- News organizations: 1, teachers unions: 0. But the game is far from over. On Monday, a Gotham judge ruled that performance rankings of New York City teachers may be released to the public, a move the teachers unions have said they will appeal. You know where we stand on this issue.
- Jerry Brown effectively wiped out the California school board this week, replacing seven reform-minded members with status-quo defenders—a sign of things to come?
- Yet LAUSD looks like it’ll be just fine. On Tuesday, the district announced John Deasy as its next schools chief. Look for some interesting things to come from La-la-land in coming months.
- Joel Klein may have stepped away from district leadership, but his legacy on that front lives on. Former Klein staffers abound in education leadership (Andres Alonso and Chris Cerf immediately spring to mind). Doing a back-of-the-napkin tally, John Merrow finds that over 1.5 million students are in schools led by former Klein deputies. Those are some long arms, Joel.
- The Chinese already score higher on PISA and eat our national debt for breakfast. Now they’re also better parents? Maybe, maybe not. But, one thing’s for sure: They never let their children give up.
- D.C. interim schools chancellor Kaya Henderson gets the vote of confidence from Arne Duncan, who is informally lobbying for her to permanently take over D.C. public schools. Why get involved? Well, says Arne, the federal government invested $75 million in D.C. through Race to the Top. And he wants a good return on his investment.
- The A.P. is in for an overhaul (well, biology and U.S. history, at least). The goal is to roll back excessive content requirements in favor of more critical thinking. A word of warning to the folks at College Board: Go ahead and drop the Pequot War from the standards. But be wary of supplanting the content with too many soft skills.
