New package of work from LPA about Race to the Top trends and action.

And a multimedia USAT package on non-traditional students in postsecondary.

ICEF – high performing charter network in LA – to be featured on CBS Evening News tonight.

This news isn’t a surprise but does again signal that the mayoral race in DC could be closer than many are assuming: Firefighters and police unions are supporting Council Chairman Gray over Mayor Adrian Fenty.   In the education world the focus has been on the back and forth between Michelle Rhee and the teachers’ union, but in fact there are widespread disagreements with organized labor in the city.

You can read the tick tock from earlier in the week on the 23B here.   Today it’s not looking good after the votes were not there at last night’s planned mark-up. Washington Post ed board comes down strongly for LIFO fixes.   Christina Romer defends the Administration’s position on the opposite page. A lot of this is starting to look like election year politics at this point, in other words a good chance for some common ground with labor where there hasn’t always been some over the past 18 months.

Broader war-supplemental backdrop here.

Update: Newsweek rounds up the contours here.

It’s on baby.

We learn two things from this Jo-Ann Armao piece at the Washington Post. First, she watches a lot of TV.  Second, she asks the good question about whether all the attention on unions and negative press hasn’t actually caused at least some of the encouraging perestroika we’re seeing — at least from the AFT.

Panic i3 applicants!  Several times at a lunch today in DC hosted by the Aspen Institute Secretary Duncan referred to approximately 70 likely i3 winners…if that’s the case it’s a lot fewer than the guidance anticipated or applicants counted on…

Secretary Duncan reads Politico, too, and at today’s presser forcefully pushes back ($) on this morning’s story implying the administration isn’t committed on the $23 billion for education.  He made the same points at a lunch in DC today, too.

Update: More Politico: Some Department of Ed – OMB tension over the education components of the bill.

Update II: Guess that’s settled:

Statement from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (5/27 and the link is mine):

“As the House prepares to vote on the emergency spending bill today, communities across this country are facing an education crisis with hundreds of thousands of teachers at all levels at risk of losing their jobs. The President shares the concern of millions of Americans that cuts to state and local budgets are forcing states and localities to cut education spending drastically, impacting the learning and growth of our nation’s children. While some states may not feel the impact yet, there are thousands of teachers who will receive pink slips in the coming months. The President strongly supports targeted aid focused on preventing these teacher layoffs in order to stem the education crisis.”

Two updates on the Steven Brill NYT Mag piece and the various fallout from it.

Old: No further word from the AFT on their claim that Brill made up quotes.  For his part Brill’s denial is here. If Brill’s right don’t they owe him some sort of apology?  And if he’s not where’s The Times Mag?

New: A lot of back and forth about some data in the Brill article.   The Washington Post published it and then published the most evasive and confusing clarification you might see all year.  I think its main point is that numbers are confusing?  Is Valerie Strauss becoming the bloggy equivalent of Mikey?  She’ll publish anything!  The school in question, NY’s HSA, disputes the claims here.

Update: More on Brill from Gotham News.

Politico has the latest on where the proposed $23 billion for education in the approps bill stands. The Admin’s fervor does seem to have cooled as the pushback grew, but keep an eye on today’s afternoon presser with Obey-Miller-Duncan. In addition to the issues in the article you’re still hearing a lot of grumbling that (a) without amendments to address LIFO it’s lousy policy and the money would compound the problem for future years and (b) the proposal needs tighter language to ensure it goes to schools in the first place.

America’s Promise is sponsoring a contest for ideas from young people about ways to help prevent dropouts.

$50,000,000 federal competition to replicate high-quality charter schools and CMOs. First time ever.  This is an important move both in terms of charter quality but, hopefully, over time also for improving money flows.   Some of the philanthropic dollars now being used for charter growth could support innovation and R & D in a healthier system.  Higher leverage use of those dollars.

They also need reviewers for this competition, letters of interest to ED here.

Per the post below where the American Federation of Teachers’ talking points memo accuses him of fabricating quotes in The New York Times Magazine, Steven Brill writes to say:

If I were going to “fabricate” a quote, why would I pick one that is so unsurprising? After all Ms. Weingarten’s own website quotes her on March 13, when President Obama announced plans to include more Race-like contests into traditional federal school aid, as declaring that teachers “should be empowered and supported—not scapegoated. [Emphasis mine.] We are surprised and disappointed that the Obama administration proposed this as a starting point for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.”

In fact, in my initial draft of the article I had that quote in there, too, but took it out because it was semi-redundant with the one Ms. Weingarten now disputes — and which my notes (written on a reporter’s pad while standing as we left a restaurant) reflect.

That this quote is not reflected in Mr. Powell’s notes is no surprise to me; I didn’t see him take any, and he certainly wasn’t taking them as we were leaving a restaurant and Ms. Weingarten, after remarking that Race to the Top “doesn’t really involve that much money,” added her point about President Obama. In fact, as it happens, when I talked repeatedly with her last summer for the article about Rubber Rooms and I mentioned the upcoming “Race,” she said almost exactly the same thing, as my notes then also reflect.

I appreciate all of the time that Ms. Weingarten and her colleagues gave me in my preparation for this article, and I regret that they feel compelled to challenge this quote. However, I am gratified that they did not challenge any of the other reporting in the article and look forward to Ms. Weingarten’s cooperation and her keen willingness to engage candidly on these issues in the future.

Steve Brill

Joel Klein writes on LIFO layoffs in New York in The Daily Beast:

Our students deserve to be taught by the most talented, dynamic, and effective teachers possible—whether they’ve been teaching for three years or 30 years. Children are not responsible for the budget mess facing our state, and they should not suffer because of adults’ mistakes.

American Federation for Children is understandably over the moon to learn that the Supreme Court is going to review the recent school choice decision in Arizona.

But one line of their presser caught my eye.  They write that, “This marks the second time in U.S. history that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a school choice case, after its 2002 ruling in the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris case declaring school voucher programs constitutional.”

Really?  Wasn’t Zelman was the culmination of a series of cases that set-up a non-preferential standard that was extended to school tuition in that specific case. And then there is a roster of cases about tax credits, transportation, etc…and a free exercise case earlier in the decade as well.  In other words, this is pretty well trod, albeit highly controversial and evolving, ground isn’t it?

Via ‘Lil Ed, the bloggiest 5-year-old around.

The AFT has sent out a talking points memo to counter the Brill NYT Mag story.  Most of it is the usual stuff you’d expect but they bury a big lede; down at the bottom of the list of bullet points is this doozy (emphasis mine):

It’s also disappointing that Mr. Brill made up a quote in the article and attributes it to Randi [AFT President Randi Weingarten]. He falsely quotes her blaming President Obama for creating an environment to demonize teachers. Brill’s fabrication of her quote – which tries to pit her against President Obama – only gives license to those who seek to further polarize the debate around public education reform. Randi had staff with her when Brill did the interview and he didn’t have a tape recorder. No where in the notes reflect her saying this about the President, nor would she. President Obama and Randi may have legitimate philosophical differences in their approach to improving our schools, but they share a commitment and passion to achieving the goal.

Wow.  The entire article was fact-checked with sources.   Keep an eye on this one because both sides can’t be right and that’s a serious charge to bring.  I assume the AFT is referring to this graf in the NYT Mag story (again, emphasis mine):

The teachers’ unions have become accustomed in recent years to fighting off reform efforts by Republicans and think-tank do-gooders. They ignore the rhetorical noise, while sticking to the work of negotiating protectionist contracts with the politicians who run school systems and depend on their political support. But what happened last month in Washington could signal a new era in which the unions have to worry that Democrats, like Washington’s mayor, Adrian Fenty, not only won’t yield in contract negotiations but will also support laws and programs aimed at forcing accountability. That is the threat posed by the Race. “Deliberately or not, President Obama, whom I supported, has shifted the focus from resources and innovation and collaboration to blaming it all on dedicated teachers,” Weingarten says.

Money Interesting article/study by Chris Berry and Charles Wysong in Education Next about partisan composition of government and school finance litigation outcomes.

Time Two new studies from Massachusetts on extended learning time seem to point to the obvious:  What you do with the extra time matters.   Michael Jonas takes a look.

Any Colour You Like Some progress on Prop. 39 implementation in California.

Marguerite Roza and Cristina Sepe take a look at how last in-first out policies impact poor and minority students (pdf).

So everyone is chattering about the NYT Magazine piece on Race to the Top.   Usually the curtain goes up on the big stories later in the week but this will be old news by Sunday as the link was going around Monday…

One thing about politics is how fast it changes so stories about “last stands” always make me nervous.   And I’m not sure the teachers’ unions as the uber villain here really does justice to the complexity of the issue and how broken aspects of education culture are.   That’s not to say the unions don’t contribute to the problem, a lot, only that if they vanished there would not be an immediate golden age.

That said the story and details are fantastic as is the story and it’s certainly going to call attention to what is a really interesting time for the field.  From the wonk perspective the material Brill gave to Ed Week, which I assume was too inside baseball for The Times Mag, is really interesting.   Keep an eye on that.  In the long run if anything here has legs it’s that.

Good Rick Hess post on Central Falls. His final point is the key one:  The D.C. contract, Central Falls, and other recent deals are being spun as examples of who conciliation is key.   In fact, when you look at the details of the policies in play, if they show anything it’s that fortitude seems to matter most in these situations right now…

Interesting op-ed on this for-profit schooling issue from NY where this is being hotly debated.  Over at NJ the debate this week was on the same topic.

Advisory Board Company is ramping up its education work and hiring additional analysts. Great opportunity with a strong team and company.

Interesting job at the Asia Society leading their network of international studies schools (pdf).

PPI is hosting a throw-down on turnarounds next Wednesday in D.C.

Chairman Miller sits down with Politico to talk education.

I’ve written about the New Beginnings program and Maya Angelou in this space before,  USAT takes a look at what they’re up to.

Stocks may be tanking but the market for education stories at Forbes seems to be growing.   Big package on education innovations including a profile of New Jersey’s maverick education commissioner.

Some good news in the  NAEP TUDA scores.

Alan Gottlieb has an interesting blog post coming out of EWA asking about polarizing reform rhetoric and whether there is a lack of humility associated with today’s reform movement.

I don’t think he’s all wrong, I wrote about this about a year ago in U.S. News.

But there are three issues that bear on his analysis worth considering.  First, he writes of:

“… a growing impatience among journalists with today’s self-styled reformers. A number of veteran education writers said this group’s certainty about the correctness of its positions borders on the arrogant and hubristic.”

At one level, this doesn’t trouble me because you can say it about all sides of the education debate, and in fact most debates, it’s a rhetorical throwaway.   But at another level it’s cause for concern because what I think Alan has actually identified is a serious public discourse problem in education that hampers the progress that a free exchange of ideas and information can lead to.   The problem is that too often doubts, caveats, etc…are used as weapons in the rhetorical debate.  For journalists to bemoan the lack of nuance is comical, as they’re the first ones to privately admit that the medium hardly allows for anything other than blunt force he said/she said trauma.   But what this means is that both “sides” in the debate cannot honestly discuss the issues without getting clobbered. To the extent you believe that the accretion of ideas leads to better ones and improvements, this is an enormous problem.

As an example think about KIPP, the high-performing charter school network.   It’s no great secret that there is an attrition problem at some KIPP schools.  Some of this is mobility and other “normal” factors but some is not.   Yet when KIPP has tried to own that problem, figure out ways to to address it and so forth all it’s led to is ammunition for KIPP’s harshest critics to use against them.   The rational position is that KIPP is doing many great things and changing lives but also dealing with real challenges.   There is a lot of learning there.  Yet that’s not the debate at all.  In fact, at this point KIPP is foolish to lead with their chin on any of that in public as there are too few people who want to have that conversation.  The same is true of some data on Teach For America, charter schools, and many other reforms and many of the issues confronting the teachers’ unions today as well.  It’s all complicated but the debate allows no quarter for that.

So in other words, I’d argue the problem Alan identifies is actually an endogenous one.   The polarizing environment is driving an apparent lack of reflection and overabundance of certainty at least as much as those attributes inherently exist.

Second, Alan is down on Davis Guggenheim and his new film.  But we should be honest and acknowledge that real change doesn’t happen absent big cultural markers and debates like the one this film could spark.  And let’s face it, because most of my peers agreed with Al Gore no one got too bent out of shape about too much certainty in “Inconvenient Truth.”  Think about it, are there other issues you support where there is both a great deal of certainty among your fellow supporters, and, in truth, a lot of ambiguity.  In fact, aren’t arrogance and certainty two charges frequently leveled against President Obama?  But we like him… School reform is more complicated as the politics are generally trickier.  So now we’re worried about certainty…I saw the film months ago but haven’t written about it in advance of its release.  It’s hard hitting, in your face, compelling, and pretty much lacking in nuance.   Yet while I didn’t love everything about it I think it’s exactly the sort of conversation piece we need given the complacency that still exists around this issue.

Third, and related to the previous point as well as the issue Alan raises overall, history teaches us plainly that progress requires tension.    More recently Martin Luther King reminds us that the absence of tension is often a negative peace.  So at some level all this concern about tension misses the bigger picture in terms of what it usually takes to see progress for disadvantaged groups and how much of this is par for the course with change.

Finally, just as an aside, you hear this business about the totalitarian regime of Joel Klein all the time.  How everyone is scared to criticize him etc…Yet there is a an entire industry built around criticizing him in the papers, on blogs, at Gotham Schools, etc…?  It’s this weird perpetual motion machine where people constantly go on record to say you can’t criticize Klein…write about how awful he is, then say you can’t say that and speech is being squelched, I don’t get it.  If anything criticizing Klein seems like a good career move if you’re on the make.

The teachers’ unions are apparently outgunned in the ed reform debates.

That will come as big news to, well, just about everyone…by most measures, money, bodies, political action, touches with legislators, etc…they’re not only the biggest in our space but also among the top of all interest groups.

Don’t bring that BS into his house…

In U.S. News Richard Whitmire and I discuss some good news greenshoots on the education improvement front. Meanwhile, National Journal catches up with Bellwether’s Mary Wells to talk about the work she leads.

Per this little contest, Jonathan Stewart has won himself a book.   Rick Hess’ “Education Unbound.” And for the record, Tim, Paul, and Kristin are quite rich in spirit.

Some teachers in NYC have started their own organization, E4E to air views on key reform issues.   They’re down on last hired/first fired policies right now.    Check it out.