Indy’s Mayor, MN’s Experiment, You Can Peer Review Topo and Nelson, NBPTS’ Miscalculation…And, Radicalism!

Indy Mayor Bart Peterson is New Democrat of the Week.

Topo and AFT’s Howard Nelson debate the charter school data on NPR. Trust Eduwonk, you don’t want to miss this one… Also, word is that NYT has the Hoxby study but has sent it out for an expert review. Sensible policy, where did it break down last time?

Merit pay in MN.

Parents of college bound students, don’t miss Freedman’s NYT column today. Also, NYT’s Arenson reports on a new study indicating the need for more college aid, except, as NYT’s Winter reports, at Brown…

House Republicans have launched a website to fight back against “radical left-wing opposition” to No Child Left Behind. Don’t forget the radical right-wing opposition!

New 21st Century Schools Project Bulletin here, sign up to get it free here.

Here is one example of why, unfortunately, education research is frequently derided and ignored: This Education Week article lauds a new study about National Board teachers that is so fundamentally flawed as to have no real validity. The participants in the study elected to participate, they were not really a “sample”, and constituted only about half of the NBTPS teachers in Arizona, where the study was conducted. This problem with the research design was raised in the article, by NCTQ’s Walsh, but presented as merely a criticism (and sort of an ideological one), not as a problem with the research design serious enough to render the findings pretty meaningless.

Maybe the National Board doesn’t see it, but this sort of stuff is bad for them, too. Every study like this diminishes the impact of more sophisticated studies like Dan Goldhaber’s (pdf), which give encouragement to the National Board.

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