Commentary
Dipping into the public treasury, twice
Triple double-dips, data scrubbing, parental choice info, and OTES take us from Cleveland to Newark to Columbus and back to Cleveland again.
Commentary
Transfer Incentives for High-Performing Teachers: Final Results from a Multisite Randomized Experiment
The results are in from the Talent Transfer Initiative, a high-profile intervention that started in 2009. This randomized-experiment study, conducted by Mathematica, tracks the impact of moving effective teachers to disadvantaged elementary and middle schools. The intervention was implemented in ten school districts in seven states.
Commentary
A Personalized Future for Education: Moving into the Twenty-First Century and Beyond
In the last hundred years, the base of the United States economy has shifted from industry to knowledge—but the average American classroom operates in much the same way it always has: one teacher, up to thirty same-age students, four walls.
Commentary
Even Congress can surprise you
For the first time since 1989, all twelve of Congress’s annual spending bills have been rolled into one 1,600-page, $1.012 trillion “omnibus” package—and it’s tearing across Capitol Hill “like a greased pig,” going from
Commentary
Ohio's reforms better than most, but still have a way to go
Ohio earned a C- rating, placing the Buckeye State tenth in the nation in StudentsFirst’s second-annual “State Policy Report Card.” StudentsFirst is a national education-reform organization led by Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of D.C. Public Schools.
Commentary
Common Core critic goes off the deep end, trashes childhoods of American Girls from 1764 to 1974 and up to the present
When a cherished part of your daughters' childhood is attacked, a Dad has to stand up.
Commentary
Advanced Education
Who Rises to the Top? Early Indicators
Nearly three decades ago, 320 students below the age of thirteen took the SAT math or verbal test and placed in the top 1 in 10,000 for their math- or verbal-reasoning ability (some called them “scary smart”).
Commentary
Quality Counts 2014: District Disruption & Revival
This year, Education Week’s Quality Counts report tells a story of districts facing formidable pressures, both external (such as budgetary and performance woes) and internal (demographic shifts), as well as a maturing market of expanded school options—and how this competitive environment is leading to governance change.
Commentary
The War on Poverty at 50: Education Edition
Wednesday marked the fiftieth anniversary of President Lyndon B.
Commentary
Reducing Student Mobility: A Randomized Trial of a Relationship-Building Intervention
We look at an ambitious experiment to try and ease the negative effects of high student mobility.
Commentary
Dropout Tracking Report: An analysis of dropout problem schools in Ohio’s six Race to the Top regions
Taking a look at dropout rates in Ohio.
Commentary
The swiss-cheese state board of education (and other news)
January 8, 2014 roundup of Ohio education news stories
Commentary
Columbus City Schools: Is anybody listening?
The Columbus City Schools' Board of Education took some important steps forward yesterday. Hope everyone's on board.
Commentary
Ohio's teacher-prep programs: Not as rosy as they seem
There is near consensus that teacher-preparation programs need a facelift.
Commentary
Reducing Student Mobility: A Randomized Trial of a Relationship-Building Intervention
A look at one ambitious experiment to rein in the negative effects of excessive student mobility.
Commentary
Advanced Education
Status quo has got to go
The appointment of former educator and experienced administrator Carmen Fariña as the new chancellor of New York City’s one-million-student public school system has been met with cautious optimism from several fronts, spanning from those who hope she will
Commentary
Evaluation of the Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten Program: Kindergarten and First Grade Follow‐Up Results from the Randomized Control Design
From NYC Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s pledge to provide universal preschool to bipartisan legislation proposing federally funded preschool grants, we have witnessed in
Commentary
Advanced Education, Charter Schools
Losing out on big potential
Earlier this week, the New York Times featured an editorial on gifted education, noting that even our best students were in the middle of the pack in the recent PISA results.
Commentary
How ESEA Waivers Did—And Did Not—Transform School Accountability
The Education Department’s flurry of waivers from the No Child Left Behind accountability regime has changed the rules for states and profoundly altered how they identify schools for intervention. This report from the New America Foundation examines data from sixteen of the forty-two states that received waivers.
Commentary
Nation's Report Card indicates that Cleveland's students are falling further behind
The achievement of Cleveland’s public school students continues to be appalling low, and the city’s students are falling even further behind their peers from other urban areas.
Commentary
December 18, 2013 Ohio education news roundup
Vouchers, the third-grade reading guarantee, open enrollment, and big labor hit the news in Ohio in the last two weeks.
Commentary
Dayton stalwarts awarded competitive grants
An ambitious program to increase the number of people with post-secondary credentials will take root in Dayton thanks to a grant won by Learn to Earn.
Commentary
Education as a launching pad
“In the absence of this long-awaited home, there was only school….For children like Dasani, school is not just a place to cultivate a hungry mind.
Commentary
Training our future teachers: Classroom management
The National Council on Teacher Quality has a message for teacher-preparation programs: Your graduates need to know how to manage their classrooms effectively. Every classroom teacher knows that, in the words of the authors, “the most brilliantly crafted lesson can fall on deaf ears” if a productive classroom environment has not been established.
Commentary
Rethinking the Education Mess: A Systems Approach to Education Reform
Behavioral psychology tells us that to gain traction on our problems, we should separate and categorize their individual parts. We tend to do this in education reform, too, identifying and tackling discrete challenges, one at a time (think: teacher evaluations, funding formulas, governance).
Commentary
Big labor's principles: a recipe for more of the same
The nation’s two largest teacher labor unions (AFT and NEA), the largest public-sector employee labor union (SEIU), and other national organizations are rallying today on their “National Day of Action.” Unfortunately, this conglomerate of labor and liberal interest groups has put forward a slate of tired and worn-out “adequacy”
Commentary
The Waive of the Future? School Accountability in the Waiver Era
When the Department of Education began offering No Child Left Behind waivers in 2011, states beat down the doors of 400 Maryland Avenue to obtain one. But did allowing states flexibility steer them towards better accountability systems?
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction
PISA and Occam’s Razor
Occam’s Razor is the well-known principle that “among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.” Keep that in mind as various pundits hypothesize about why the U.S.
Commentary
Speed dating, the state school board, and a perfect score
Some interesting education news from around Ohio
Commentary
How does Ohio finance the education of its highest-need students?
The view from Ohio on Fordham's recent brief which discusses ways to educate high-need students across the country.