Catch highlights from last Monday's panel discussions on Fordham's latest book, "A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era."

Mike is scheduled to appear on CNN's American Morning on Tuesday. Be sure to tune in!

Hallelujah!??

We've already made it quite clear how we feel about this??here and here. I will refrain from commenting further.

Seems the Obamas finally decided where Sasha and Malia will go to school: Sidwell Friends. Since it's in Maryland, its elementary school, at least, does not participate in the DC voucher program... which means breathing room for the President-Elect on that front. But its middle and high schools do participate, and Malia at least is very close to (if not in already?) middle school. Regardless, seems like a wise choice since the school a) has dealt with first family students before and b) is similar enough to the Lab School in Chicago to provide (hopefully) a smooth mid-year transition. She might be a First Daughter, but Sasha is still very young. On another note, poor Georgetown Day School. Guess it will get its day in the sun some other day.

Joanne Jacobs, whose eponymous blog is among the most dominant in the edusphere, pens a flattering review of David Whitman's recent book in the current issue of City Journal.

"Nagging is love," I used to tell my daughter. "I am a much-loved child," she'd reply. And so it is: if you care about a kid, you tell her what she's doing right and what she's doing wrong. You stick with her when she makes mistakes. You honor her successes. You nag. In Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism, David Whitman finds that idea replicated in education. To give disadvantaged students a shot at college and mainstream success, he argues, schools must teach "not just how to think but how to act according to what are commonly termed traditional middle-class values."

Jay Mathews may have decided to call these "No Excuses" schools, but may I suggest "No Excuses Nags" as a slight improvement?

Speaking of David Whitman's schools, I recently had the chance to visit a charter school of the kind he describes in Sweating the Small Stuff, and it was sobering. Of course it wasn't my first visit to a "paternalistic" school, but most of those have involved the guided tour - the kind where you wonder if the students and teachers really act that way when nobody is watching. In this case, I knew the founder/principal, so I had a true behind-the-scenes look, unfiltered and unvarnished. And it was eye-opening.

It was amazing how many problems my friend encountered in the hour I was there - we must have been interrupted 20 times by students needing discipline, teachers needing guidance about discipline, others needing observation while they worked with a struggling student, etc. It was a whirlwind, and it was tiring just to watch. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the special talent, constant hard work, and unwavering attention to detail that it takes to run one of these schools.

But it was also disheartening, for my friend confessed her fear that the "model" of such hard work and long hours won't be sustainable - that principals and teachers who exert that kind of energy day after day will inevitably burn out. From my vantage point, it was hard to disagree.

Arne Duncan's lead is bigger than ever in the quest to replace Margaret Spellings. One friend of mine urges me to just accept that he's the guy. Well, that's probably true. Meanwhile, United Negro College Fund president Michael Lomax is working his way up the ladder, and now appears to be the pick as the Arne-alternative. And what about Bill Richardson, whom I've been promoting all week? First, the Washington Post's "in the loop" reporter Al Kamen wrote this morning that Obama might find a spot for him at Interior, Commerce, or as ambassador to China. Then Alyson Klein at Education Week ridiculed my speculation since Richardson was well-known as an NCLB-hater on the campaign trail. (See, I'm terrible at placing bets because I always gamble on the horse I want to win, rather than the horse most likely to win. And a pro-accountability, anti-NCLB governor sounds good to me!) And now, The Fix is saying that Richardson is being "seriously considered" for Commerce. Well, Bill, it was fun while it lasted. And look--Geoffrey Canada, he of Harlem Children's Zone fame--makes an appearance for the first time.

Other folks mentioned today: Colin Powell, Hugh Price, Janet Napolitano (???), Caroline Kennedy, Tim Kaine, Peter McWalters, Erskine Bowles, Beverly Hall, Ted Mitchell, Linda Darling-Hammond (!!!), Graham Spainer (a first time mention; Google tells me he's the prez of Penn State), Jim Shelton, Susan Castillo, Mike Huckabee, and (another first-timer) Cory Booker.

Now take a look at the trends over the past two weeks, and you'll see just how strong Arne Duncan's candidacy is. Have a great weekend!

I'm glad we have Flypaper to vent our internal disagreements, as I take umbrage with Ben's Gadfly discussion of Weighted Student Funding. In his review of an AIR report examining WSF in San Francisco and Oakland, Ben is far too dismissive of WSF as a reform (it "adjusts the inputs in a field where outcomes are what really matter"). Of course that's true at an abstract level, but it's a big oversimplification.

First, rearranging school funding so that the poorest schools are funded on par with wealthier schools may indeed be an adjustment of inputs, but it's an important one. The Education Trust, Marguerite Roza, and others have long documented the startling funding disparities that exist among districts, and among schools within districts. If we want great results from schools with underprivileged students, step one involves leveling the playing fields on which they compete.

But second, a more importantly, WSF is intended to change the way schools work, so they can produce great outcomes. It is meant to give principals greater autonomy, so they can tailor their school's offerings to meet the needs of their particular students. It is meant to give them greater say over the teachers who teach there, so that the poorest schools aren't always stuck with the newest or the cheapest teachers. And it is meant to respond to, and enable, the realities of 21st??century schooling, in which students are mobile (so their funding should be as well) and choice options are proliferating.

When we released Fund the Child, arguing for WSF, a terrific list of education leaders agreed.

Of course, it's important that AIR is evaluating its actual implementation, and the results should be taken seriously - they did not find as many changes in the resource allocations, staffing, or school-level offerings as they expected. But they did find some, and I think they would have found more if purer forms of WSF had been implemented. So we should still be optimistic about the powerful potential of WSF.

Fordham Board member Diane Ravitch takes to the (web)pages of Forbes.com to discuss the Gates' small schools movement. It was a well-intentioned effort, she argues, but ultimately not the "silver bullet" the Gates Foundation had hoped. But, she concludes, kudos to Gates for realizing the error of their ways (Checker weighed in on this in last week's Gadfly).

It looks like she's going to lead the Department of Homeland Security instead. I've said it before and I'll say it again: keep your eyes on Bill Richardson.