Lots of folks commenting on this weekend’s NYT Magazine story on the efforts of a conservative faction of the Texas State Board of Education to insert conservative religious perspectives into Texas’ (and, by extension, the nation’s) school books.

My initial thought on seeing this piece was that the Washington Monthly‘s Mariah Blake got there first, but in fact Blake’s article and Russle Shorto’s NYT piece are nice complements and both worth reading. Blake offers a vivid view of the state of play in Texas, and Shorto’s piece nests that story in the national and historical context of the efforts of Christian conservatives to insert in school curricula and academic standards the idea that the U.S. was founded as “a Christian nation.”

I tend to agree with Tom Vander Ark that some of the issues specific to the Texas Board of Ed’s ability to dictate the content of the nation’s textbooks through its textbook adoption process will eventually be rendered obsolete by evolutions in digital learning and print-on-demand–which will also be good things more generally for the quality of instructional materials in schools, not to mention children’s backs as they’ll have fewer ginormous textbooks to lug around.

One thing this article got me wondering about, though, was whether it really makes sense to elect State Boards of Education, as Texas, 10 other states, and D.C. do (the rest have appointed boards, except for Wisconsin and Minnesota, which have none at all). There’s an argument that electing boards of education–whether at the local or state level–increases democratic control over the schools and public accountability. I’m not so sure.

Although it varies by state, Americans tend to elect a whole bunch of public officials, including a lot of officials in relatively obscure roles (ANC Commissioners in D.C.? Township Clerks in Michigan, where I grew up?) that aren’t well understood by the public. Most voters, who have limited time and energy to devote to these issues, can’t possibly follow the performance and positions of all these officials. Having more of them be appointed by mayors, governors, and other public officials who are better known to voters may actually increase accountability. Not that it would necessarily make any difference in Texas, but these kinds of institutional arrangements do matter and deserve to be questioned from time to time.

–Sara Mead

Very sad NYT article about the decimation of Haiti’s higher education system. Given the tremendous human suffering in Haiti right now, this may not seem like the most important problem. But the destruction of higher education institutions seriously undermines Haiti’s ability to build the human capital it will desperately need to get on its feet in the coming decades. As some commentators have noted, allowing more Haitians to immigrate to the United States would be one under-acknowledged humanitarian response to the devastation there (the Department of Homeland Security has already offered Temporary Protected Status to Haitian immigrants in the United States). Creating opportunities for qualified Haitian students to pursue higher education in the U.S. also seems like a reasonable humanitarian response.

–Sara Mead

This Sunday’s Detroit Free Press includes a long and worth-reading profile of Robert Bobb, who as Emergency Financial Director for the Detroit Public Schools is taking on the challenge of trying to improve Detroit’s woefully dysfunctional public school system. As the article notes, Bobb was brought in to put DPS’s screwed up finances–Bobb’s team identified a $306 million deficit–in order, but he’s also working to improve the abysmal achievement of the district’s students.

And that’s very much needed. On the 2009 NAEP TUDA assessment, in which Detroit participated for the first time, the Motor City came in dead last among 18 participating large urban districts, with only 3% of the district’s 4th graders reading at the proficient level, and 69% reading at the lowest level–below basic.

I grew up about an hour outside of Detroit, and the city–and its schools–have been regarded as a basket case for longer than I can remember. To me, one of the greatest reflections of this was a philanthropist’s donation, a few years back, not to build buildings but to tear down vacant properties near schools. Detroit has a lot of problems that extend beyond its school system and will require economic development, better governance, and other changes in addition to education reform to fix. But it’s pretty much impossible to imagine the city ever recovering significantly without a much better functioning school system.

D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee get’s a lot of press, but it’s also noteworthy that the District of Columbia has produced education reformers who, after clashing with Rhee on some issues, have gone on to drive significant change elsewhere: Bobb, who previously served as D.C. City Administrator, Deputy Mayor, and Board of Education Chair, and Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deb Gist, who was previously D.C.’s State Superintendent of Education.

–guest blogger Sara Mead

Interesting implications for Republican positions on education policy and Margaret Spellings’ future plans in this new Republican think/action tank.

That’s how some are describing what is going down in LA right now.   More from blogs out there here and here and organizing here.

Rod Paige has an interesting interview on NPR about his new book.   I didn’t like the last one, haven’t read it yet but this one sounds a lot better.

I’m going to be away from the blog some next week but a proven guestblogger will be stepping in to keep you informed and entertained:  Sara Mead.  

Sara’s now a Senior Associate Partner at Bellwether Education Partners, the non-profit organization I’m helping to found and that I’ll be joining next month (pdf).  Until February Sara was with the New America Foundation working on education issues there.  Previously she was part of the team that helped launch Education Sector and she helped me launch the 21st Century Schools Project at PPI.   We’ve also co-authored a variety of  projects.

Among other interesting work Sara does now, she serves on the D.C. Charter School Board, has been involved with charter schools and pre-K education, and writes great stuff on education as you’ll see.

As anyone with Internet access could tell from all our whining, it snowed a lot in DC the past week.   Around the eduhouse we pass the time while snowed-in by cooking.  So this seems the perfect week to mention a good way to support teachers and have a good time:  Have a bottle of Matthews Estate’s Blackboard Syrah with a good meal.

Matthews Estate is a Washington State winery.  Well known for some great blends, several of its varietals, and in particular its syrahs, are increasingly getting noticed.   What makes this wine relevant for 

education types is that 25 percent of the proceeds from the Blackboard Syrah go to the Ackerly Foundation, which partners through the University of Washington College of Education to support teacher training at 24 schools.   There are four partners at Matthews and two of them have a direct tie to education.  That’s where the idea for this wine came from.

So how’s the wine?  We tasted the 2007, the first year for this wine.  This isn’t some throwaway, as some benefit wines are.  If you like syrahs you won’t be disappointed as this is a big one with good structure.  After you pull the glass plug you’ll notice a great nose, berries and very smokey and the wine is smooth on the palette and finishes with a terrific deep earthy and smokey berry finish. It’s a rustic taste and the wine stands up to game.  If  you’re into venison or duck you can’t do much better as a pairing and it likes decanting.  If you’re in a state where wine can be shipped, order online, otherwise inquire at your local wine store. 

And if you know of any other wineries with education related wines or wines that benefit education please let me know.

All edueyes understandably on Houston today but keep an eye on the bouncing ball in New York.  Is a big tenure fight coming there?

Detroit News highlights YES and Detroit.

Remember, Arne Duncan and his cronies are all about self-dealing to his friends!  

Actually, this is a setback for Teach For America…in the short term because of the logistics around timing, funding cycles, and school budget patterns.  It could be in the long term, too, if policymakers are not careful.   I’m pretty sympathetic to the way the Administration wants to go on these funds overall (pdf).  And there is no reason that TFA shouldn’t have to compete alongside other programs for funding.  But given the politics around TFA and teacher preparation unless the language is clearly written to prioritize quality, results, and scale (meaning sizable multi-year grants that allow for growth) this could create a muddle where politics rather than evidence carries the day.   If I were in TFA’s shoes I’d be quite concerned about this given all those risks.

In the past week we’ve had Gary Orfield and his confederates launch a branding campaign to label charter schools as “segregated schools” while in Virginia a conservative governor launched a set of education initiatives around charters, innovation, and virtual schooling by calling them an “opportunity to learn” agenda…

Ed Equality Project and Dems for Ed Reform* with statements (via those links) on the pending policy change in Houston. 

*I’m on the board.

Update:   The policy passed.  Barone calls for better nav tools.  Background on this is here.

Update II:  Stephen “Astaire” Sawchuk has more but he dances all around the big question!

Update III:  Smart take on the reverberations from the Eduflak.

More from the WaPo about the teachers’ union in Montgomery County.  The inside baseball angle here is that this particular union has long been held up as an example of why the critics have it all wrong…If I were in their shoes I’d be on the phone with the Eduflak!

NYC Chancellor Joel Klein on MSNBC.  Via Gotham Schools, which has the best set of morning and evening links around these days.  Items that go beyond strictly Gotham issues.

Jay Mathews rounds up the latest “debate” about learning styles*.   But this whole teleprompter/notes “debate” about President Obama and Sarah Palin raises a question in a related vein:  Why do we  prioritize some kinds of intelligence over others in how we view people.  For instance, why is being able to speak well extemporaneously better than speaking well after some preparation and using notes?   Consider athletics, aren’t there athletes you admire because they out-hustle everyone else not because they were simply born for it?

*With a bonus “everybody knows” meme.

More on all the action in Houston.  Backstory can be found here.

Smarick is going viral.

Good thing the teachers’ unions in Texas are helping Governor Rick Perry protect Texas’ education system from those meddlesome feds and their efforts to lower quality…

Photo via Houston Press.

The U.S. Army has a lot of involvement in K-12 schools through a variety of initiatives.    Most people are familiar with JROTC but there are also partnerships around student transfers, dropouts, and other issues.    NASBE’s Brenda Welburn helped create some strategic partnerships between the Army and education interests. To prove that no good deed goes unpunished, they threw her out of an airplane to thank her for her efforts.

Interesting movement on teacher quality in Los Angeles, smart quote from Ted Mitchell at the end of the article.

CAO roles are notoriously hard to fill but here’s an interesting one at a charter organization - MLA Partner Schools.  Update:  See below, bad descriptor not a charter org but a partner org with schools.

Ithaca is rolling out the red carpet for teachers again this year.   They’ve been at this for a few years and it’s becoming an institution.

Some action on forced placements in Denver.  The sup’t there, Tom Boasberg may not be a household name (at least in eduwonky households) like the former sup’t, Michael Bennet, but he’s solid, as this issue demonstrates.   There is also a tie-in here to RTT.  Colorado is still debating some legislative changes around teacher quality policies.

Update:  More from The Denver Post (with a big call-out to State Senator Mike Johnston.)

If you want to be a peer reviewer on the I3 program here’s your chance to apply.

In the education reform world if you don’t have a geographic or other tie to either team today’s game more or less boils down to Sarah Usdin v. Bart Peterson/David Harris…

Depressing  Super Bowl stat:  None of the three cities involved in today’s game, Indianapolis, New Orleans, or Miami graduates more than six in ten high school students on-time.  Given the demographics of those cities you can see the magnitude and impact of these enormous dropout rates for minority and low-income students.

Wow.  Jaw meet floor.  Scholastic, a serious publisher in the education space (that produces some good products, for instance Read 180) is now allowing its bloggers to call out senior government officials as corrupt on the basis of anonymous third party hearsay and no evidence.   We’ve crossed into a strange new - and unfortunate - world if this is the new norm or somehow even remotely acceptable.

Update:  As you can tell from the now broken link it’s to Scholastic’s credit that they’ve removed the post.

Wow.  If the NEA can’t hide in Montgomery County Maryland, where are they safe?  This is supposed to be one of those places that shows that the critics are all wrong…

More on the policy changes in Houston.  Background on Houston and why it matters starts here.

In DC the Wash Post editorial board weighs-in on the fate of the federal voucher program there and don’t miss this pretty hot letter to Secretary Duncan over the whole thing (pdf).   

Meanwhile in LA Macke Raymond (ES Board chair) with three smart reccomendations on policy, charters, and quality.*    And a new Brookings report on expanding choice and some levers for doing so.

There is also a new report from Gary Orfield moving this morning about charters and demographics. (Read the WaPo’s take here).   Less there than meets the eye, or more precisely than meets the rhetoric.  But one point that probably won’t get made in the back and forth:  In more diverse communities, for instance parts of D.C., an emerging problem is the efforts some really good charters have to make in order to have both a blind admissions process and a lot of low-income kids — because they’re generally mission-focused on low-income youngsters.  In other words some schools are starting to gentrify and are having to double-down on recruitment efforts.  In some juridsictions a school can weight low-income students extra in the lottery to improve their odds but that clashes with federal policy creating problems for schools receiving federal charter dollars.

*For more on ideas like these as well as others check out this paper (pdf).

Update:   Be sure to check out Will Marshall on all this.  He gets into the wayback machine.

Update II:  DFER is to the point.

Update III:   From The Economist, ouch!