Recession could benefit education reform efforts

We're not the only ones saying that anymore! So is Marguerite Roza, a bona fide researcher at the University of Washington.

A union-busting lawyer as Arne Duncan's General Counsel?

Word came late last week that Chicago lawyer Charlie Rose (no, not that Charlie Ros

The beginning of the end for Achieve?

I can't even begin to explain the confusion, disappointment, and exasperation I feel about Achieve right now, the organization that's purportedly??all about pushing states to raise standards.

A giant leap forward in urban education reform

I think possibly the biggest mistake we've made in K-12 urban education is elevating the importance of a school's sector (traditional public, charter public, or private) above its academic quality. That is, rather than distinguishing schools based on how well they serve disadvantaged kids, our politics and policies distinguish them based on who operates them. Think of all of the ???????us vs.

Get your Education Gadfly

This week's Education Gadfly should have you riveted: Checker and Mike respond to President Obama's address to the nation (in which he talked tough about everything...except education) and panelists at an event for the releas

A smart use of district chartering

As reported by Steve Sawchuk at Education Week's Teacher Beat blog, Philadelphia superintendent Arlene Ackerman has moved to turn some of her lowest-performing schools into charters.

Obama's White House education team extraordinaire

By my calculations, it's been more than three weeks since the Obama Administration announced a new appointment for the Department of Education.

The dunce cap wasn't our idea

And neither was the headline, but you can find??Checker's and my??National Review Online article about President Obama's education agenda here.

Senator Voinovich: Pro-DC voting rights, pro-DC kids

Hooray for Senator George Voinovich of Ohio, who has conditioned his (praiseworthy) support of D.C. voting rights in Congress on the extension of the city's federally-funded school voucher program.

21st Century Skills get schooled

I hope you enjoyed my live-blogging of the Common Core event on 21st Century Skills on Tuesday, but for a more coherent overview see this lucid post from Core Knowledge's Robert Pondiscio.

PISA smackdown

I've just finished reviewing the latest Brown report from Tom Loveless at Brookings for this week's Gadfly. And it's a good one.

Turning around schools

(This is the first guest post to come from Andy Smarick, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Education where he helped manage the Department's research, budget, and policy functions.

Cutting class

Districts and states across the land are all making changes to save some change. A few are even eyeing the long-sacred cow of small class sizes.

Magna charters

If you lead a charter school that's about to be closed for poor performance, how do you fight back? Well, you might misrepresent successful schools on the editorial page of your local newspaper. Sounds bizarre that but that's the tactic employed by Michael Mayo, executive director of Uphams Corner Charter in Massachusetts, whose charter has been revoked by the state.

National standards--not if but when

In 2006, Fordham published a report with the playful name To Dream the Impossible Dream, which outlined several plausible paths to national academic standards. That dream seems less impossible today.

Who's LOLing now?

Once upon a time, little Susie was sent to the office for the errant spitball or wayward paper airplane landing in Ms. Beasley's coiffed beehive. Fast forward to 2009 and Susie--or in this case, a 14-year-old troublemaker from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin--has instead landed herself in the pen for a misuse-of-technology infraction. Her offense?

The Congressional barnyard

What has pork, cash cows, and ritual sacrifice? Why, the Omnibus Spending Bill of 2009, finally speeding through Congress. Yes, that's right, the plain ole budget for fiscal year 2009, which began, by the way, back on October 1, 2008.

The day of reckoning has arrived, except for education

President Obama's address to Congress is earning plaudits for its honesty, candor, and can-do/will-do/must-do spirit.

The 2008 Brown Center Report on American Education: How Well are American Students Learning?

Tom LovelessThe Brookings InstitutionFebruary 2009

Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans from Too Much Law

Chapter 5, "Bureaucracy Can't Teach"Philip HowardW.W. Norton & Co.January 2009

Inside Urban Charter Schools

Katherine K. Merseth et al.Harvard Education PressJanuary 2009

School Choice Yearbook 2008-09

Geoffrey Goodman et al.Alliance for School Choice and Advocates for School ChoiceFebruary 2009

Be careful what you wish for

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland surprised most observers (including us) when he left the state's education voucher program intact in his biennial budget proposal. The Educational Choice Scholarship is available to up to 14,000 students assigned to chronically underperforming public schools.

Obama: The day of reckoning has arrived, except for education

Another milestone in the march toward national standards

As reported by The Hoff at Education Week's NCLB Act II blog, earlier this week the nation's governors unanimously agreed to work toward common (i.e., national) standards. Were it not for our imploding economy this surely would have been front-page news.

Congressional Democrats versus poor kids

Nancy Pelosi's troops are on quite a tear. First they went after Reading First, a program that by most accounts is doing wonders helping disadvantaged children gain basic literacy skills.

What, me worry?

Imagine, you have been laid off and you can't find another job earning anywhere close to what you were making. Your savings have been decimated by the disaster on Wall Street. You may be renting now that you lost your home. Maybe your pension is a lot less, too.

Live blogging the 21st century skills debate

Greetings from Fordham's 7th Floor conference room, which is jam-packed with a standing-room-only crowd to hear a debate about the "21st Century Skills" movement, staged by Common Core. Here's the line-up: Panelists: Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education, New York University

Live blogging the 21st century skills debate: Ravitch says it's deja vu all over again

Diane Ravitch, an historian of education, is carefully deconstructing the "21st Century Skills" movement by demonstrating that its key ideas are direct descendants of loopy nostrums from the past 100 years. "The cause that animated schools of education throughout the 20th century??was the search for the one discovery that would unshackle schools from teaching content," she said.

Live blogging the 21st century skills debate: Hirsch says P-21 is patriotic but wrong

Don??Hirsch, founder of Core Knowledge and author of Cultural Literacy, says that students do, indeed, need these "21st Century Skills." But, he's arguing, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills is deeply misguided in its understanding of how students can develop these skills.