Commentary
Hopes, Fears and Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools in 2009
This fifth edition of the annual National Charter Research Project series wants to know if charter schools will go mainstream.
Commentary
2009-2010 DQC Annual Survey Results
Since 2005, the Data Quality Campaign has been encouraging states to beef up (or in some cases, create from scratch) their longitudinal data systems to conform with a list of ten “Essential Elements.” These include, for example, a statewide student identifier that tracks kids, a statewide teacher identifier that trac
Commentary
Female teachers' math anxiety affects girls' math achievement
The title of this paper says it all--when female elementary school teachers are anxious about mathematics, their female students pay the academic price. The study looked at seventeen first- and second-grade female-led classrooms at the beginning and the end of the school year.
Commentary
Finding excellence in Canton, Ohio
Yesterday morning I visited McGregor Elementary, a school in Canton, Ohio serving students in preschool through sixth-grade, and doing it very well. The building sits practically across the street from the sprawling Timk
Commentary
Charter Schools
Curious omissions: charter schools left out of Ohio's Race to the Top application
Ohio has the sixth-highest charter school enrollment in the nation ???????? about 90,000 children attend a Buckeye State public charter school.????
Commentary
Obama's super-double-secret edu-judges
Late last week, word leaked that the Obama administration has secretly selected the peer reviewers for its $4.35 billion Race to the Top (RTT) fund but has no intention of publicly revealing the identities of these fifty-eight august personages.
Commentary
Education and campaign finance reform's "reform"
There’s been much talk about the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Citizens United v.
Commentary
Florida puts on its thinking "cap"
Florida has been “reconsidering” its state constitutional class size amendment since…2002, a.k.a. the year it was passed by voters.
Commentary
Hoop dreams
From the south side of Chicago to Harvard, Australia, and back, Arne Duncan’s unconventional path to Secretary of Education has the makings of a screenplay. Or at least a New Yorker article.
Commentary
Everyone's a winner
When it comes to Race to the Top, most states have put on their Sunday best, bought new ties, and submitted their applications. Others refused or showed up in pajamas. Then there are those who didn’t even have the chance to participate.
Commentary
Right to reform
You often hear it (rhetorically) asked: If teachers’ unions are such a negative force in education, then why don’t the right-to-work states perform better academically? Alabama has the answer: Being right-to-work doesn’t mean that teachers and their unions are politically impotent.
Commentary
Txtng is alrite
LOL, txting is tot. nbd, so says the prelim fndings of a nu stdy from Coventry University. In fact, students who used the most phonologically-based text abbreviations--such as “nite” instead of night--were the best spellers.
Commentary
The High Cost of Low Educational Performance: The Long-Run Economic Impact of Improving PISA Outcomes
This study builds on previous work by economists Hanushek and Woessmann and shows that improved performance on international math and science tests has a positive impact on a country’s future GDP. The effects within the U.S. would be remarkable.
Commentary
College and Career-Ready: Using Outcome Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
In this short paper, author Chad Aldeman explains how to create an accountability system for schools that is more accurate than the one enshrined in the No Child Left Behind act.
Commentary
Charter Schools
The latest Ohio Education Gadfly is here!
Make sure you catch the latest Ohio Education Gadfly!
Commentary
EdWeek report shows Ohio does well when kids are out of the equation
Congratulations, Ohio. The state’s continued slow climb up the Education Week achievement ladder continues and shows that improvements put in place over the last decade are creating a strong educational infrastructure.
Commentary
Performance-pay programs in Ohio aren't enough
An article in yesterday's Columbus Dispatch delivered two important reminders regarding teacher perform
Commentary
Can Race to the Top decisions really be politics-free?
Ohio has joined 39 other states and the District of Columbia in submitting its Race to the Top grant application to the Feds.
Commentary
Reevaluating the meaning of teacher commitment
Yesterday Terry responded on Flypaper to remarks made by the president of the Dayton Education Association (DEA) as to why the union turned down up to
Commentary
Charter Schools
Dayton Education Association makes (weak) case for rejecting RttT
Last week I, and o
Commentary
Party like it's 1994
Scott Brown’s remarkable victory in Tuesday’s special election has turned American politics upside-down, and is already reshaping debates around health care, energy, and spending. But might it also foreshadow a major shift on federal education reform?
Commentary
New Jersey's "Biggest Loser"
Aside from ex-governor Jon Corzine, no one lost bigger in November’s Garden State gubernatorial election than the New Jersey Education Association. That, at least, is the sense in Trenton, where newly-elected Governor Chris Christie has declared war with the teachers’ union.
Commentary
The Race's slow pokes
The Chariots of Fire theme song echoed across the plains on Tuesday as states submitted their Race to the Top applications. But not everyone is drawn to the bait of federal dollars when it contains reform hooks.
Commentary
Formulaic literature
Should computer algorithms determine our national English curriculum? That’s what E.D. Hirsch wants to know when he raises this shockingly relevant--if absurd--question in his evaluation of the draft “Common Core” college-ready standards. The standards, in his view, have several pluses.
Commentary
Hot cakes for Haiti
While the devastating effects of Haiti’s January 12 earthquake remain agonizing, there has been an upwelling of compassion and generosity across America, albeit with a couple of odd twists.
Commentary
You Da Bomb
The vice principal at a San Diego tech-themed magnet middle school must not have been very hip, rad, phat, or da bomb diggity in the 90s. The slang-challenged fellow recently confused a student’s science project that was da bomb for being…a bomb.
Commentary
Head Start Impact Study: Final Report
Taking its cue from Obama’s campaign platform, the current administration has adamantly supported sizable boosts in “Zero to Five” programs meant to improve the school readiness of low-income children.
Commentary
State and Local Implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act Volume IX: Accountability Under NCLB: Final Report
This is the Education Department’s series finale on NCLB implementation. Utilizing data from two separate studies, it supplies broad descriptions of NCLB accountability efforts. At first blush, it highlights a lot of things we already knew.
Commentary
Bringing School Reform to Scale: Five Award-Winning Urban Districts
In these lively and readable case studies, the author spells out--with the appropriate degree of detail--the changes that five urban school districts (Long Beach and Garden Grove, CA, Norfolk and Boston, MA, and Aldine, TX) made on the path to winning the Broad Prize.
Commentary
Adults biggest hurdle to reforms that Cleveland's students deserve
Last week, Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eugene Sanders unveiled a major plan to transform the district, Ohio's second-largest and one