The 100th day

President Barack Obama's "first 100 days" come to an end today, as you may have noticed from the barrage of fawning press coverage (

Evidence of innovation in school funding?

Yesterday in the Ohio Senate Education Committee, school funding expert and Buckeye (OSU class of '66 and '72) Paul Hill offered testimony about how Ohio can go about reforming its system of school funding while at the same time raising student perf

Topic of discussion: Our Advanced Placement report!

Read more about our new Advanced Placement Program report in this piece in the New York Times.

Young essayists speak to their educational opportunity

Here are a few excerpts from award-winning School Choice Ohio (see here) essays written by students who received EdChoice scholarships this year. Students wrote concerning how their learning opportunities have helped them. The topic was "Voices of School Choice."

"Thorough and efficient," huh?

Education in Ohio is full of irony, and nothing is more ironic than the connection of charter schools to the state's school funding debate that was triggered by the DeRolph Supreme Court decisions in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Chancellor Fingerhut laments teacher training

Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut believes Ohio's teacher training system is not providing enough qualified teachers for Ohio's K-12 schools. Fingerhut shared his comments last week in a wide-ranging discussion with members of the Ohio Grantmakers Forum (see here).

Charter School Board University, an Introduction to Effective Charter School Board Governance (2nd Edition)

By Brian L. CarpenterApril 2009This second edition of Brian L. Carpenter's classic, like the first edition, delivers valuable information on effective practices of charter-school governing boards in a straightforward and easy-to-understand fashion.

Dayton charter senior awarded Gates millenium scholarship

A 16-year-old senior at the Dayton Early College Academy (DECA) has been selected as a Gates Millennium Scholar, a prestigious national scholarship award that will pay for his college education. Charles Wilkes is among 1,000 students selected for the award from more than 20,000 applicants.

Education doesn't have to cost more to be better, national expert says

One of the nation's foremost school-finance authorities said yesterday that Ohio can have a much better school system without paying vastly higher sums for education by getting smarter about how it spends education dollars.

Fordham report points to possible weaknesses in AP course expansion

While the Ohio House of Representatives is poised to pass a budget bill that would expand Advanced Placement (AP) courses to every high school in the state, a report released today by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute questions whether the rapid expansion of the popular program will jeopardize its quality.

The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools

McKinsey & CompanyApril 2009

VIDEO: The future of the GOP in education

The GOP on education: Where's the next big idea?

Yesterday's debate about the future of the Republican Party on education, sponsored by Fordham, left me feeling depressed.

Starting soon: Live-blogging Fordham's "Great Debate" about the future of the GOP on education

In just a few minutes, the DC policy scene will be gathering here at Fordham for our third "Great Debate" on pressing education issues of the day.

Senator Lamar Alexander: "What would Lincoln do?"

Senator Alexander is up and is arguing that the GOP should follow President Lincoln's lead. He provided opportunities through laws such as the one creating Land-Grant Colleges and Universities. That "Lincoln Approach" was later followed by the GI Bill, Pell Grants, etc. That contrasts with the FDR "Command and Control" approach, which is dominant in k-12 education policy today.

Congressman Mike Castle: National standards "worthy of discussion"

Congressman Castle??just said??that national standards and assessments are "worthy of discussion." This is big news; few Republicans have been so open about considering supporting national standards. He worries that too many state standards are "dumbed down" and that encourages schools to "coast along."

Senator Jim DeMint: Government model is irrational and cannot work

He came from a marketing background, and it's well-known in the private sector that you have to have specialization, competition, lots of choices. Why can't we use that model in education? Nothing more different than our children: different learning styles, aptitudes, and family situations.

Common ground

Congressman Mike Castle is arguing that there's a lot of common ground in education. Education politics aren't so much about Republicans and Democrats but about the NEA. He wasn't thrilled about what he saw in the stimulus bill, but he's waiting to see what the Administration has to propose in terms of other pieces of legislation.

Ode to Joy

We DC-based policy types are susceptible to getting dangerously far removed from the quotidian thrills and struggles of real schools. So I visited four schools earlier this week while in NYC. It was a complete delight.

Ahead of the curve

Debating differing levels of charter school funding

Education is full of irony. For example, in Ohio - as in other states - charter schools were born in the late 1990s out of lawmakers' exasperation with failed district schools that were constantly seeking more funding through adequacy lawsuits in the state courts.

Depressing

Yesterday on a mid-afternoon run to CVS, I walked past a bus on the corner of 16th and K streets. Guess what was on the side? An advertisement for the now defunct DC Opportunity Scholarship program. How depressing.

President lauds a flourishing SEED for education reform

The NYC Teacher Pay-for-Performance Program: Early Evidence from a Randomized Trial

Matthew Springer and Marcus WintersCenter for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan InstituteApril 2009

The Tax and Transfer Fiscal Impacts of Dropping Out of High School in Philadelphia

Neeta P. Fogg, Paul E. Harrington, and Ishwar KhatiwadaCenter for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University for Philadelphia Workforce Investment BoardJanuary 2009

Did you hear that?

As if principals don't have enough land mines to avoid already, now they have to be delicate about decibels. San Antonio Police issued Olympia Elementary principal Terri LeBleu a ticket last week after a neighbor complained about the racket coming from her school during Family Fitness Day.

Good question from on high

This was "education week" at the Supreme Court, with the justices hearing cases about student privacy and state obligations to fund programs for English language learners. While the former received most of the attention (it involved the strip search of a thirteen-year-old girl, after all), the latter could have greater implications for education policy.

Imagining IES's future

Unless something unexpected happens during the Senate confirmation process, John Easton, who was just nominated by the White House, should be taking over as Director of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in a matter of weeks.

Another step toward national standards

It's been said before and is being said again: America needs national standards. So proclaimed representatives from 41 states last week, who met in Chicago to affirm their commitment to common expectations in math and English.

An unhappy union

Gadfly suffered some serious wing pains when news broke that teachers at New York's KIPP AMP planned to unionize; it would have been the third KIPP school in New York to have union ties (the other two, KIPP Academy and KIPP Infinity, have had union membership from the get-go because of a quirk i