Debatable

When Gadfly wrote, "Despite what our good friend Jay Mathews tells you, AP is not for everyone," he didn't expect that the selfsame Jay Mathews would then challenge him to a duel. Only in words, mercifully.

Allocation Anatomy: How District Policies that Deploy Resources Can Support (or Undermine) District Reform Strategies

Marguerite Roza, School Finance Redesign Project, Center on Reinventing Public EducationMay 15, 2008

History opens eyes

Bill Bennett's superb two-volume U.S. history, America: The Last Best Hope, is beginning to be adopted as a text by school systems and is now accompanied by all manner of useful educator tools and its own hefty, bumptious (like Bennett himself) history-education-makeover project.

Ben Franklin would cry

Another day, another state content to let its kids continue to earn meaningless high school diplomas.

Change we can disagree in

It's true--it's tough to predict the future. Of course, that doesn't mean we should be content to let the progression of technology sweep us up and take us where it may.

No fans of Eleanor, these

The Wall Street Journal editors defend D.C.'s voucher program.

Salt in Booker's wounds

A few weeks ago at the NewSchools Venture Fund summit, Newark Mayor Cory Booker's jealousy about Washington mayor Adrian Fenty'

Progress toward what?

The last paragraph of Coby's latest post,??directly below,??contains this: "But once they're washed downriver by the unyielding tide of technological progress, they'll sound as quaint as Socrates' reminiscences about the days before writing." Progress has both a quantitative and qualitative definition, and one wonders if Coby doesn't concentrate overmuch on the former.

Sounds promising

Some good news from Boston.

Hyperbole at its finest

Education Week reports today that data collected from the states by the U.S. Department of Education show the percentage of core classes in the nation taught by highly-qualified teachers is around 94 percent for 2006-2007.

Reverend Al's odd alliances

Thinking differently

I still don't like the snarky title of Mark Bauerlein's new bo

Re: Progress toward what?

I don't know, Liam, what will be the "quality" of the coming decades' progress. Nor, do I think, does Bauerlein.

Little bang for lots of buck

I was expecting a bit more from Eduwonk's $5 billion challenge. The winner, just announced, would use the money to

Research question

Kevin Carey expounds upon the reasons that research doesn't always or even often make it to policymakers and into their policies. His suggested remedies are fine, especially the appeal for better writing.

The Great Society, Redux

Mike is too gentle with this broader, bolder initiative. First, a chicken and egg problem arises.

Just regular, neighborhood guys

The Weekly Standard looks at the Obama-Ayers connection.

The price of culture

I'm all for building schools dedicated to the arts, especially for students hailing from low-income neighborhoods. I'm just not sure it's worth $230 million while kids in other districts learn in classroom trailers.

TMA in the WSJ

Washington, D.C.'s Thurgood Marshall Academy charter school is featured in today's Wall Street Journal.

A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education: Our panaceas are better than your panaceas

Apparently tired of being called defeatist defenders of the status quo, the Economic Policy Institute (home of Lawrence Mishel and Richard Rothstein) just released a policy statement calling for a "broader, BOLDER approach" to education.

Ray Cortines, ready to collaborate

The California Charter Schools Association published

More on McCain's NCLB problem

Here's another analysis explaining why it's "good politics" for the candidates to bash NCLB--something Senato

Holding report cards hostage

I'm not one to beat up on teachers unions just for the sake of it, but this little news story out of Australia illustrates precisely how the interests of unions and students do not always intersect.

Success for few in after-school

Oddly enough, on the same day that the Economic Policy Institute and friends release this manifesto recommending that we "pay more attention to the time students spend out of school" (see

It's not just OSP

Sounds like D.C.'s charter schools are taking fire, too. If you can't beat ???em, sabotage ???em.

Would you like some hope with your hope?

Oh, brother. "Students [would] have a chance to recover," Martin said. "Getting a bad grade or having a bad day does not mean you are a failure. This is about hope."

Unscientifically-based reading research for animal lovers

With all the talk about Reading First and scientifically-based reading research of late, this unusual reading strategy caught my eye. It claims reading to fido has its advantages:

Face-off

Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews and Checker Finn debate: "Is AP Good for Everyone?"

The age factor

It's no secret that Senator John McCain'

New Jersey's alternate route to teaching: Thoroughly unremarkable

The New York Times had a nice piece Saturday on the Garden State's alternative certification program, the first and largest