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Students First: Renewing Hope for California's Future
Governor's Committee on Education ExcellenceNovember 2007
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A catalyst for high-school reform
Despite enormous efforts to improve high schools, progress has been slow and uneven. But one important educational innovation, virtual schooling, can greatly accelerate the pace of reform.
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Traditional math > arithmetic
Just like many education philanthropists, education reporters tend to tread carefully around issues of curriculum and pedagogy. It's not hard to understand why; anyone who spends their working lives outside of the classroom is naturally leery about appearing to tell teachers how to do their jobs (myself included).
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On imitation and flattery
President Bush's "Pell Grants for Kids" proposal was dead on arrival but may nonetheless have a positive impact.
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Reading First: Replace the rug
Thank you ever so much for Sol Stern's fabulous analysis of Reading First and rebuttal to Bob Slavin. And thank you for turning the spotlight on Slavin's posturing and self-interest and on the U.S.
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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.
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Wrong about SES
In a "Friday Guest Column" at Edbizbuzz, the AFT's Nancy Van Meter goes on the attack against supplemental services providers.
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Peddling hate in Iran's classrooms
Iran's students are being taught the virtues of Islamic world supremacy and jihadism. This is the conclusion of a major new study on Iranian textbooks by Freedom House (read the full story here).
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Cahoots?
New Yorkers got a dose of d??j?? vu yesterday when New York's new governor, David A. Paterson, and his wife Michelle held a press conference to discuss their marital infidelities.
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Playing hooky
Ed Week reports on an interesting new study showing the impact of teacher absences on students: "taking into account the effects on student achievement that might be produced by various characteristics of the teachers,
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A bird in the hand
Liam, you're right to question whether Catholic schools are necessarily better than public schools or public charter schools. Of course not; there are great Catholic schools, and lousy ones, and everything in between, just as is the case for the other sectors.
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Accountability that even a teacher could love
The Mississippi Board of Education wants superintendents to be held accountable for student learning, the Clarion-Ledger reports.
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Beyond race?
Barack Obama said today that our currently segregated schools create and prolong achievement gaps. He compared them to segregated schools 50 years ago. These ideas are patently false--segregated schools circa 1960 are not, for a pile of reasons, analogous to the naturally, racially separated schools that exist today.
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Of babies and bathwater
Mike, I agree that holding superintendents accountable for the performance of their schools is entirely appropriate, but as with any new law, the devil will prove to be in the details.
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Tenure, the movie
According to Inside Higher Ed, Luke Wilson will star in an upcoming film that producer Brendan McDonald says will "lampoon the tenure process" in colleges and universities. Tenure 2: Back to K-12 would make a great sequel.
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This Week's Fordham Factor: Spellings's latest NCLB overhaul
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has announced a pilot plan to let some states "differentiate" between really bad schools and mediocre ones--i.e., those that fail just one or two of their subgroups instead of all of them.
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House of McCain
Peggy Noonan turns in another characteristically perceptive "Declaration" for Saturday's Wall Street Journal--though one with uncharacteristically hokey imagery about a new house (Obama) and an old house (McCain).
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Catholic education's savior?
I'm still not wholly convinced that the decline of k-12 Catholic schools in this country merits the sort of "save them!" mobilization that many are calling for (see Mike's post, below). If urban Catholic schools can't compete with charter schools, why do they deserve special help?
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Curriculum & Instruction
Obama's education solution in search of a problem
Over at The Corner, Victor Davis Hanson wonders why Barack Obama is so worried about teaching students about oppression. He quotes a recent "news source":
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Charter Schools
Pray for an even playing field
Liam asks "if urban Catholic schools can't compete with charter schools, why do they deserve special help?"
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Charter Schools
Genuflecting before choice
Mike, I may agree with your point that Catholic schools should receive public funding.
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Skittlesgate
News update: School officials have decided to go easy on an eighth-grader caught purchasing contraband goods. Was it guns, drugs, or tobacco? Actually, none of the above. It was candy--and not even the hard-core kind like Snickers or M&M's, which if consumed in large quantities can really pack on the pounds (trust me, I know). It was a bag of Skittles.
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Getting religion on Catholic schools
One of the most anticipated events of Pope Benedict's upcoming trip to Washington is his address to 200 Catholic educators at Catholic University, scheduled for April 17.
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Most wanted
An anti-union group hopes to expose how difficult it is to fire the most dreadful teachers. The Center for Union Facts is asking educators, parents, and students to nominate the "worst unionized teacher in America"; the group will choose ten winners (losers, really) and offer each $10,000 to exit the classroom posthaste.
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Chesapeake watershed
The central offices of the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., school districts are slimming. Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso this week proposed to cut more than 300 central-office jobs, which will allow him to plug a $40 million budget shortfall and reroute another $70 million directly to schools.
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Support, in brief
I'll be brief. I want to applaud your efforts regarding the Reading First scandal ("The true story of Reading First"). Reading First was perhaps education's best attempt at supporting the implementation of truly effective programs for struggling readers.