
A school in Orlando, Florida, is giving new meaning to the adage "visualize your success." For Mollie Rae Elementary, which went from a F to an A on the state rating system in just one year, focusing on pupil achievement was just one part of the winning formula. Turns out the school needed actual visual help, too, in the form of prescription eyeglasses for many of its pupils' pupils.
There's some consternation within the education establishment right now with what it sees as Arne Duncan's obsession with charter schools. There he is, warning states that they will lose out on "race to the top" funds if they don't eliminate their charter school caps. There he is, arm-twisting legislators in Tennessee to pass a stronger charter law.
I hear from friends in Tennessee that the main reason the state legislature strengthened its charter school law recently was the arm-twisting of Democratic legislators by Arne Duncan and the arm-twisting of Republican legislators by Lamar Alexander.
By guest blogger and Ohio policy and research intern Matthew Walsh
Common CoreJune 2009Are you smarter than a 5th grader? In Hong Kong, probably not.
John M. Bridgeland, John J. Dilulio, Jr., and Robert Balfanz, Civic Enterprises with Peter D. Hart Research AssociatesJune 2009
If this story were part of a high school reading comprehension assessment, I think 100 percent of students could identify the intended symbolism.
This morning AEI released an issue brief I wrote about the education components of the ARRA, the federal government's massive stimulus legislation. It takes a look at how the law's push to save jobs and fill budget holes has erected serious obstacles to reform.
Sometimes we bloggers here at Flypaper have something to say and we literally want to say it, not write it. So today we introduce "Speaking of...," our new, occasional vlog (video blog) series in which we spend a minute or two opining on recent education news and issues. In this first video, Mike Petrilli talks about Education Secretary Arne Duncan's school turnaround plan.
As Mike just wrote, Secretary Duncan was at the National Charter Schools Conference today, and he spoke about turnarounds. While I continue to be thankful that he is focusing on America's worst schools, I'm disappointed by his direction--especially in one critically important area.
Years ago, when I was just entering the education reform world, an old hand heard that I had registered for a big conference and dismissively replied, "Conferences are for the uninitiated." Ouch.
Several of us at Fordham (and some of our friends and associates in the larger ed policy world) have heard recently from James Garner, the former director of Research and Training Associates in Belleville, New Jersey.
At first blush it didn't make any sense: Why was Secretary of Education Arne Duncan speaking about school turnarounds at the big National Charter Schools Conference this morning?
For those of you optimistic about our ability to fix broken schools via "turnarounds," please consider the following. It's a single sentence from a journal article explaining what government and non-profit leaders ought to know about turnarounds in the private sector:
An interesting bit of school news in the Los Angeles Times today. Seems that due to tough financial times the LA Unified School District won't be hiring any new Teach For America teachers next year!
A new report from CEP shows consistent gains on state tests for all groups of kids in the NCLB era.
Lots of interesting stuff at next week's national charter schools conference, including speeches by Secretary Duncan, Michelle Rhee, and Joel Klein. Check out the massive agenda here.
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, my old stomping grounds, has just done us all a major service and itself proud.
Over at????U.S. News & World Report, Andy Rotherham and Richard Whitmire make the case for closing underperforming charter schools and rewarding successful ones.????
This week has provided a nice natural experiment about which kinds of studies the media finds newsworthy. Four major reports, each of which might normally lead the news in a typical week, battled it out for attention.
Andy wonders if he's being naive again to think that a rise in test scores is a bad thing.
We hear that USA Today's Greg Toppo met a lovely lady today--"Brady Bunch" Mom Florence Henderson. Apparently she joined other celebs and music groups outside the Department of Education to push for more music education in schools.
The Charlotte-Mecklenberg school district blazes another trail: making teacher lay-off decisions based on performance evaluations, not seniority. If that raised your eyebrows, prepare to have them meet your hairline.
Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, Columbia UniversityJune 2009
If there's a riot in the Chino, California schools next month, blame it on...an accounting error? The state requires that pupils spend at least 54,000 minutes in instructional time each year and no fewer than 180 minutes on any one day.
