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Roll Call: The importance of teacher attendance
A new report places Cleveland and Columbus at the top of the naughty list of districts whose teachers are out of the classroom the most.
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Public Rules on Private Schools: Measuring the Regulatory Impact of State Statutes and School Choice Programs
Would a push for greater public accountability to private voucher schools hinder recruitment of new providers?
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Ohio Gadfly Daily News 6-4-14
Legislation, charter authorizing, and business engagement with education in today's issue.
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Rampant teacher absenteeism in Cleveland and Columbus
The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) released an alarming new report today on teacher absenteeism in America’s urban public schools.
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TFA and Cleveland's demographic problem
Cleveland’s teachers union is in a fit over the district’s increased utilization of Teach For America (TFA) to fill teaching positions. Instead of griping, the labor union should think instead of the larger human-resource crisis the district faces. The district has a myriad of human-resource struggles and, as we’ll see, one of them is its aging workforce.
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Ohio Gadfly Daily News 6-2-14
Graduation time is upon us; we've got a couple of the more interesting stories around graduation as well as some legit education news today.
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Ohio Gadfly Daily News 5-29-14
In case you hadn’t yet heard, Fordham’s Aaron Churchill has a fantastic op-ed in the Dispatch today, who graciously allowed him to rebut the paper's recent report on charter schools and segregation by running the numbers and continuing the impo
Commentary
The State of Retirement: Grading America's Public Pension Plans
A new Urban Institute series grades America’s public pension plans on three criteria: whether they place employees on a path to retirement security, create proper incentives to retain a productive workforce, and set aside enough funds to finance the future benefits promised to employees.
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Is Personalized Learning Meeting Its Productivity Promise? Early Lessons from Pioneering Schools
With belts tightening in communities across the land, education leaders are exploring novel ways to stretch the school dollar. One such approach is “personalized learning,” i.e., using technology to tailor coursework to individual students while making better use of teachers’ time.
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No good will come from this
On Friday, the Oklahoma legislature voted overwhelmingly to repeal the Common Core.
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A Tweet-fest on blended learning
I joined the Twittersphere yesterday for a forum on blended learning moderated by Matt Miller, superintendent of Mentor School District in Northeast Ohio.
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Ohio Gadfly Daily News 5-28-14
Fordham’s Chad Aldis appeared on two radio stations in Ohio yesterday, talking up Common Core. First up - WKBN radio in the Youngstown area (Chad comes in about the 30 minute mark on this one).
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Voucher record, lima beans, and PARCC piloting
EdChoice vouchers, food service in Lima, gifted services, and PARCC pilot testing are in the news.
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Not Just the Problems of Other People's Children
PISA and NAEP scores have long been dismal for students in the United States. What happens when those results are correlated and compared? We look at a new report which does just that.
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An exciting public-records lawsuit - and its impact on potential voucher families
It's about darn time that school districts get pushback for avoiding legitimate public records requests.
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Ohio Senate maintains state's commitment to high-quality standards
MBR changes in the Senate maintain commitment to Common Core.
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Ohio’s state legislature still fumbling value-added
Senate MBR changes to value-add leave the Ohio Gadfly confused and fuming.
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Ohio Gadfly Daily News 5-22-14
Gubernatorial candidates, open enrollment scrooges, and Common Core haters all feature in today's clips.
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Not just the problem of other people’s children: U.S. student performance in global perspective
America’s educational shortcomings are not limited to disadvantaged kids. Far from it, as Eric Hanushek, Paul Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann explain in this recently released Education Next/PEPG study. Looking at the NAEP scores in every U.S. state and the PISA results of all thirty-four OECD countries, Hanushek et al.
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Young teachers get the short end of the stick
Kudos to Andy Rotherham and Chad Aldeman for taking on, via a nifty new website and this recent Washington Post article, t
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What kids are reading: The book-reading habits of students in American schools; Children, Teens, and Reading
How often are kids reading, and which books are they choosing? Two recent reports took a crack at finding the answers.
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The State of Charter School Authorizers 2013
Every year, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers draws on survey data from half of the nation’s charter-school authorizers to assess the quality of their practices, outlining a set of twelve essential practices and scoring authorizers based on their adherence to them. In this sixth edition, the results are mixed.
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Evaluating Teachers with Classroom Observations: Lessons Learned in Four Districts
Everyone agrees that a good teacher makes all the difference in the world—but that’s where the agreement ends. This new report from Brookings adds to the body of research examining how to decide what makes a good teacher, specifically looking at teacher-evaluations systems in four moderate-sized urban districts in an effort to suggest ways to improve them.
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Newark unfriends reform?
After a rancorous mayoral race, the city of Newark has elected Ras Baraka—a decision surely to hold repercussions for the city’s ambitious education reform agenda.
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Ohio Gadfly Daily News 5-16-14
School Choice Ohio has initiated legal action against Springfield and Cincinnati schools for denying them student directory information requested under Ohio public records law, while they were regularly providing that same information to other nonprofits.