This Week In Education

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2010-01-06T12:51:00.003-06:00

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Thanks!

Coldplay In The Quad - Locke May 2009

2009-05-17T02:53:00.006-05:00

I think the song is called "Clocks."
Deandre Hogan
Angel Gamez

2008-02-04T08:52:00.000-06:00

................................

We've Moved Around The Corner

2007-01-10T17:41:00.000-06:00

OK, I guess it's time to get out of here and move over to the new site at EdWeek.org.

You can find it here, or at "http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek"

My favorite part of the new digs so far? The EdWeek disclaimer:

"The opinions expressed in This Week in Education are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications."

Don't Forget The Teachers, Says LDH

2007-01-10T10:26:00.001-06:00

"Whatever one thinks about the 5-year-old federal law," writes Linda Darling-Hammond about NCLB in a commentary from this week's EdWeek (A Marshall Plan for Teaching), "it’s clear that developing more-skillful teaching is a sine qua non for attaining higher and more equitable achievement for students in the United States."

UPDATE: Teacher quality could also be addressed through the still-unfinished HEA reauthorization, reminds another EdWeek article.

Speaking Truth To The Powerless

2007-01-10T10:07:00.000-06:00

It turns out it wasn't just me (and Rush Limbaugh) who noted Oprah's harsh comments about poor American students last week. In Tuesday's Chicago Tribune, columnist Clarence Page notes that just because Oprah's comments "delighted conservative commentators... doesn't mean she's wrong." According to Page (Oprah's `truth' shouldn't hurt), "Liberals love to speak 'truth to power,' but the powerless need to hear the truth too."

Rotten Apples Of 2006

2007-01-10T08:46:00.000-06:00

Gerry Bracey's 2006 Rotten Apples report is finally out (downloadable doc here), featuring the usual assortment of outrages and misdeeds.

Bracey leads of with Spellings' infamous "99.9 percent pure" declaration, followed closely with the Barbara/Neil Bush donation laundering operation.

Morning Round-up January 10, 2006

2007-01-10T07:17:00.000-06:00

In Testing for Gifted Programs, a Few Knots NYT
A new admissions process for highly coveted gifted-and-talented programs in the New York City elementary schools has been riddled with glitches, including last-minute notice of entrance exam dates in some areas.

Hearing on school takeover by mayor set LAT
A state appeals court panel Tuesday scheduled an April hearing for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's lawyers to defend an invalidated law that would have given the mayor substantial authority over the Los Angeles public schools.

School choices satisfy, study says JS Online
University of Colorado researchers are issuing a report that says low-income parents in Milwaukee are happy with the range of choices they have for their children. The report also says those parents select schools in ways that aren't much different from higher-income parents elsewhere.

NCLB Watch: Week One

2007-01-10T05:30:00.000-06:00

A week ago, nearly everyone was predicting it would be 2009 before NCLB got renewed. Since then, things have gotten a little messier, but the basic dynamics are clear. A powerful set of folks folks (Spellings, President Bush, the Chamber, the BRT) are pushing for a quick NCLB reauthorization this year. Other folks (Miller, Kennedy especially) are also pushing for reauthorization-- and lots more cash. Meantime, NCLB opponents (the 100 groups that signed the letter) want to see NCLB revamped substantially and don't seem particularly concerned about when it happens -- though of course the sooner the better. Last but not least, some folks (Dodd, Ehlers, Fordham, New America) want to focus on national standards, which many of those who want to see NCLB reauthorized (Bush, Spellings, Chamber, BRT) consider something of a threat to a timely reauthorization. Got it?

UPDATE: Joanne Jacobs rounds up the blogs' coverage (via Education Wonks). And EdWeek's David Hoff reminds us that there's another group of folks who want some movement sooner rather than later: schools and districts operating under the current version.

Exclusive: Romer To Head Gates/Broad '08 Election Push

2007-01-09T18:04:00.000-06:00

Sitting in a DuPont Circle Starbucks, who do I run into but former LAUSD superintendent (and CO Gov) Roy Romer, making cell phone calls across from me. He wants to know what I'm doing with a laptop attached to a digital camera (you all know the answer to that one). I want to know what he's doing in town besides going to the NAF event (see below). Turns out Romer is getting set up to head a Gates/Broad initiative to make sure education gets a substantial and meaningful bit of attention in the 2008 election cycle. You read it here first. I think. More details to come.

More On The Education Industry

2007-01-09T17:52:00.000-06:00

Did you know that 2006 was a tough year for K-12 education stocks, with several companies like ProQuest, Educate, Plato Learning, and LeapFrog down big? Not me. Hell, I've never even heard of most of these companies, much less know what they do or how they're performing on the stock market. But that's what you get when a friend sends you Class Notes, a 25-pp industry report that's put together by some analysts at RW Baird and Co and includes fascinating info on the education industry. It's not just about publicly traded companies, either. There's stuff in there about the budget process and the earmarks (see previous posts). You can check it out here: Class Notes 1-07.pdf)-- at least until they tell me to pull it down.

Friendly Faces

2007-01-09T10:09:00.000-06:00

Thanks to everyone who came up and said "hi" yesterday in DC -- it was great to see so many familiar faces from the past (Kate Laguarda from PSA, Manish Naik and and Henry Duvall from the Council, Larry Snowhite from Houghton Mifflin, and to meet lots of new folks (Heather Podesta on her birthday, Kate Szostak from Dodd's press office, Lindsey Luebchow and Justin King from New America, and a slew of helpful people from the EdSec's press office including press secty Katherine McLane). The rest of you? See you next time.

A Teacher Uses The N-Word -- Over & Over

2007-01-09T09:56:00.000-06:00

A white Jefferson County public schools English teacher was suspended for 10 days for using the n-word towards an African-American honors student, and this local news clip takes the unusual step of letting the teacher explain -- at length (and with visual aids) -- the different possible pronunciations of the word. Video NSFW click below.

Read More...

All NCLB, All The Time

2007-01-09T08:48:00.000-06:00

Democrats Push for Changes to NCLB Law NYT
Democratic Congressional leaders on Monday called President Bush’s signature education law too punitive in its sanctions on public schools and pledged to increase educational spending, signaling the stance they will take this year in negotiations over the law’s renewal.

Bush, lawmakers meet to plan next phase of NCLB AP
President Bush pushed for renewal of the No Child Left Behind education law Monday in a meeting with congressional leaders but was noncommittal on their request for more money to help schools meet the law’s requirements.

'No Child Left Behind' Law Up for Renewal NPR
The Bush administration is using the law's fifth anniversary to urge reauthorization without changes. But the process won't be as simple as the adminstration once hoped. Plus: A Principal's View of 'No Child Left Behind'

New America Makes A Splash

2007-01-08T17:41:00.000-06:00

Whether or not national standards happen, New America in partnering with Senator Dodd and Fordham has carved out an interesting bit of space that otherwise could have been filled (or ignored) by other center-ish education groups -- and I'm not just saying that because I've done some work for them. The main press room was full at today's event, and the overflow room was overflowing. Ehlers couldn't be there, but Dodd gave a speech featuring sarcasm and wit (as well as a concluding call to action that seemed straight out of the climactic monologue in The Girl In A Cafe). Pictured here, the victorious staffers -- MaryEllen McGuire (Dodd), Michael Dannenberg (New America), Rachel Post (Ehlers), and Taniesha Woods (SRCD/AAAS fellow in Dodd's office) -- all headed back to work rather than to happy hour, this being DC. Missing: Mike Petrilli (Fordham).

Do NCLB Opponents Create A "Petrillian Dystopia"?

2007-01-08T14:31:00.000-06:00

Check out Eduwonk.com for the new NCLB logo and the news that the USDE is serious about trying to get NCLB reauthorized this year. (True enough, from what I saw at the Spellings event this AM). And you gotta love Andy's warnings for NCLB opponents about the possibilities of a "Petrillian dystopia..."

Politics, Schools, and The Gap Between

2007-01-08T13:27:00.000-06:00

"Over the years, I've talked to a lot of political folks who think once the legislative battle is won, the fight is over and they can move on to the next legislative battle," writes Mike Antonucci in a post that riffs off my "mission statement" on the gap between educators and policymakers: Intercepts: Alexander Russo Gets It Right (I Think)" I've talked to a lot of education policy folks who think the power of empirical evidence is enough to get their chosen reform enacted. I've talked to a lot of education reporters who don't understand me when I tell them things like the battle over charter schools is not about charter schools, but about collective bargaining and union membership."

Competing Agendas, "No" On National Standards, New Faces

2007-01-08T11:35:00.000-06:00

Everyone's staking out their turf today in DC, where there are something like five education events (CAP, White House, Spellings at the Chamber, New America, Heritage, etc.). The highlight of the Spellings event was hearing the call for a 2007 reauthorization and strengthening of NCLB, and Spellings' guardedly dismissive comments on the short-term need for national standards (more on that later).
Great also to see familiar faces like Susan Traiman and Bill Taylor and D'Arcy Philps and EdWeek's David Hoff (back on the federal beat), as well as meet "new" folks like David DeSchryver (right) and that Edison dude Doug Mesecar (pictured left), who are much more important (and good-natured) than I originally reported.

Monday In DC

2007-01-08T09:00:00.000-06:00

If you see this slightly devilish-looking person wandering around with a laptop at the events in DC today , please come up and say hello. However, be warned that I may blog about what tie you're wearing.

Three Takes On NCLB Anniversary

2007-01-08T07:27:00.000-06:00

How Bush education law has changed our schools USA Today
A cornerstone of Bush's domestic agenda and one of his few truly bipartisan successes, it took what was once a fairly low-key funding vehicle (it was known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act before Bush borrowed the catchy name from the Children's Defense Fund) and turned it into a vast — and contentious — book of federal mandates.

Pupils still far behind despite law Chicago Tribune
Despite pumping more than $4 billion in No Child Left Behind funds into Illinois, most of the law's intended improvements have either fallen flat or have not been enacted fully.

Next round begins for No Child Left Behind CS Monitor
Achievement levels are creeping up toward the 2014 deadline when all public school children are supposed to be "proficient" at math and reading, and the racial and economic achievement gaps have narrowed slightly in a few cases, but not at all in others.

The Week In Review (January 2-7)

2007-01-07T23:19:00.000-06:00

On The Hill
Off To The Races With National Standards
Looking for ways to mess up your boss's next two years? Consider signing him or her up as an original cosponsor of a new voluntary national standards bill. (See also: Flip-Flopping Finn).
PLUS:
$1B In K12 Earmarks Further Imperiled
First-Week Proposals On The Fritzwire
Website Exclusive: CRS Previews Reauthorization

Blogs & Media Watch
Now That's What I'm Talking About
The Knight Science Journalism Tracker "sifts the Web for the day's newsiest science stories, summarizes the topic, and assesses the work of one or two of the reporters before linking to the other takes on the story...making it easy for reporters and editors to read and judge the competition." Education desperately needs one of these.
PLUS:
A Tempest In Andy's Teapot
EdWeek.org Gets A New (Wide) Look

Best Of The Rest
Why Oprah's School Isn't In The US
Wondering why Oprah didn't decide to build her new school here in the US rather than in South Africa? Me, too.
PLUS:
Banana + Anacaonda = Bananaconda
More USDE Officials Head For The Exits

Site News
Pimp My Blog
Washington Post's Four Best EdBlogs

$1B In K12 Earmarks Further Imperiled

2007-01-07T11:07:00.000-06:00

On Friday, the House voted to make lawmakers identify which earmarks are theirs, endangering roughly $64 billion in earmarks -- including about $1B in K12 earmarks left over from last summer. Reporting that earmarks have tripled in size over the last 12 years, the NYT describes impact of the change here. The list of education earmarks left in limbo is here (under "innovation and improvement"). It runs from recognizeable programs like Troops to Teachers through a long list of $75-750K local items. Guessing which lawmaker pushed which items doesn't seem that hard, but as you'll see there are some outfits like KIPP and Communities In Schools that have figured out how to get several bites at the apple.

First-Week Proposals On The Fritzwire

2007-01-07T10:52:00.000-06:00

Lawmakers love to introduce proposals during the first few days of a new Congress -- staking out territory, announcing their arrival on the scenee, and giving voice to their constituents' and supporters' priorities. Most go nowhere. Some get wrapped into larger efforts or added to spending measures.

Thankfully, there's a resource for tracking all these bills -- it's called Fritzwire and you can get addded to the list by emailing Fritz Edelstein at fritz@publicprivateaction.com.

Some of the most interesting-looking on Fritz's extensive first-week list include: S. 114 (Obama, Illinois), introduced to authorize resources for a grant program for local educational agencies to create innovation districts (Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions). S. 152 (Boxer, Cal.), introduced to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to establish a program to help States expand the educational system to include at least 1 year of early education preceding the year a child enters kindergarten (Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions). H.R. 35 (Ehlers, Michigan), introduced the "Science Accountability Act", to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to require the use of science assessments in the calculation of adequate yearly progress (Education and Labor).

Banana + Anacaonda = Bananaconda

2007-01-05T10:30:00.000-06:00

Never heard of a Bananaconda? You need to get out more. The creature -- part banana, part snake -- is one of many popularized in Scranimals and wildly popular among kids according to several recent news reports including this one. Other creatures include Hippopotamushrooms, Potatoads, Broccolions, and --my favorite --Toucanemones.

Fordham's Follies

2007-01-05T10:01:00.000-06:00

More thoughts about Fordham's "Insiders" report: Much as I love her, since when did Michele at AFT become a power player? And that Edison dude -- is he really one of the top folks? Other folks who should have been included (besides Dannenberg and the others I named before): Dianne Piche and Bill Taylor at CCCR, Kati Haycock at the EdTrust, someone from the Department.

UPDATE: AFT Michele says she's not sure she should have been on the list, but thinks I should have. At least until she reads this post. (The Insider).

UPDATE 2: As predicted, Michele didn't like this post very much, but even when she's mad she's funny. Click "Enjoy!" to see her Jib-Jab caricature of me.

Off To The Races With National Standards

2007-01-05T08:52:00.000-06:00

Tired already of the 110th Congress and looking for ways to mess up your boss's next two years (like I did with Feinstein and the Clinton health care legislation)? Consider signing him or her up as an original cosponsor of a new voluntary national standards bill. Republican Congressman ~~John~~ Vernon Ehlers (left) is joining the irrepressible Chris Dodd in introducing it on Monday. The 24-page legislation, called The SPEAK Act, amends NAEP and focuses on solely on math and science. It is, like NCLB, nominally voluntary, but could provide as much as $600 million in federal funds that states would be hard-pressed not to apply for. There's a 2:30 event at New America on Monday that will include supporters include New America Foundation and Fordham Foundation, Former Governors Engler & Wise, and the Council of Great City Schools. No sign of the Sector, AEI, CEP, Heritage, or CAP (much less Miller, Kennedy, McKeon, or Enzi). So far, Dodd and Ehlers are the only cosponsors, and the bill language and summary are embargoed, but you've got all weekend to think it over.

Rounding Up The Weeklies

2007-01-05T06:49:00.000-06:00

It's Friday, and that means that The Gadfly, the NewsBlast, and the Equity Express are all just out and full of week-end reading. The Express reminds us to read these stories about teacher quality (When a Teacher of the Year takes on a failing school Christian Science Monitor, and Group targets ineffective teachers San Antonio Express-News). The Gadfly asks Is No Child Left Behind's birthday worth celebrating?. The NewsBlast points to (and summarizes) articles on topics like enlisting students in reform, Waldorf, and more.

Morning Round-up January 5, 2006

2007-01-05T06:23:00.000-06:00

Sex-Ed Plan Could Revive Heated Debate From 2005 WaPo
Montgomery County school officials previewed new middle and high school lesson plans yesterday on sexual orientation and condom use, topics that could refuel the debate on how much the county's teenagers need to know about homosexuality and premarital sex.

Police prepare for the worst JS Online
But Columbine and other shootings prompted law enforcement agencies to realize first-on-scene patrol officers must be ready to enter a school, mall or another public place to take out a shooter and stop the killing.

Infection fear shuts some R.I. schools Boston Globe
Rhode Island officials canceled school yesterday and today for more than 20,000 students in three communities because of a suspected case of meningitis and the death of a second-grader from encephalitis.

A Tempest In Andy's Teapot

2007-01-04T17:44:00.000-06:00

Given how many times I've rained on Andy's parade, it's no wonder that he'd be eager to try and return the favor. Given my math skills, laziness, and general ineptitude, it's not that hard to do. But that's not really the most revealing issue...

Read More...

For example, I wonder how the EdWeek reporter who complained to Andy (I'm guessing it wasn't much more than one) feels about being used like that -- and how the rest of the newsroom feels about having someone's gripes aired in public.

I'm not even really sure the concern has an substantive merit. EdWeek already has two or three other blogs up, all written in-house, so it's not like I'm going to be their only blogger (or that they might not add a jillion more).

Most of all, we should all keep in mind during these next few weeks how insecure the EdWeek announcement must be making Andy. He knows that his readership is going to be eclipsed almost immediately. This in turn could seriously endanger his chances of becoming Secretary. So we should all try and be nice to him if we can. And we will. If he only lets us.

Now That's What I'm Talking About

2007-01-04T16:55:00.000-06:00

This is something that would help the education beat tremendously -- but no one seems to want to do yet despite my repeated entreaties (aka offers) to do it: a site that tracks and dissects media coverage on a certain beat every day.

As Slate's Jack Shafer explains, the Knight Science Journalism Tracker "sifts the Web for the day's newsiest science stories, summarizes the topic, and assesses the work of one or two of the reporters before linking to the other takes on the story...making it easy for reporters and editors to read and judge the competition." No one does this regularly, or thoroughly enough on the education beat -- not EWA, not Hechinger, and not me (though I'm willing).

Discriminating Teachers On NPR

2007-01-04T16:20:00.000-06:00

Those few of you who may have been listening in to NPR's This American Life last month or during the holidays will likely have been as upset as I was by the segment describing the mistreatment of a little Muslim-American immigrant girl by her teacher, her classmates, and her school -- a horrifying situation that ultimately led to the involvement of the USDE taking action against the school. Click here and look for the 12/15 show (episode 322 called Shouting Across the Divide.)

EdWeek.org Gets A New (Wide) Look

2007-01-04T11:42:00.000-06:00

The Wall Street Journal isn't the only paper getting revamped these days. Just unveiled this week (in conjunction with an "open house" that makes all their content free), EdWeek's new online look is really WIIIIDE, with three hefty columns in a row instead of the old-school two-column look (as in this blog) or two narrower columns on each side and a bigger middle one (as in the NYT site). And, like lots of homepages these days, it's nearly overwhelmingly busy.

I wish the middle/new content section was bigger than the other columns so that it was clearer visually that that's where the good stuff is, but what do I know about website design? There's lots of new multimedia (pic galleries, audio) to check out, and the three-column format is fairly readable as long as you've got a big enough screen. And, of course, the content -- check out the article about Ford's education legacy -- remains strong.

Nine Twelve Washingtonistas On NCLB

2007-01-04T10:58:00.000-06:00

Fresh off its "Influentials" success, the Fordham folks have put out an eight-page PDF listing what might happen to various provisions of NCLB (Education Insiders’ Predictions for NCLB). All regular readers of this site, the insiders (all 9 12 of them) mostly seem to agree with me on what's going -- and not going -- to happen.

Who are Fordham's insiders? Edelstein (see below), Hess (AEI), Rotherham (EdSector), Brown (CAP), Mesecar (Edison), Packer (NEA), McLaughlin (AFT), Philps, Traiman (BRT), Little (Alliance), Hunter (AASA), DeSchryver.

Who's not on the list but should have been (beside me)? The most obvious folks include Martin (Kennedy), Cain (Miller), Nock (Aspen), Dannenberg (New America), Jennings (CEP).

UPDATE: Thanks to Eduwonk for pointing out my poor counting skills.

More USDE Officials Head For The Exits

2007-01-04T08:34:00.000-06:00

According to a recent email from the Title I Monitor, longtime USDE official Jackie Jackson is leaving the USDE next month. She has headed the Student Achievement and School Accountability programs since 2004, according to the Monitor, a $13B office that includes Title I Part A, Even Start, Early Reading First, etc. If I remember correctly, that office was previously headed under a slightly different configuration and name (Compensatory Ed) by Mary Jean LeTendre and... that guy from Texas. (Joe Johnson?)

Where's Fritz?

2007-01-04T08:30:00.000-06:00

Longtime USDE staffer Fritz Edelstein has --not surprisingly-- landed on his feet after roughly three years on loan and then under contract with the US Conference of Mayors (during which he overlapped with the infamous JD LaRock, now in Kennedy's office). At the Conference, Edelstein helped put the organization on the education map. He's going to continue working with the group and with individual mayors as well as a variety of other folks now that he's out on his own (fritz@publicprivateaction.com).

Thursday AM News: Next Steps On NCLB, NCTQ Database, & More

2007-01-04T07:34:00.000-06:00

'No Child' Law on Track, Spellings Says WashPost
U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said yesterday that she welcomed proposals to "perfect and tweak" the No Child Left Behind law as Congress prepares for what could become a divisive debate on renewal of the landmark education initiative.

Online database opens a window for parents USAT
Want to know how early your son's second-grade teacher has to arrive at school each morning? Whether she hands in lesson plans each week?

Why China wants you to learn Chinese CSM
Many Americans are eager to learn, but some are concerned about China's motives behind 'Confucius Institutes.'

Teachers' math skills are targeted Boston Globe
The push follows years of concerns that elementary school teachers are passing on limited math skills to their students.

A Surprising Secret to a Long Life: Stay in School NYT
The one social factor that researchers agree is consistently linked to longer lives in every country where it has been studied is education. It is more important than race; it obliterates any effects of income.

For Va. Kids, Success From An Early Age WaPo
To any parent who has wondered which children are most likely to succeed in life, a new national report offered an answer yesterday drawn from selected measures of economic affluence and academic achievement: the kids of Virginia.

Why Oprah's School Isn't In The US

2007-01-03T14:04:00.000-06:00

Wondering why Oprah didn't decide to build her new school here in the US rather than in South Africa? Me, too. Here's part of the answer:

"''If you ask the kids what they want or need [in the US], they will say an iPod or some sneakers,' she's quoted as saying). 'In South Africa, they don't ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school.'"

How Much Has Changed Since 1997? Not That Much.

2007-01-03T13:47:00.000-06:00

The indefatiguable Checker Finn wrote in from afar to correct the record on his views of national testing, which I had yesterday described as a flip flop.

Like other commenters, Finn reminded me that he supported national testing as long as NAGB was in control. True enough. But my point -- poorly articulated as it was -- is that while supporting national tests a decade ago Finn was exceedingly realistic about their chances of enactment. Ten years later, he's much more optimistic.

In a followup email, Finn deputy Mike Petrilli points out helpfully (if not entirely persuasively) that NCLB has "changed the debate," and that not all Ds hate testing anymore, and Rs are scared to death of China and India.

Washington Post's Four Best EdBlogs

2007-01-03T12:01:00.000-06:00

Ratings things is fun, says "Uncle Jay" Mathews in his column on education blogs (Innocents in Blogland), and I'm happy to report that this blog is one of just 4 that get the nod from both Mathews and his co- evaluator, Walt Gardner. Thanks to everyone who nominated the blog, and to Mathews and Gardner, whose reviews include some interesting insights (along with some unfortunate hyperbole).

Website Exclusive: CRS Previews Reauthorization

2007-01-03T10:42:00.000-06:00

As you may recall, I've been trying to get my hands on various CRS reports, which I remember fondly from my days on the Hill for their dry but exhaustive analysis. Here's the first of what I hope are several such reports that I've been able to dig up. Dated December 14th, this is the most recent Congressional Research Service preview of NCLB reauthorization issues prepared for the Congress that officially starts tomorrow: 1206 ESEA Overview (PDF).

Others may find more interesting things to note, but what jumped out at me about the report was a chart towards the back that shows appropriations levels as a percentage of authorization levels -- a statistic that I've never seen before and am not sure has any meaning, given the highly romantic nature of Congressional authorization levels. It starts out at over 75 percent and declines steadily to just over 51 percent.

Morning Round-Up, January 3, 2006

2007-01-03T10:38:00.000-06:00

When college aid competes with school reform San Francisco Chronicle (via EdNews)
Romancing swing voters, like other tentative trysts, often yields soft promises, even broken hearts. Take the college-aid proposals of new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, eager to signal that her Democrat-led Congress will sooth the economic angst of middle-class families, starting with making college more affordable.

Trying to Find Solutions in Chaotic Middle Schools NYT
Driven by slumps in learning and by high dropout rates later, educators are struggling to rethink middle school.

Fix 'No Child' law to make it more effective Detroit News (Via EdNews)
The New Year has barely begun, but already special interests are lobbying intensely to rework the federal No Child Left Behind Act -- up for renewal in 2007 -- to protect themselves.

EdWeek's New Quality Counts Report

2007-01-03T10:33:00.000-06:00

Like the September issue of Vogue, EdWeek's Quality Counts report seems to get bigger and bigger every year. This year, the report includes sections on efforts to integrate PK-16, early childhood education, and more. Check it out: From Cradle To Career

Some early coverage:
Arizona kids called not ready to compete well, study says

Predictions For 2007

2007-01-03T10:25:00.000-06:00

Scott Elliott asks -- but doesn't answer -- several questions about national education trends in his post Education predictions for 2007? so I guess I'll have to answer for him: Largely intact. An afterthought. Not really.

For the record, I came up with some predictions for 2006, a few of which came true (national testing is still going nowhere, school-based bans are still going strong, TV shows are still portraying education better than most journalists, and most blogs like this one are still lame). The others -- about states not bothering to apply for the growth model and Hurrican vouchers leading to a proliferation of other voucher intiatives -- didn't exactly pan out.

A New Year for School Reform

2007-01-02T11:42:00.000-06:00

Built off of EdWeek's annual Quality Counts report (the new one is out ~~this week, I think~~ tomorrow) and Fordham's recent state by state analysis of progress (for which I wrote a couple of state profiles), this recent editorial from the NYT (A New Year for School Reform) reminds us of several worthwhile things -- most notably that NCLB "did not just drop out of the sky" but rather was the culmination of standards-based reform efforts that have been in vogue for at least 15 years and that minority achievement scores have risen just not fast/enough.

Its proposed remedies aren't to dump NCLB, or abandon its approach, but rather to do what a growing number of folks seem to be calling for in various ways: more rigorous tests, better teacher training, better help for failing schools, and better staffing for low-income schools. Eduwonk calls it "must-read stuff" and points out (as I did below) that the national testing crowd has more problems than solutions.

Flip-Flopping Finn Mesmerizes NPR On National Testing

2007-01-02T11:28:00.000-06:00

Filling a slow news day, NPR snuck in a piece on the push for national testing on New Year's Day (Conservatives Call for National Education Curriculum) but -- like many segments on this topic -- misses several key points. Journalistically, the piece opens misleadingly with references to national high school tests in other countries which aren't really the issue here (we have the SAT and ACT for that, as NPR admits late in the segment). Substantively, the piece wildly overstates the current level of interesting and momentum for national testing. (Can anyone say "Democratically- controlled Congress"?). Most annoyingly, it ignores the fact that it was Checker Finn -- currently the main proponent of national testing -- who opposed it so effectively a decade ago. What's changed since then, really, and how does Finn explain his flip-flop on the issue?

Pimp My Ride Blog

2007-01-02T10:05:00.000-06:00

On the MTV show "Pimp My Ride," the host takes old, dinged-up cars and turns them into shining, high-tech machines. And in that spirit I'm happy to announce that in the very near future this blog is going to get a fancy new home over at EdWeek.org, home of Education Week & Teacher Magazine.

I know, I know -- it seems like an unlikely pairing. They have real journalists over there, staff meetings, a vacation policy, and all of that. I have...well, none of those things. And, of course, I've poked fun of them several times. (You can read what I've said about EdWeek in the past here.)

So why the new partnership? Well, they apparently heard about this whole blogging craze and want in on the fast-moving fun. Me, I get access to their bazillion readers and some undeserved semblance of respectability. Oh, and the millions and millions of dollars that they're paying. No, not really. Plus which, I generally like the EdWeekers and what they do.

Will the new version cost you anything to read? Nope. Not a cent. Will this new setup change the substance or style of what's on the blog? Not at all. No meddling editors are involved. Will the new version be any better than the old one? Let's hope so. It'll definitely be read by a lot more real live educators, who I'm hoping might have some interesting things to say. The only real thing that's going to change is the design and appearance of the blog -- no great loss.

Morning Round-up January 2, 2007

2007-01-02T06:19:00.000-06:00

Montessori, Now 100, Goes Mainstream WaPo
The American Montessori Society, based in New York, reported 7 percent membership growth in just the past year, and many of the schools are getting ready to celebrate the centennial of the Montessori beachhead.

Lock the Library! Rowdy Students Are Taking Over NYT
An institution that, like many nationwide, strives to attract young people, even offering beading and cartooning classes, will soon be shutting them out, along with the rest of the public, at one of the busiest parts of its day.

Morning Round-up December 29, 2006

2006-12-29T06:53:00.000-06:00

Allure of Magnet Schools Wins Over Nearby Districts WaPo
Suffer more than two hours of commuting round trip for the privilege of attending one of the nation's best high schools? Or enroll in the neighborhood school 15 minutes away near Manassas?

School scheduling longer break over holidays LAT
The trend is particularly noticeable in districts with large Latino populations, because of the many families that head south of the border to celebrate Christmas and Día de los Reyes on Jan. 6.

School crime rises, reflects Hub violence Boston Globe
The number of weapons confiscated in and around Boston's public schools has risen 42 percent in the last five years, mirroring a citywide rise in youth violence.

The Worst Of 2006

2006-12-28T13:20:00.000-06:00

Earlier this month, I wrote about those for whom it was a very good year, including George Miller and Ted Kennedy, the Gates Foundation, LA Mayor Villagairosa, school bans, incentive pay for teachers, and schools in year six of AYP. (I forgot to mention it was also a very good year for FairTest, by the way.)

As for those whose year didn’t go so well, I’d nominate Tom Vander Ark, who resigned as head of the Gates Foundation’s education effort after failing to be selected as the head of the LAUSD. ECS hit the skids. It also wasn’t a great year for EdSec Spellings, who had to deal with the Reading First scandal, plus idiotic statement about NCLB being 99 percent pure. But then again she wasn’t forced out.

It also wasn’t a good year for lecherous teachers – many of them female – caught sleeping with students, or STEM initiatives (remember them?) or Frist Grants. The plight of boys in a female-dominated school system took a beating, and national tests didn't gain much traction as some had hoped in large part due to lots of testing snafus last winter and spring. Ditto for weighted student funding (aka the "100 percent solution"). Nor was it a good year for tutoring, choice, or teacher equity provisions of NCLB, which received too little attention, too late, from not enough people.

Education journalism & blogging lost Ben Feller (AP), Matt Pinzur (Miami Herald), Michael Winerip (NYT), Dale Mezzacappa (Phil Enquirer), & AFT John (AFT Blog).

UPDATE: Other folks' roundups of the year: USA Today has one here. EdWeek has one here. Eduwonk has one here.

Morning Round-up December 28, 2006

2006-12-28T05:39:00.000-06:00

Project is getting students hooked on engineering early JS Online
Milwaukee is having growth in the program at the middle-school level, as the sixth- through eighth-grade Gateway to Technology curriculum prepares more children for high school studies in principles of engineering and robotic design.

Reformers cite middle school needs LAT
After having focused for years on elementary and high school reforms, L.A. Unified leaders say they are turning their attention to middle schools in hopes of better preparing students for high school and thus stemming the district's alarming dropout rate.

No Tests? College's Students Must Relearn How to Learn WaPo
For freshmen such as Elizabeth Fleming who are whipsawed from pressure-cooker, high-achieving high schools to colleges that take a longer-term, more philosophical view of learning, the first semester is an education in itself.

Schools bank on parents' ability to raise cash Seattle Times
In addition to her usual school budget this year, Bryant Elementary School principal Linda Robinson will have nearly $200,000 to spend on student field trips, library materials, instrumental music and artists-in-residence.

School partnerships need a push Boston Globe
A plan by five major research universities to adopt 10 public schools in Boston is creaking along, despite school department hopes that the partnerships would be underway in the new year. If college officials are going to make a significant contribution to the city's schools, they must first adopt an urban sense of urgency.

Immigrant Children Shielded From State Tests, but for Whose Protection? NYT
The district’s policy, which state law allows, has been to spare children from immigrant families from taking the test if they have been in the school system less than five years.

Ho, Ho, Ho -- From My Inlatable Santa To Yours

2006-12-26T13:26:00.000-06:00

Happy holidays from This Week In Education.

It's been another great year, and I appreciate all of your readership, comments, and emails.

I'll be updating intermittently this week.

Onwards and upwards in 2007!

Week In Review December 18 - 25

2006-12-26T10:47:00.000-06:00

Posts Of The Week
2006 -- It Was A Very Good Year
On The HotSeat: KIPP Co-Founder Mike Feinberg

NCLB
How About A "Surge" In Education Funding?
National Review In A Time Warp On NCLB
Left And Right Could Be On To Something

Education Policy
University-Run Schools
Where Are The K12 Lobbyists?

Edusphere
'Tis The Season Of Self-Promotion?
Top 100 Education Blogs

Media Watch
Feature, Facts Or Scare Tactics?
"Buster" Returns Despite Secretary Spellings
Another One Bites The Dust

Social Issues
Poverty Next Door
New-School Solutions To Old-School Problems
Ignoring Poverty In The Suburbs

Most Dangerous Toys Of All Time

2006-12-22T09:22:00.000-06:00

"Ever since my parents bought me a pair of pogo stilts when I was 10 and the first series of exponentially more vertiginous bounces caused my leg femurs to pop out of the top of my pelvis, I have been fascinated with dangerous toys," begins this post in Wired about the most dangourous toys of all time (Table of Malcontents). The list goes way beyond lawn darts.

Top 100 Education Blogs

2006-12-22T08:27:00.000-06:00

The best things about this list of favorite education blogs are that it tries to gather like blogs together (teacher blogs, policy blogs) and that This Week In Education is included: Top 100 Education Blogs.

Ignoring Poverty In The Suburbs

2006-12-22T08:24:00.000-06:00

Even while there are big shifts in the distribution of poor people in America -- more now live in the suburbs than in inner cities -- the national press and federal policymakers are struggling to pay attention.

"Poverty stories are a tough sell in today's MSM, so the fact that these [local] papers chose to report the story at all is positive," according to a recent post in the CJR Daily (Poverty Pendulum Swings, Press Yawns).

Where Are The K12 Lobbyists?

2006-12-22T08:13:00.000-06:00

Impact aid, migrant education -- I remember a small but persistent set of folks who used to come into my bosses' offices to lobby on issues, programs, and special projects while I was on the Hill, and I'm guessing it's only gotten worse since then. To give you an idea of who's out there, yesterday's Inside Higher Ed has a detailed look at lobbying at the postsecondary level (Anti- Lobbying Fever? Not in Higher Ed). I don't see an similarly recent or detailed piece from EdWeek, but there are some articles on the topic (The School Lobby, Rural Educators Step Up Lobbying Efforts) and I'm guessing there's a list of registered K12 lobbyists online somewhere, too

Morning Round-up December 22, 2006

2006-12-22T06:51:00.000-06:00

School Entrepreneur Named to Be a Deputy Chancellor NYT
The former Edison president, Chris Cerf will be deputy chancellor — a $196,571-a-year post that will formalize his role in Mr. Klein’s inner circle and make him the system’s top official for labor relations and negotiations, principal and teacher recruitment and training, media relations and political affairs.

A Baltimore School Seeks to Avoid Failure NPR (audio)
Thousands of schools around the country are labeled as "needing improvement" under the terms of the No Child Left Behind Act. One Baltimore school is struggling against poverty, absenteeism, and years of academic decay to try and turn itself around.

Educators want to reopen 'Brown v. Board' school USA Today
Brown's old neighborhood school, Sumner Elementary, has been shuttered for years. Now two black Kansas educators want to turn it into a charter school for at-risk students, most of whom, they say, will be black or Hispanic.

How About A "Surge" In Education Funding?

2006-12-21T12:42:00.000-06:00

All this crazy talk about a surge of military forces in Iraq -- plus the Ed Trust school finance report (Funding Gaps 2006 -- must be making education advocates mutter under their breath that if anything deserves a surge it's federal funding for low-income schools.

UPDATE: Kevin Carey at TQATE points out the presence of inequities in federal funding as well as state and local funding but leaves out the long sad story of trying to get Title I formula changes past Ted Kennedy, Tom Harkin, and Chris Dodd, among others.

UPDATE 2: What about funds for the "effort" part of Title I, a couple of readers have asked -- wasn't this supposed to ensure that Title I wasn't overly based on state PPE? I seem to recall its use early on in NCLB but I'm guessing that went away fairly quickly.

Another One Bites The Dust

2006-12-21T11:32:00.000-06:00

I was hoping that Ben Feller's disappearance from the AP education spot was temporary, but AFT Michele reports that it's not so: "Ben's beat is being taken up by Nancy Zuckerbrod, who I have chatted with once on the phone, and I ran into her at the recent AEI conference on the NCLB Toolkit," writes Michele (So Long Ben!), who also points out that I'm falling down on the job by not noting this earlier. Denial, and laziness, at work yet again.

New-School Solutions To Old-School Problems

2006-12-21T10:43:00.000-06:00

John Edwards isn't the only politico who's got a growing focus on poverty, as this NYT story on new efforts in New York City reveals (Bloomberg Plans New Office to Help New York’s Poor). Bloomberg is taking a traditional liberal issue (poverty) that many old-school educators and traditionalistas believe needs to be addressed before or alongside school reform, and giving it a new, Clinton-esque spin. Note the presence of Geoffrey Canada from the Harlem Children's Zone in the picture. See previous post: Cash For Coming To School?

UPDATE: Joe Williams is already on the case, writing in Poverty and Schools, Part XXI that paying kids to stay in school is only a good idea if the school is good enough. I get what he's saying, but I'm not sure that kids are better served on the streets than they are at a low-performing schools.

Left And Right Could Be On To Something, Says SF Schools Blog

2006-12-21T10:36:00.000-06:00

In response to my post about the unusual mix of critics who've gathered to bash NCLB (National Review In A Time Warp On NCLB), the SF Schools blog notes that just because the mix is unusual doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong-minded (NCLB and strange bedfellows).

On The HotSeat: KIPP Co-Founder Mike Feinberg

2006-12-21T10:34:00.000-06:00

Hated by many educators but loved by the media, the KIPP network of (mostly) charter schools are a fascinating and in some ways horrifying effort to reach low-income kids and get them to and through college.

On the HotSeat, Feinberg explains what it's like to be loved and hated by so many (not so bad), dispells that 16-hour day rumor (sort of), espouses the virtues of hard work ("Plow On" is his motto), tells us where the KIPP model came from (her name is Harriett), and explains why KIPP failed in Chicago (no charter). He also says that regular schools could do much of what he and others are trying, without KIPP or a charter.

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A lot of educators really hate KIPP schools, as you probably know – how do you deal with that and what do you tell to those folks?

MF: Work hard. Be nice. In KIPP’s 12 years I have run into far more educators who appreciate what we are doing and like to learn new techniques and strategies from us (and we learn how to teach better from them) than those who would like to see us disappear.

How does it feel to be a media darling?

MF: While I’m always skeptical of hype, our KIPP students, whom we call “KIPPsters,” have earned this recognition. The KIPPsters are the ones who are getting on buses at 6:00 am, going to school until 5:00 pm, getting home after 6:00 pm, doing two hours of homework, going to bed, and then waking up early the next morning to start all over.

Sixteen-hour work days for KIPP teachers? Is that true?

MF: Creating a new KIPP school is essentially a start-up venture. The founding faculty of a new KIPP school often work very long hours because, on top of their goal of helping students below grade level climb the mountain to college, no tried and true systems are in place yet. They need to be created, scrapped, reinvented, and refined. That being said, sixteen hour work days are not the norm and particularly as a school matures, teachers find their work loads to be very manageable.

What’s the KIPP workload like after the start-up is done?

MF: When our schools transition out of start-up mode and into focusing on sustainability, they are coming up with staffing solutions that can allow many different great teachers to teach in their schools. KIPP has young mothers and fathers who need to leave right at 5:00 pm to pick up their children from daycare, part-time teachers who job share, and teachers who continue to work past 5:00 pm. We also have 35-year classroom veterans who have come out of retirement to teach at KIPP.

Do KIPP teachers make any more money for all this work?

Since we are very lean on administrative costs, we typically can afford to pay our teachers 15-20% higher salaries than the neighboring public school. However our schools are staffed, though, we at KIPP remain steadfastly convinced that having the children come to school from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm for 180 days a year is not enough time We firmly believe what Rafe Esquith taught us: that there are no shortcuts on any path towards success.

Who’s Rafe Esquith?

MF: Rafe is an amazing teacher at Hobart Elementary School in Los Angeles whose students learn many talents and achieve phenomenal results.

For those of us who think of them as one undistinguishable entity, what’s the difference between KIPP and the Amistad schools, for example?

MF: It’s comforting to hear y’all see them as undistinguishable–as KIPP shares the same mission and results-oriented philosophy as Dacia Toll and Doug McCurry’s Achievement First schools, Chris Barbic’s YES Prep schools, and Norman Atkins’ Uncommon Schools, as examples. This development makes it more difficult to dismiss any of our results as an anomaly that does not have any relevance to the rest of the schools and systems in public education today.

OK, there’s more than one success story to tell – but what’s different about a KIPP school than an Achievement First or YES Prep or Uncommon school?

MF: We have a shorter email address for people to type. ☺

What’s the relationship between KIPP and TFA?

MF: KIPP grew out of Teach For America. Dave Levin and I started KIPP after completing our commitment to TFA in 1994. Currently 60% of KIPP principals and 33% of KIPP teachers are TFA alumni. We owe a great debt to Wendy Kopp for not only creating TFA, but growing the organization to a point where 4,400 TFA teachers serve in classrooms across America.

I didn’t know that the KIPP creation story was so TFAntastic. Wendy Kopp created KIPP and spun it off?

MF: Wendy inspired us to dream, think, and act big – and KIPP was the result.

How big do you want KIPP to get?

MF: We are focused on educating kids and figuring out how to grow to serve children who are on our schools’ wait lists. We don’t believe that we have all the answers for public education, or that every school in the country should be a KIPP school, but we do believe that we can help many underserved children succeed in school and life. We also believe that many of our strategies can help other educators learn how to do great things with their students, too. And right now we’re laser focused on helping our 12,000 KIPPsters get ready for college. There’s no substitute for hard work.

What are two things that regular schools could do like KIPP without being KIPP or even being a charter school?

MF: They can extend their students’ learning time to make the clock a friend instead of an enemy, and they can adjust their curriculum to make sure it’s college-prep by reverse engineering expectations from college graduation back to the grade levels they serve. And here’s one more thing to chew on – schools can view their students and families as the main source of accountability, and serve the children so well that even if there are many other free, easy options for where to attend school, the children and families would continue to choose to remain at that school.

KIPP schools have only failed outright in a couple of places, including Chicago – what have you learned from those few experiences and how has it changed what you do?

In 2003, we opened two schools in Chicago-KIPP Ascend Charter School on the west side, and a contract school-within-a-school in partnership with Chicago Public Schools. While the contract school had the second largest math gains in the city of Chicago in 2005, the achievement levels were not as high as they needed to be to get these kids in college. We made the decision to phase this school into the other school in November of 2005, giving parents and students time so that they could plan for the next year. Several former students enrolled in KIPP Ascend, which was one of the top performing public schools in Chicago in 2006.

What did you learn from what happened in Chicago?

MF: We learned that the contract path in Chicago was not helpful to achieving our mission, and we shouldn’t have been naïve enough to think that the conditions into which we are sending our school leaders and teachers do not matter at all. Now that Chicago Public Schools has a new contract model, I hope they have cracked the nut on ensuring their new schools are set up for success.

What specifically were some of the things that didn’t work without a charter in Chicago?

MF: The staff of the contract school had to spend considerable time navigating through the traditional school system of 600 schools that is more complex than a charter school system of 1 school. That navigation time could have and should have been spent with the students and families, which our charter school on the west side of Chicago has been able to do and has achieved great results in the process.

Can KIPP work inside the regular school district system, or is it charter-only?

MF: Our preferred model for opening new schools is the charter school model. The charter model guarantees the 3 Fs that are necessary to set up KIPP for success: freedom, funding, and facilities. Currently, 49 of our 52 schools are charter schools. This is not an ideological issue for us, though; it’s a practical issue. There are things we know we need to do to help create great public schools, and so long as we can do them we’re fine. We engage districts in the discussion frequently, and we are clear that we would happily open our schools in a district if we can get these key freedoms in place. Today, it’s a tall order. We’re hopeful, though, that over time it will be easier for districts to be able to make this happen.

Is it true that a lot of the KIPP model came from a veteran African American teacher in Texas? Whatever happened to her?

MF: Harriett Ball was Dave’s and my incredible mentor teacher when we started teaching as new Teach For America corps members in 1992. She taught us how to teach and reach our students—that mindset was the basis for starting KIPP. Even the name–Knowledge is Power--comes from one of Harriett’s chants that she does with students in the classroom.

Why isn’t she out front with you guys, then?

MF: Today Harriett has retired from teaching in the Houston public schools and is hired by schools, including KIPP schools, to do workshops around the country. More than learning her chants, raps, and songs, educators learn from her a new way to view lesson planning and instructional strategies for how to reach and teach all children with very different learning needs and preferences.

Do KIPP schools provide lots of social services and supports, or is it all about enhancing the academic, in-school experience as much as possible?

MF: It’s all about doing whatever it takes to help our students climb the mountain to and through college. That certainly means teaching the 3 R’s, but given the challenges found in underserved communities, we cannot expect our students to learn and succeed in a bubble at KIPP without addressing the out-of-school issues that affect them as well.

Have you guys pursued federal funding to expand or support your efforts?

MF: Like many other education groups, we received no funding for this current year when all supplemental grants were wiped out of the education appropriations bill because of Hurricane Katrina. Our last supplemental federal funding –from November of 2004-- received bipartisan support from a range of Congressmen and Senators. Most recently, we received a credit enhancement grant from the US DOE in 2006 that acts as a reserve fund to help our schools secure facilities.

How much more (or less) does it take, money-wise, to run a KIPP school than a traditional district school?

MF: The majority of KIPP schools spend the same or less than traditional public schools. Given that most of our schools receive less per-pupil funding than district schools receive (typically we receive 60 to 90 percent of the operational revenue and none of the capital expenditure revenue), there is fundraising that we need to do to make up that difference.

What’s your work day like – as long and hard as your teachers’?

MF: I believe I can’t ask others to do what I’m not willing to do, so I try to work both very hard and very smart. Some days I’m smarter than others…..still learning….. ☺

You sign off your emails with “plow on.” – Where does that come from, and how long have you been using it?

MF: It comes from Langston Hughes’ poem, “Freedom’s Plow”. I’ve been using it since I heard Dave read that poem during a speech over a decade ago.

Morning Round-up December 21, 2006

2006-12-21T06:05:00.000-06:00

Web 'bullying' ban backed JS Online
Any conduct that could draw disciplinary action according to the district's definition of conduct could also trigger disciplinary action if transmitted electronically, according to the changes recommended by the committee.

Study: Poor students shortchanged Miami Herald
The funding disparity arises, in large part, because the federal government allocates the funds based on states' per-pupil expenditures.

'English language learners' succeed in St. Paul, Minn. CSM
District officials tout their team-teaching model as one reason they've significantly narrowed the gaps between English language learners (ELLs) and their native English-speaking peers.

Poverty Next Door

2006-12-20T11:48:00.000-06:00

If we ever needed a reminder that poverty's effects are deep and complex and that helping poor families is no clear thing, this Salon article about one family's experience living next to an extremely poor household in Houston is a good if saddening, illustration: "The poor will always be with us but I'm glad the Smiths are gone. My heart breaks for them, but also for their new neighbors." (Not in my backyard, either)

2006 -- It Was A Very Good Year

2006-12-20T11:37:00.000-06:00

I'll add to this over the next couple of weeks (your ideas are welcome), but I can already tell that it's been a very good year for... George Miller and Ted Kennedy, who get to be chairmen again...the Gates Foundation, which got $33B more to play with courtesy of Warren Buffett (and their many beneficiaries)....Barack Obama, the political wonder boy (and Steve Robinson, his education LA)...LA Mayor Villagairosa and all the other big-city mayors who're running their own school systems...HBO's The Wire for portraying urban education and politics so realistically...Secretary Spellings, who's now down to the homestretch without losing her job...education blogs, which have proliferated (if not quite as fast as I thought they would) despite their lack of usefulness...education groups, which seem to be proliferating faster than rabbits...school bans (cellphones, purses, honor roll, cupcakes, etc.)...incentive pay for teachers, which is enjoying renewed attention and funding (even from lefty organizations like CAP....schools in year six of AYP, most of whom have had to very little differently to stay open.

The Carnival Is Up!

2006-12-20T08:49:00.000-06:00

The 98th Carnival of Education is hosted by The Median Sib - here's a taste:

Mr. McNamar was a little miffed with the recent Weblog Awards. In “Best Education Blog” at The Daily Grind he calls for readers to vote for his personally selected list of edu-blog finalists.

Ryan at Edspresso writes about “the lack of autonomy teachers and principals have in today’s democratically-governed school systems, and how choice can help remedy the problem” in “Democratic governance of schools, part II: choice and autonomy (or: leave the coach alone!).”

'Tis The Season Of Self-Promotion?

2006-12-20T08:26:00.000-06:00

As if last week's "Influentials" report wasn't self-aggrandizingly incestuous enough, this morning Eduwonk Andy rolls in with yet another effort to come up with an education pecking order based on EdWeek mentions (The 2006 Box Score!). I wonder where he got that idea from (Need a Quote?), and if his funders know he's spending their money counting EdWeek mentions and making little charts to show how big he is? Then again, Fordham spent big bucks to pay for the Influentials report, and EdWeek researched it. Then again, Fordham has been around long enough to warrant it, and has now put its money where its mouth is (authorizing charters in Ohio).

Morning Round-up December 20, 2006

2006-12-20T07:05:00.000-06:00

School Bars Yearbook Photo of Student in Medieval Garb NYT
The Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit supporting Mr. Agin’s free-speech rights to use the photo, and both sides have agreed to take the matter to the state education commissioner.

New Teacher Jolts KIPP WaPo
Lisa Suben told her supervisors she was going to produce her own fifth-grade math curriculum. A year later, her students achieved the largest one-year math score jump ever seen at a KIPP school.

Evolution warnings don't stick LAT
In a settlement announced Tuesday in federal court, the Cobb County Board of Education agreed never to use any similar "stickers, labels, stamps, inscriptions or other warnings," or to undermine the teaching of evolution in science classes.

University-Run Schools

2006-12-19T08:26:00.000-06:00

This post from Inside Higher Ed describes what's going on at Coppin State, where the school has taken over one local school and is starting another (Growing the Talent Pool). The University of Chicago is doing some of the same things, as are a handful of others around the country. I tend to like it -- schools putting their money and reputations where their mouths are. But it doesn't always result in miraculous improvements.

National Review In A Time Warp On NCLB

2006-12-19T08:19:00.000-06:00

There's a curious post from Carrie Lukas on the NRO website in which Lukas seems to be channeling the unpopular and short-lived Republican thinking of a decade ago (National Review Online) regarding federal involvement in education issues. Amazing how both the left and the right want NCLB done in, albeit for entirely different reasons. It makes you think.

Morning Round-up December 19, 2006

2006-12-19T05:25:00.000-06:00

Women in Science: The Battle Moves to the Trenches NYT
Yet studies show that women in science still routinely receive less research support than their male colleagues, and they have not reached the top academic ranks in numbers anything like their growing presence would suggest.

Global Warming Another Emerging Topic WaPo
Global warming is a key subject that many educators and scientists say should be, but isn't, taught in every school. And as with other emerging sciences, there remains a need, they say, for more materials available for teachers to incorporate into their lessons.

Talk in Class Turns to God, Setting Off Public Debate NYT
Shortly after school began in September, the teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven

Around The EduSphere

2006-12-18T14:43:00.000-06:00

It's a slow day on the Internets, news- and other-wise:

Winds Of Change
Eduwonk Andy wants us all to know about (and go to) a NCTQ event release lots of new information about collective bargaining agreements in early January.

Hoodwinked AFT Blog
Newbie blogger AFT Joan (hi, Joan!) says that things aren't as they seem in Mass. when it comes to the proposed expansion of pilot schools for restrucuting purposes.

Time Names P OY, Bloggers Not Tickled CJR Daily
In an apparent attempt to elicit witty puns and sarcastic punditry from bloggers, Time magazine has announced that its much-anticipated Person of the Year is "You." [meaning bloggers, wikipedians, and open source folks] Oddly, bloggers don't seem as tickled by the honor as we might have expected.

A 'dead body in the schoolyard': The irrelevance of NCLB "
... What dead body? The one an Oakland, CA, elementary student found in her schoolyard a couple of months ago. That's part of the reality of urban education that Oakland resident Heather Gehlert writes about before urging readers to sign the petition urging Congress not to reauthorize No Child Left Behind."

"Buster" Returns Despite Secretary Spellings

2006-12-18T13:35:00.000-06:00

In January of 2005, one of Secretary Spellings' first actions was to shut down a PBS program called "Postcards From Buster." The series aired a controversial show about a family with two moms. Spellings garnered support from conservative groups and PBS financial supporters to cancel the show. After being unable to finance a second season, "Postcards From Buster" is making a 10 episode comeback season this fall. The series will run from November to February and features a family with a father in Iraq, a trip to the Mexican border and a return visit with families who suffered in Hurricane Katrina.

Feature, Facts Or Scare Tactics?

2006-12-18T07:45:00.000-06:00

Several national media covered the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce report on Friday. My first question is, why Friday? Isn't Friday the day to bury your news? Is that the intent? Either way each national media had their take on the story - some with the facts, others with scare tactics and then fluffy feature-like opening sentences.

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Stateline.org avoids the feature-like opening sentence and comes out with the facts (which I personally find more appealing), "Students would go to community college after 10^th grade, local schools would be run by private contractors, and teachers’ salaries would shoot up as high as $110,000 but their pensions would be slashed."

The Chicago Tribune also had some facts to open the article - but just the fact that some 10th graders would be able to go to community colleges. It goes on to compare the proposal to European-style education.

AP and NYT (though much more subtly) bring in the scare tactics, "A high-profile commission warned Thursday that U.S. workers will lose more jobs overseas and will see their standard of living drop unless dramatic steps are taken to improve how children are educated." NYT softened the blow with a fuzzy feature-like opening sentence but said essentially the same thing that AP said.

WaPo stayed avoided scare tactics and stuck to their feature-like sentence and the facts that Stateline.org opened with.

Morning Round-up December 18, 2006

2006-12-18T07:22:00.000-06:00

Censured PBS Bunny Returns, Briefly NYT
This season includes only 10 episodes, which began in November and will run through February, a far cry from the 40 produced for the show’s first season.

Gates, Hewlett Commit $60 Million to Education in Asia, Africa Bloomberg.com
The Hewlett Foundation is leading the initiative, which will fund research and demonstration projects to determine how teacher training, curriculum reforms, community involvement and other steps can make schools more effective for children in developing countries.

Missouri One of Four New States Chosen for State Scholar Kansas City InfoZine
Under the State Scholars Initiative, each state will receive up to $300,000 during a two-year period to implement scholars programs in at least four school districts.

An Ominous Milestone: 100 Million Data Leaks NYT
Educational institutions were twice as likely to report suffering a breach as any other type of entity, with government, general businesses, financial service and healthcare companies pulling up behind.

Week In Review December 11-17

2006-12-17T15:25:00.000-06:00

Posts Of The Week
NYT's Paul Tough On The HotSeat
How The "Influentials" Report Gets (Nearly) Everything Wrong

NCLB News
An Unholy Alliance Against NCLB
Miller Previews "Retro" NCLB Priorities, Uncertain Timeline
Plus: Miller Ramps Up For Oversight & Investigations

Reports & Events
Schools In A Time Warp
The Journal of Spurious Correlations
Variations In Length Of School Days Add Up

Media Matters
The NYT's Paul Tough Won't Win This Award
Predator Panic vs. Parental Abuse & Neglect
NCLB In Jail

Funder Fun
Foundations Fund More Pre-K Blogging
For-Profit Philanthropy

Best Of The Rest
Cupcakes and Blackberries
NEA Gets CIA To Tap Di's Phone
Banning Honor Roll -- And Purses

Banning Honor Roll -- And Purses

2006-12-15T11:40:00.000-06:00

I may be the last to have found out, but apparently Needham High in Mass. decided to stop printing the honor roll in the paper, and has been widely riculed for it (Kids wouldn’t be so stressed if we just allowed them to fail). Boston Herald via EdNews.org.

Meanhile, Joanne Jacobs points out that oversized purses are being banned in some parts of the country (Schools bag purses). "Next, they’ll have to ban pockets," she quips.

How About Some Analysis With That News?

2006-12-15T11:21:00.000-06:00

Looking over today's news about the skills report, Eduwonk Andy makes some good points about the NYT's straight-arrow coverage: "How about some, you know, analysis on why the unions don't like [the report] (it proposes to reallocate teacher compensation*), what its prospects are (it could change nothing), what happened with the last report from the same gang, or whether it's significant that this blue-ribbon panel essential embraced the contracting model for delivering public education?"

Why Conflicts Of Interest Aren't Powerful Enough

2006-12-15T10:31:00.000-06:00

Sherman Dorn has this interesting and instructive point to make about those who would try and tear down efforts that they oppose by pointing out conflicts of interest (as I often try to do):

"I don't think anyone outside a small circle will contest the problems with conflicts of interest in education programs," he writes (The problem with the McGraw-Hill conflict-of-interest argument). "But I also don't think that basing criticism of accountability on conflicts of interest will work. Conflict of interest stories are a recurring theme in the politics of liberal democracies, and there is a standard solution: require arm's-length decision-making."

For-Profit Philanthropy

2006-12-15T09:18:00.000-06:00

My other favorite notion from the NYT Magazine's Ideas issue last week is the idea of For-Profit Philanthropy. Why? Well, for starters, it's so much cooler-sounding than the 1990's-era labels (venture philanthropy, social entrepreneurship).

Previous Posts:
Can Micro-Donations Make The Difference?
Does School Reform Need For-Profit Philanthropy?
Counter-Philanthrophy

How The "Influentials" Report Gets (Nearly) Everything Wrong

2006-12-15T08:57:00.000-06:00

Here's how the story goes: Ten years into its efforts to ~~take over the world~~ improve education, the Fordham Foundation wanted to know where it stood in the eduverse and so commissioned EdWeek's Education Research Center to do a report.

I know, I know. The navel-gazing element is very high here, even for me. This is the closest thing to a popularity contest as education has seen since, well, Hot for Education (a famously crass post that I hope to replicate later this winter). But that was just me sitting at home bored one night, not a full-length report that someone actually paid for.

Unfortunately, this report somehow gets nearly everything wrong.

Remember, folks -- influential means having an influence (or effect) on something. It's different from prestige, or preference. For example, NAEP and TIMSS aren't the most influential studies of the past decade -- what ongoing impact have they had, exactly? NCTAF's What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future -- which comes in #9 on the Fordham list -- is the clear winner in terms of influencing real (if not yet entirely effective) action. Now that was a blockbuster.

As for most influential organization, somehow the Education Trust comes in #4th on the Fordham list, when it should really come in #1st. The Trust practically wrote NCLB, picked up where NCTAF left off on teacher quality, and had tremendous influence on federal legislation for several years before. There's no other organization that's gotten so much of its agenda enacted.

As for individuals, calling Bill Gates the most influential person in education ignores the fact that he's not only a latecomer to school reform but also an under-performer. Kati Haycock (ranked #3rd), Edward Kennedy (ranked #5th), Governor James B. Hunt Jr. (#7th), and Linda Darling-Hammond (#10th) should all come in ahead of Gates -- for NCLB, or NCTAF/teacher quality, or both. Seriously. Other ignored influentials: Kozol, Kotlowitz, Jaime Escalante.

As for information sources, it's hard to beat the New York Times for impact, but Fordham's list puts it at #4th behind EdWeek, NCES, and NAEP. I can't recall when any of those sources really set or shaped actions in the real world (and NAEP is a study, not an information source). Ditto for the rest of the list, though I'm a big admirer of EdNext. (Go, Fordham!)

Covered (unimaginatively) here and here

Morning Round-up December 15, 2006

2006-12-15T06:10:00.000-06:00

Expert Panel Proposes Far-Reaching Redeisgn of the American Education System NYT
The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce proposed a far-reaching redesign of the United States education system that would include having schools operated by independent contractors and giving states, rather than local districts, control over school financing.

Students sink teeth into 'Read to Feed' Campaign JS Online
The announcement Thursday that 170,000 books had been read by students at 199 schools in 55 communities over the last two weeks and that Time Warner was donating 170,000 cans of food to fight hunger.

Vocational education is shifting focus St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Signifying the changes, recent federal legislation even gave vocational education a new label. Now, officially, it's Career and Technical Education, or CTE. And the new CTE can mean anything from nanotechnology to robotics to biomedical sciences.

Report Ideas Pilfered, But Unlikely To Get Used

2006-12-14T14:17:00.000-06:00

My sense is that the big 21st century skills report from earlier this week (Schools In A Time Warp) is going to have about as much real effect as the Baker Study Group report on Iraq (ie, little or none), but Eduwonk fills us in that already it's pissed off some folks by appropriating their reform ideas (Eduwonk.com). Is a reform idea still considered stolen if it's never used? I think so.

UPDATE: It's strange that Time and CNN had this a few days ago but others are just getting to it now: Commission pushes for overhaul of school system

Getting Your Hands On CRS Reports

2006-12-14T14:00:00.000-06:00

As far as I know, there's still no easy way to get CRS reports, which can be great sources of information but are ostensibly just for Congressional staff and members. However, there are more and more ways to get your hands on them, thanks to the Open CRS Network, which posts CRS reports as they find them online, for free (CRS Reports for the People).

Not many of late have been focused on education, but that's bound to change in the upcoming months. This one is about the appropriations process, through which a lot of legislating gets done in between formal reauthorizations (or at least that's the way it used to work before the USDE decided to do whatever it wanted (ie, growth models and the SES flip).

If anyone has a better way to get these reports, let us know.

Foundations Fund More Pre-K Blogging

2006-12-14T09:43:00.000-06:00

Remember a few months ago when Pre-K Now was advertising for someone to blog for them about teaching Pre-K -- for $1,000 a month? See here for some background: Blogging Universal Preschool. Well, apparently they found someone who wanted the job, and Sara at TQATE posts about the early results here (Meet Ms. Pappas).

To my knowledge, this is the second foundation-funded blog (along with Colvin's) that is explicitly set up to promote and inform us about universal preschool. Of course, foundations pay indirectly for lots of other blogs (Eduwonk, etc.) But it's the early childhood foundation folks who seem to have decided to go for it directly rather than let it happen by chance or on the side.

Johnson Collapse Puts Dem. Majority In Doubt

2006-12-14T08:59:00.000-06:00

This story in the SJ Mercury News puts Senator Tim Johnson's emergency surgery into a political context (Democrats' Senate majority put at risk by senator's hospitalization).

Officials Eventually Find Out What Teacher Did

2006-12-14T08:56:00.000-06:00

It's the most ridiculous but irresistable story of the week (Teacher suspended over bum art). A Richmond teacher likes to paint with his butt. He goes on TV to show how he does it, nominally disguised. Someone uploads the segment to YouTube last spring. School officials eventually find out. There's video if you're really brave, but I would advise against it.

Morning Round-up December 14, 2006

2006-12-14T06:57:00.000-06:00

Irvine parents settle claim over gifts to educators LAT
A couple who contended they were forced to spend $100,000 in gifts on school employees to ensure proper care for their autistic son have settled a claim against the Irvine Unified School District, according to a district spokesman and the family's attorney.

Special-Ed Changes To Get Trial Run WaPo
The pilot program, called hours-based staffing, is part of an urgent effort around the region to rethink special education, or risk widespread failure under the federal mandate.

More generous Congress could do much more for schools Mercury News
It should use, as a model, the Academic Competitiveness Grants that the Bush administration proposed and Congress approved this year.

Spellings Bounced Out Of Holiday Extravaganza

2006-12-14T00:44:00.000-06:00

I'm starting to feel bad - almost -- about everyone making fun of Secretary Spellings. Here US News makes fun of the EdSec for playing the role of loser (again) -- this time in a disturbingly cute White House video about a holiday extravaganza put on by the First Dog.

In the sketch, Spellings auditons as a dancer but loses out to none other than Karl Rove. Wearing her best winter whites and her trademark spectacles, Spellings dances off camera with Rove. Yikes.

District Variations In Length Of School Days Add Up

2006-12-13T14:32:00.000-06:00

Thanks to a friend for sending me this chart from yesterday's Fordham confab, which shows big variations in school day length and, to a lesser extent, number of days a year that students are in school.

As you can see, New York comes in at 1271 hours of instruction a year, while Chicago comes in at 1001 -- or about 40 days of school (or 8 weeks) less per year for the Windy City.

Download here: Kate Walsh Summary PDF

NCLB In Jail

2006-12-13T14:12:00.000-06:00

No, NCLB hasn't been imprisoned (though the suspension of habeus corpus creates some interesting possibilities). Instead, this Sara Neufeld story in the Baltimore Sun (No Child Left Behind applied behind bars) wins the Exception-Finding Story Of The Week award. Of course, a jailhouse school housed in the Baltimore City Detention Center isn't likely to make AYP. But I'm guessing that the kids and teachers have other, more pressing things on their minds than NCLB's toothless sanctions. And saying that failing to make AYP demoralizes teachers and makes it hard to recruit ignores the fact that the school likely isn't everyone's favorite to teach in the first place.

NEA Gets CIA To Tap Di's Phone

2006-12-13T12:25:00.000-06:00

Looking for a holiday conspiracy theory to chew on? According to this post from The Chalkboard (Clinton, Princess Di and Wiretaps), Slate blogger Mickey Kaus thinks that the CIA bugged Princess Diana because she was dating Ted Forstmann, the voucher/charter/tax credit billionaire, and that the NEA must have had something to do with it. Excellent.

Predator Panic Vs. Parental Abuse & Neglect

2006-12-13T11:27:00.000-06:00

"News stories invariably exaggerate the true extent of sexual predation on the Internet; the magnitude of the danger to children, and the likelihood that sexual predators will strike," according to this piece in the journal Skeptical Inquiry (Predator Panic). "The tragic irony is that the panic over sex offenders distracts the public from the real danger, a far greater threat to children than sexual predators: parental abuse and neglect."

Carnival Returns Home For 97th Edition

2006-12-13T09:03:00.000-06:00

Today The Education Wonks brings the Carnival home and here is a taste from the Education Policy category: "Hey! Here's a great idea whose time has finally come 'round at last: pay teachers for good lesson plans! But before we begin saving our nickels and dimes for that new Range Rover, it may be a good idea to take a look at this reality check from What It's Like on the Inside."

Obama's Big Announcement on Monday Night Football

2006-12-13T08:18:00.000-06:00

He's toying with us.

NYT Magazine's Paul Tough On The HotSeat

2006-12-13T07:53:00.000-06:00

In the two weeks or so since Paul Tough’s NYT Magazine cover story What It Takes to Make a Student has come out, the article has been a topic of near-constant discussion (and nearly universal admiration).

Some of that interest comes from educators’ desperate desire for attention. That the piece is long and complex enough to be read as supporting a variety of positions is another. But most of all it's that Tough, an editor who's working on a book about the Harlem Children's Zone, links ideas together clearly and powerfully (a la Malcolm Gladwell, another talented Canadian). He gives NCLB the Gladwell treatment better than Gladwell himself did three years ago.

On the HotSeat, Tough clarifies what he meant by saying KIPP teachers work 16 hours a day, describes how he came to write the piece, reports that the response has been larger and – perhaps surprisingly – more positive than he expected, and says that the Times Magazine doesn’t actually send its education writers to Siberia (it only seems like that). He seems to say he's more of a SchoolRef than a PovRacer, but I'll leave it to you (and him) to have the final say. Enjoy.

Read More...

Your old boss Ira Glass said in an interview that there should be at least one line in each story that a writer loves and is willing to fight for – what’s that line in your education story, and did you have to fight for it?

PT: I think Ira is generally right about everything, but I don’t think there are any lines that I would have fought too hard for. Ideas, sure, but not lines. Maybe it’s because I’m an editor myself–I’m convinced that my editor has better judgment about individual lines than I do.

Idea, then – which of them would you have fought to keep in there, or had to?

PT: I didn’t really think about it that way. My goal with the article was to connect a lot of different ideas and pieces of research that I hadn’t seen connected. I thought they were all important. I didn’t have to fight to keep any of them, fortunately.

The conventional wisdom is that editors loathe education stories unless they’re wildly original or affect the lives of wealthy readers True or false, and how much convincing, if any, did it take for the folks at the magazine to greenlight the story?

PT: It wasn’t hard to convince the editors at the magazine to green-light this story, but maybe that’s because I work here. I think editors here do like to assign and run education stories; we run quite a few of them. But I recognize the reluctance you’re referring to, and I think it comes from the fact that education is such a sprawling topic. It’s hard to put any individual story into the right context: Here’s a school that has a new approach, and that approach seems to be working. Well, what does that mean? How does it compare to what has come before? What kind of impact is it having? That context is hard to deliver. Without that context, those stories can be hard to read.

What’s that mean – “hard to read”? Boring? Stupid?

PT: Neither. I think like any complex subject, education policy can be hard for laypeople to follow. It took me a long time to be able to understand regular AP stories on No Child Left Behind. So I think readers are well-served when education stories are put in a larger context.

Whatever happened to the folks who used to write education stories for the magazine – James Traub and Sara Mosle? Have they been killed off or sent to Siberia or something?

PT: James Traub is a contributing writer to the magazine still, but he has moved beyond education and for or the last few years he’s been writing mostly about the U.N. and global development. He wrote the Bono cover story a year or so back, and he just came out with a book on Kofi Annan and the U.N. Sara Mosle is writing a book about a town and a school in Texas that were devastated by a tragedy in the 1930’s. She has been one of my favorite writers on education ever since her cover story on her own teaching experience in The New Republic in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s, so I’m really looking forward to her book.

Generally speaking, what’s the response to your article been like, both substantively and in terms of volume? More, less, or just about what you expected?

PT: It’s been much bigger and more positive than I expected. We got a lot of letters to the editor, and they were mostly saying good things about the article.

What did you think about the editorial page picking up on your piece but then going in another direction – back towards NCLB’s teacher equity provisions (Why the Achievement Gap Persists)?

PT: I liked it. I think it helped demonstrate that the New York Times does not have one monolithic approach to its coverage of education.

One of the things that folks have glommed onto is the idea that KIPP teachers work 16 hours a day. Where’d you get that from, and does it really matter?

PT: Dave Levin, one of the co-founders of KIPP, said that to me. I wish in retrospect that I’d made it a bit more conditional, and Dave might wish that, as well. (I don’t know that he does, I should say; I’m just guessing.) I think KIPP teachers work really hard and work long hours, and I think that was the point Dave was making. But I don’t think they all work 16 hours a day every day. I think both points are important to understand – and it’s obviously a critical question because of the debate over the replicability of the KIPP model. I do think there are a lot of really good and really committed teachers and potential teachers out there who would be (and are) eager to teach in a school that is well-run and is achieving great results, even if it means a lot of hard work and long hours.

Sixteen hours a day or no, not everyone’s willing to go what I’m going to call the “KIPP route.” Where did you come out from your reporting on the topic of broader, non-instructional approaches- health insurance, living wages, affordable housing, financial incentives to attend and complete school, and – most timely – integration efforts?

PT: When you say “not everyone,” do you mean not every parent, not every child, not every teacher or not every administrator? I think the one thing we know is that there are many more parents and children willing to go the KIPP route than are now going the KIPP route. So I think that’s the first problem to solve. That seems like a good first principle, in fact: if there are poor children and poor parents willing to put in the kind of effort and hard work that KIPP students exert, we shouldn’t be denying them that opportunity.

Getting to the actual question: I’m certainly interested in broader, non-instructional approaches. That’s why I’ve chosen to write a book about the Harlem Children’s Zone, an organization that is trying to develop a new model for improving the lives of poor children. I think their approach – combining education with social and other supports -- is a very important one. I think Geoffrey Canada, the group’s founder, is right that it’s hard to improve the lives of large numbers of poor students through education alone.

But I don’t necessarily agree that the approaches you list are the most important ones for the educational success of poor children. I do think it would be good for more people to make a living wage and get health insurance. But I don’t think we need to wait until that happens to make big improvements in the education of poor children.

The additional supports that I think are more important are the kind that the Harlem Children’s Zone offers: ones that are targeted directly at poor children, and directly at the goal of preparing them for college. They include parenting classes, all-day pre-kindergarten, after-school programs, family-support programs, a greenmarket, an asthma initiative and other interventions.

Providing affordable housing for everyone might take a while. These are programs you can put in place pretty quickly, if you want. And in Harlem, at least, they get results.

To vastly oversimplify the debate over child poverty, it strikes me there are two camps. People in the first camp are more excited by the idea that if we improve the economic situation of poor families, their children will wind up being better educated. People in the second camp are more excited by the idea that if we improve the education of poor children, we will improve their economic situation.

I’m in the second camp.

What should those folks who voted for NCLB, or are about to reauthorize it, keep most in mind when considering its future?

PT: I would hope that they would mostly think about what it would take to make it work. Start from a vision of 2014 in which there is no achievement gap and high levels of proficiency across the board. O.K., what does 2013 need to look like, and what would it take to get there? And then what does 2010 need to look like, and what would it take to get there? And then 2008?

Tell us a little about your education: Public or private? Coed or single sex? Loved it or hated it? Jock or nerd?

PT: I grew up in Canada, where I attended an unusual high school called the University of Toronto Schools. It had an entrance exam and fees, but it wasn’t exactly private. It was what I think you’d call a progressive education – a lot of independent projects, student presentations, Latin and Geography and Music and Art and German and History and other non-core subjects. We were all nerds, needless to say. I was on the basketball team, but I don’t recall ever winning a game.

So far, your piece has generated a slew of blog posts, as well as editorials by David Brooks and Jon Chait. What did you think of the Brooks and Chait pieces – has anyone written anything that qualifies as noteworthy?

PT: I’m not sure what you mean by noteworthy, but I’ve been interested in all of the responses I’ve read. David Brooks’s column does stand out for me; I was really pleased that he mentioned my article, in part because his column has been such a good resource for my research over the past year. He has been developing in his columns an argument about human capital and the importance of home life in education that I think is very important and quite new.

How did the book project lead to the article?

PT: One of the projects the Harlem Children’s Zone runs is a charter school called the Promise Academy, which is now in its third academic year. At the beginning of its first year, the teachers and administrators were surprised and a little overwhelmed by how far behind their middle-school students were when they arrived in sixth grade – most were reading at a fourth-grade level, and some were reading at a second-grade level. On the first day of school, Geoffrey Canada promised them and their parents that they would all get to college. This seemed to me to be an extremely difficult promise to keep, and perhaps an impossible one.

I started looking around for research relating to what the teachers and administrators were up against, and I also went looking for schools that were accomplishing, or coming close to accomplishing, what Canada was promising to do. For a long time I didn’t think anyone was achieving it. The first school that started to convince me otherwise was Amistad Academy, in New Haven. From there I got to KIPP and the Uncommon Schools and the charter debate and the Education Trust debate and Richard Rothstein and Ronald Ferguson and the Thernstroms, all of which was really just to help me figure out an answer to the question of how Geoff Canada might be able to keep his promise. I still don’t know the answer. But the book isn’t due till the end of next year.

Morning Round-up December 13, 2006

2006-12-13T06:56:00.000-06:00

Ranking High Schools, 2006 WaPo
As The Washington Post unveils its 10th annual Challenge Index rankings of Washington area public schools this week, I want to see how low-income schools in this region are doing.

Gates Beats Bush as Most Influential in Education, Survey Says Bloomberg.com
Billionaire Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., beat out President George W. Bush as the most influential person in U.S. education for the past decade, according to a survey by a nonprofit education publisher.

Virginia leads internet safety push eSchool News
Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell on Dec. 11 said he will seek legislation requiring convicted sex offenders to register their online identities with the state to help MySpace and other online teen hangouts more easily block their access.

Cupcakes & BlackBerries

2006-12-12T16:17:00.000-06:00

In our mad desire to distract ourselves from real problems and, with the help of journalists and editors, focus on smaller, more manageable issues, there are two somewhat new villains out there: cupcakes in school (Once a Sweet Treat, Cupcakes Now a Cause), and parents with BlackBerries (BlackBerry Orphans). Both via Ednews.org.

Miller Previews "Retro" NCLB Priorities, Uncertain Timeline

2006-12-12T15:54:00.000-06:00

At a press conference earlier today, it became clear just how much incoming education committee Chairman George Miller has on his plate -- and perhaps how those other things might affect the education agenda and timetable.

Some of the pressing issues mentioned by Miller or reporters included not just the minimum wage and college affordability stuff we already know about but also mine safety, collective bargaining (aka 'card check'), pensions, and paid sick leave. There are also scads of funding issues that Miller has no real control over, including annual funding levels for NCLB.

Miller noted that there had been some NCLB oversight hearings and that he and Senator Kennedy want to get something done this year, but reminded everyone that he's got a lot of new members on his committee (each of whom will have their own petty concerns and "when I was a kid" preconceptions) and talked a lot about "e-hearings" (which sound like a longer, even more boring form of field hearing that you can listen in on from your desk). No mention of Reading First oversight, though he hired an investigator last week (Miller Ramps Up For Oversight & Investigations).

As to specific changes, Miller is still focused on AYP and funding changes, which are in some ways -- a school rating system and a symbolic issue -- the least substantive parts of the law (and also very 2003). He talked a little about an expanded growth modeland -- my favorite line -- said "it has to be growth to somewhere." He also mentioned -- barely -- teacher equity (under the umbrella term of "deployment") which is surely going to get him some calls from CCCR and the EdTrust.

The NYT's Paul Tough Won't Win This Award

2006-12-12T15:29:00.000-06:00

EWA makes a big deal out of how independent and prestigious its annual writing awards program is, and I've got no real issue with that (though I wish that the prize amounts were bigger so that I could get more free drinks out of the winners). I do wish they had a category for new media/bloggers (not that I'd win it), or best article that wasn't submitted (aka the Paul Tough category). In real life, here are 18 categories this year, and you have until January 10 to submit an application.

Previous Posts: Who Are The Best Writers -- And Why Don't They Win the EWA Contest?, Not Another Rant About The EWA Writing Contest, & Education Reporting -- The Good, the Lousy, the Lousy.