Commentary
WWSD?
Ever since the release of his biography of Al Shanker, Tough Liberal, Richard Kahlenberg has been busy penning articles about the education issue du jour, asking always: What would Shanker do?
Commentary
Running to Roget
As members of the Massachusetts State Board of Education rack their collective brain by searching for kinder words than "underperforming" with which to label sorry schools, the board's only student member, Zachary Tsetsos, seemed to be also the only one with any common sense. "Why are we spending time on this?" he asked.
Commentary
What's eating Gordon Brown?
Classes will be affected by class resentments if British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, have their way. While both men offer beaucoup platitudes about increasing the skills of Britain's workforce and its global economic competitiveness, their government is, contemporaneously, attempting to dull the few sparkling parts of the U.K.'s educational system.
Commentary
Accountability that even a teacher could love
Good leaders know that the buck stops with them; others need to be reminded. So reasons the Mississippi Board of Education, which pushed through the state's House of Representatives a bill to remove underperforming superintendents from their jobs, even if they were elected by the public.
Commentary
Denver Public Schools Employee Compensation: The Role of Pension Benefits
Sari Levy, Van Schoales, and Tony LewisPiton and Donnell-Kay FoundationsMarch 2008
Commentary
Commentary
Calamity days are truly calamitous for charters
Many Ohio school districts have surpassed their state-allotted five "calamity days" this year. Consequently, charter schools have learned district calamity days are even more calamitous because they are at the mercy of local school districts for busing.
Commentary
Mr. Governor, what are you fighting for?
Governor Ted Strickland made it clear in his State of the State address, and more recently in comments in the press, that he wants control over what happens per K-12 education. What's been missing from this debate around the shake-up in the state's educational leadership, however, are details of the governor's plan for moving K-12 education forward.
Commentary
Better late than never? It's almost time for Plan B
Every few months, it seems, someone calls for a moratorium on new charter schools in the Buckeye State until the current ones can be further "studied." Yet the one statutory requirement for an examination of Ohio's charter and choice programs has lingered without action for more than a year and its deadline is looming.
Commentary
Seems like a plan...
In 2005, state governors and educational leaders agreed the country needs to boost achievement levels to prepare students for college and demanding 21st century jobs. That's a good idea and lots of educational leaders and politicians have mouthed similar words since Achieve Inc.
Commentary
Want to work for Fordham?
Are you a writer/researcher/thinker/doer with a passion for improving education? Then check out this opportunity to join the Fordham team.
Commentary
"Free college" actually costs a lot of money
It would cost up to $200 million to provide college scholarships to graduates of the Cincinnati; Covington, Kentucky; and Newport, Kentucky, public-school systems, according to the Cincinnati-based Strive education partnership.
Commentary
about the governor's education takeover
Terry Ryan's Columbus Dispatch op-ed concerning Governor Strickland, Ohio school superintendent Susan Tave Zelman, and Fordham's Fund the Child report, sparked comment, including this e-mail from Kris Christenson:
Commentary
What's a Euphemism for 'Dumb Idea'?
This Associated Press story reports that the kinder-and-gentler Massachusetts Board of Education is "searching for gentler euphemisms to describe the state's failing schools after educators complained current labels d
Commentary
TFA for Catholic Schools
The New York Times's Samuel Freedman provides a great introduction to the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program???basically a Teach For America for parochial schools. Never heard of it?
Commentary
Poor Whitney
Venture capitalist-cum-school reformer Whitney Tilson comes in for a ribbing at the Education Notes Online blog, at the hands of Norm Scott, whom one New York friend of mine calls ???an anti-UFT lefty who is very smart.???
Commentary
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction
The California Reading Revival
Over at the "ELL Advocates" blog, whole language apologist Stephen Krashen makes a lame attempt to poke holes in Sol Stern's recent Fordham r
Commentary
I've always thought 14 a lovely number
Britain's largest teachers' union will vote, at its upcoming annual conference, to determine how many students the ideal class should enroll. What bosh!
Commentary
Commentary
The Future of America
This is what $60 million gets you. httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=Cfuy6tVpTfM (The original Ed in 08 video is here.)
Commentary
Commentary
Big news
Teachers in Nashua, New Hampshire, have threatened to strike unless they reach a contract settlement by March 31.
Commentary
Strong American Schools for Obama?
Ed in '08 mastermind Roy Romer--whose lively career has also included stints as the L.A. superintendent, Colorado governor, and Democratic National Committee chairman--let it slip today that he thinks the Democratic candidate who amasses the most pledged delegates should get the nomination.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction
Too much
For the same reason I'm opposed to sex-ed class in schools, I'm opposed to clubs like this. A parent sends his students to a public school to receive a rigorous education in the core curriculum.
Commentary
Sayonara Spellings?
Rumors are circulating that the Secretary is about to announce her resignation from the Department of Education.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction
1.e4 e5 2.f4
The New York Times reports today that Idaho will set aside somewhere from $200,000 to $600,000 to fund a pilot program that will make chess education available to all second- and third-graders. The state will use a curriculum called First Move, which was developed by the Seattle-based nonprofit Foundation for Chess.
Commentary
Crash course
Buckle up and hold on. Not only has Baltimore's schools chief Andres Alonso pushed through plans that would slash the number of his district's central-office jobs, but he also won approval last week to create five new combined middle/high schools (which will be run by outside operators) and require the staff at three other Baltimore schools to reapply for their jobs.
Commentary
NCLB giveth, Spellings taketh away
The Washington Post reported Monday that No Child Left Behind has pressured schools to raise the achievement of students with disabilities.
Commentary
Smart accountability, perhaps
Florida state Senator Don Gaetz is pushing a bill that would grade high schools by measures other than just the state test, the FCAT.