The Economist aimed its reporting lens last week on charter schools in New York City and Chicago. In the Big Apple, demand for charter schools has overwhelmed supply, especially in Harlem: at the Harlem Success Academy Charter School lottery, 3,600 applied for 600 available spots.
Arnold Schwarzenegger revels in his role as an unconventional politician. How many other Hummer-driving, global warming-fighting Republican governors can you name? Yet his big promises, like those of so many elected officials, can evaporate when the heat rises. Observe how his "Year of Education" was scrapped as California realized it was in a fiscal crisis.
Amber and Christina discuss the good and bad of the Reading First interim evaluation report: httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=KCgR_VC2KTk
Reid Lyon, former Reading Czar and one of the creators of Reading First, posted a comment about Shep Barbash's Education Next article
Lisa Graham Keegan, school reform trailblazer and former state superintendent of Arizona, has quit her day job to spend most of her time working on behalf of Senator John McCain's campaign, reports the Arizona Republic:
Mississippi has passed legislation, and the governor has signed it, that would fire superintendents whose districts are labeled "under
Here's another interesting video from The New Yorker Conference (those New Yorker people are always so darn interesting!). In this one, the magazine's financial columnist, James Surowiecki, chats with Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern about the future of unions.
Mushy Mike knows it's not news that college graduates live longer than high-school graduates. The article??to which he refers??is a comment on the lousy healthcare that many poor Americans receive, and it really doesn't have??much to do with getting a college education.
Ohio AG Marc Dann isn't the only one coming in for a beating.
Back when the controversy over unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers exploded (no pun intended) in the middle of the 2008 Democratic primary, Senator Barack Obama used an unfortunate analogy to defend his association with the bomb-thrower:
Today at a big wing-ding on federal education research sponsored by Education Sector and several other groups , former Deputy Secretary of Education Marshall (Mike) Smith agreed that it was probably a mistake to have carved the Education Department (ED) out of the old Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
While Americans feel no particular love for the U.S. Department of Education (see this graphic from Sunday's New York Times Magazine), I have found that, in education circles at least, particular scorn is heaped??upon state departments of education and their civil service employees.
The Wall Street Journal reviews Mark Bauerlein's new book, The Dumbest Generation, and Marion Barry defends vouchers for D.C.
"No Child Left Behind Lacks Bite." This is not exactly news to Flypaper readers, but it's great that the Wall Street Journal is spreading the word:
Flypaper does not relish the role of policing The Quick and the Ed, but that blog's latest item simply demands rebutting.
Parental choice advocates might think that Sol Stern's critique of school vouchers has harmed the cause, but surely
Malcolm Gladwell, kicking-off last week's New Yorker Conference, spoke about the mismatch problem--i.e., the hiring of people based on qualities or characteristics that have little or nothing to do with what delivers success in the position being filled.
I started my career teaching British, American, and world literature to high school kids.
Megan McArdle reflects thoughtfully on teachers unions today at Atlantic.com. I found this bit especially interesting:
The newest issue of Education Next is now on newsstands--or on the internet, at least. Check out Mike's piece, which is a unique look at how the editorial boards of major newspapers present charter schools and No Child Left Behind.
Standards and accountability hawks (Fordham??swirls among them) have never adequately explained how top-down accountability systems avoid situations such as this. After an exhaustive investigation of Tucson's schools, the Arizona Daily Star reports:
Anyone who's been following politics lately knows that Senator Barack Obama's relationship with unrepentant bomber and former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers has become a matter of debate in the 2008 campaign.
