WaPo chastises DC Mayor Fenty for skipping Monday’s education debate and RiShawn Biddle turns in a must-read about it. Underlying theme of both:  Why?  He’s got a good story to tell.

As predicted…proposals for jobs bill money coming from ed reform priorities…putting the administration in a fix.  Background via here.

Update: This could be backfiring, several state ed chiefs are really pissed off seeing this as a bait and switch because Race to the Top applications were due at the beginning of this month…stay tuned.  The proposed offsets are $500 million from Race to the Top, $100 million from the federal charter schools program, and $100 $200 million from the Teacher Incentive Fund.   This move has both real and symbolic effects.

Update II: More from WaPo’s Anderson with some context and Dep’t of Ed reax.

He’s back!

Two new studies* on charter schools out this week, both worth checking out.

From CRPE a thorough overview of charter management organizations or “cmos” (except performance, which is coming next year) with data.   Its a terrific roll-up of original data on some key dimensions.  I wish they dug deeper on costs and revenue (eg one-time costs v. operating costs and more on the impact of the chronic underfunding of charters on this issue) but overall it’s outstanding and a good resource.   Interesting takeaway, more than 1/3 of cmos are hitting their growth and scale targets.  That means 2/3rds aren’t, natch, but I didn’t realize it was that high given the various constraints – that’s a set worth looking at more closely.

From Mathematica via IES, a look at charter middle schools (pdf). The top line finding is not surprising:  Overall charters and traditional public schools  roughly the same.  But, this one raises some interesting implications around pedagogy, curriculum, and measures because charters serving low-income students outperform while those serving high-income students underperform.  Relevant context here is the recent KIPP study.  Also some findings on within school elements.

Both studies reinforce how little explanatory leverage charter v. non-charter offers these days and why looking within the charter sector with some nuance offers lessons and cautions for educators and policymakers.

Prediction:  Little impact on the politics around the issue, which are driven by other things.

*Disclosures all over the place on these: I am affiliated with CRPE and the National Charter School Research Project there.  And I was involved in the process that set up that study in the first place.  I also advised Mathematica on the release strategy for their study.

Big day at the court today.  But while there is a lot of attention on today’s gun case but Christian Legal Society v. Martinez has some eduimplications (pdf).

It’s with sadness that I note the passing of civil rights advocate and attorney Bill Taylor.

There are people who fail to change with the times and consequently become irrelevant.  And there are people who change too much with the times and are unreliable.  Education has plenty of both.  Bill was neither.

American children, especially those who most need the protection of civil rights laws and a civil rights establishment willing to challenge the educational establishment on their behalf, are better for Bill’s time and work here.

Kindergarten access remains a surprisingly contentious issue.  A new policy brief from FCD looks at that (pdf). Has a handy chart looking at major elements of state policy (pdf).

That’s right, lay in the supply of big girl panties up there in Cambridge because Margaret Spellings is coming to teach at Harvard this fall.

Conference on service and education next Wednesday in New York City.  More 411 and register here.

ConnCan is expanding into other states, that’s created an opportunity at ConnCan world HQ — the COO role.

And, strategic data fellowships in multiple locations via Harvard.

NYT’s Dillon checks-in on Locke high and the debate over the costs -though I suspect that’s not the reason there is a lot of opposition to this.

Amber Arelleno writes editorials and columns for The Detroit News.  She’s also a keen observer of school reform in Detroit.   Although you couldn’t hope to make up this crazy episode from the other day, it actually gets more fantastic yesterday.   In a guest post from Detroit, here’s Amber:

Hankie as Detroit’s new campaign symbol?

Former Detroit Public Schools President Otis Mathis is still complaining he wants his job back, after resigning last week amidst revelations of the now-infamous “handkerchief incident.” The district’s superintendent, Teresa Gueyser, alleges Mathis masturbated during an one-on-one business meeting with her last week, using a handkerchief.

Mathis doesn’t deny he did the dirty deed — and he may have provided school board opponents with a memorable campaign symbol.

At a civil rights luncheon on Thursday, a community leader walked up and pulled out a white handkerchief.

Waving it, he said, “I’m going to make sure people in this town don’t forget Mathis by November,” when Detroiters are slated to vote on mayoral control of the schools.

–Amber Arelleno

“Everybody knows” the small school experiment in NYC was a failure.   You hear it all the time, so it must be true!  Except an actual evaluation from MDRC shows a more complicated (and less convenient for critics) story.

Bonus Flashback: Small schools eval from Chicago.

Late, but I’ve been traveling: Tim Knowles with a powerful (wrt who he is and what he says) piece in the WSJ ($).

As a former teacher, principal and district leader, I’ve devoted my life to providing children with the excellent education they deserve. And in my 23 years on the job, there are two things I’ve learned for certain.

First, teachers have a greater impact on student learning than any other school-based factor. Second, we will not produce excellent schools without eliminating laws and practices that guarantee teachers—regardless of their performance—jobs for life.

…This pathological status quo feeds upon itself: The more difficult it is for principals to address underperformance, the more likely they are to use informal methods to do so. This fuels labor’s argument that management is capricious, strengthening their case for increased employment protection.

‘Tis true…about special education in a post worth checking out. But alas, I worry, will Leafy Mike turn against special education reform and IDEA soon?

Over at The Washington Post Mikey is at it again re this new KIPP study. She’ll post anything!  It’s unclear if any of the feedback she uncritically relays is based on an actual reading of the study itself (pdf) where the issues raised are addressed or it’s clear they’re not germane to the findings or if it’s just misunderstandings.  Still…

The other issue you’re hearing raised (see also the comments to this post below) is that this study just can’t possibly be trusted, or is at least suspect, because KIPP paid for it.*   This sort of casual smearing of Mathematica, one of the most respected research organizations in the country, on a variety of issues, is completely outrageous and ignorant of how they operate.   For starters, their entire brand and business model depends on absolute integrity.  But more to the point they have a set of procedures to ensure a firewall and will take their name off of any work where the client interferes on findings or outcomes.  (I know of what I speak, having worked with them in the past and I’m currently advising them on some forthcoming work).  Though it’s counter-intuitive, they are actually more accountable than many producers of work precisely because of the fragility of brand and they take that seriously.

*Isn’t the counter-narrative that KIPP should be praised for committing to a publicly disseminated evaluation like this?  Outside of some work by Council of Great City Schools and The New Teacher Project you don’t see school districts lining up to do that very often and KIPP is basically a mid-size but non-geographically contiguous district.

And you thought American kids were not good at science!

Pretty sure you don’t learn this one at the Broad Academy…(BB can you confirm?)  Is it even possible to overstate how bad things are for kids in Detroit are right now?  This is the leadership…From Detroit via the Detroit News:

The scene setter:

One day after facing accusations of fondling himself, Detroit Public Schools President Otis Mathis wrote a letter to colleagues today blaming “ongoing health problems” for his “poor judgment.”

The letter, which attempted to rescind his resignation he submitted Thursday, doesn’t explicitly address accusations from Superintendent Teresa Gueyser that he touched himself during a private meeting.

The oh wow moment:

The letter to colleagues came the same day board Vice President Anthony Adams today released a two-page letter from Gueyser accusing Mathis of fondling himself during a meeting this week. She called it his “usual habit” during one-on-one meetings. She said she tries to ignore it.

“On many occasions, I have asked him not to touch himself,” she wrote in the letter dated Wednesday.

The jaw hit floor moment:

Board member Reverend David Murray called the allegations “a terrible thing” but said he doesn’t believe the 55-year-old Mathis should quit.

“It happens to a lot of young men. They engage in behavior they feel is harmless and it’s offensive to certain people,” Murray said. “… It could be deemed offensive, but some women are more sensitive to those types of things than others.”

“I feel bad for him because he probably felt that it was something she would probably like or she got humor out of it.”

A lot going on in this curtain raiser for the new president of the Chicago Teachers Union.  Here’s one:

AFT President Randi Weingarten has collaborated with Race to the Top and other White House education initiatives, even at the cost of retreating from the union’s opposition to merit pay and defense of tenure as the basis for teacher job security. But the election in the CTU–the third largest teachers’ union local in the U.S.–is a clear signal that rank-and-file teachers have different priorities.

Good news on KIPP results via Mathematica (pdf). This won’t change any minds, sadly, but at some point perhaps people will realize there is something to learn from all this even if it’s not a “silver bullet.”

From today’s NYT story on the NBA’s D-league and a player emerging from it:

When asked how he got to be a senior in high school with only two core courses, Williams said: “You know when you’re at a school and you’re the best player, they’re going to work something out. It was just like that.”

The last time John Deasy changed jobs we were having breakfast in DC the day it was formally announced discussing a Washington Post editorial critical of his decision to leave Maryland’s P.G County and head to the Gates Foundation where he was instrumental in designing their human capital strategy*.   Today, it will be hard for anyone to criticize his decision to leave Gates and take the #2 role in the LAUSD, announced yesterday.

When you consider the dysfunctional politics in LA (and California), the scale of the district, the reactionary teachers’ union, and the fiscal catastrophe that passes for the state’s finances Deasy’s willingness to step in should be commended.  He believes the kids in LA deserve better than what they’re getting and is willing to break his pick for it.   In Deasy the district gets a thoughtful and high-energy reformer who can balance the imperative and urgency of change with the internal dynamics of managing change in complicated systems.  That said, he’s in for a rough ride as the whiff of a succession plan is sure to stir up all sorts of trouble and agendas and though you won’t hear criticism there will be plenty of second-guessing of his decision to put himself out there like this.   One rumor that can be easily dispatched is that Deasy will be some sort of tentacle of the Gates Foundation.  Anyone who has seen him operate knows that’s not his way.  A good day for LA.

*Gates provides support for this blog and other Bellwether work.

Date night! If you’re in DC on this coming Friday night there is a screening of “The Lottery” hosted by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.  RSVP info here.

Great primer on what the primary common assessment consortia are up to from NGA and CCSSO (pdf).

Mayor Daniel McKee of Cumberland, Rhode Island may not be a household name but he is something of hero to education reformers.   Here he discusses some history in Rhode Island around the issue.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

So I guess when Michelle Rhee writes a piece like this it’s bound to spark a response.  But, Randi Weingarten’s NY Daily News op-ed about the DC contract is surprising.  Weingarten is in an earned place where she can rightly claim credit for helping forge a few genuine accomplishments over the last few months – Colorado where the AFT courageously broke from the NEA to support the Johnston bill, New Haven where the new contract paved the way for a new evaluation system, and D.C., which is a big deal in terms of the combined elements of that contract. Though her most ardent critics won’t acknowledge it, those are real.

Yet The Daily News piece is at once small (I don’t remember Weingarten patronizing the folks in New Haven for that contract being the first for their leadership, and was New York really all Bloomberg? I thought there was some guy named Klein who was involved there somehow…), it’s needlessly revisionist in its history of D.C. to the point that anyone who has been paying attention to school reform there sees right through it, and most importantly it is bound to blow-up down the road as soon as other districts – for instance New York City – start proposing the same reforms that are in the D.C. contract.  Suddenly I don’t think we’ll be hearing the minimalist language anymore and the argument about inapplicability doesn’t even pass the smell test.

Weingarten should be taking a deserved victory lap right now because she  moved her union in a way many doubted she could.   This diminishes that.

Education Pioneers is an exciting organization dedicated to building capacity in the education field by attracting, cultivating, and supporting talent.  If you haven’t checked them out you should do so, quietly revolutionary.  I’m on the DC-area board but Ed Pioneers also operates in five other cities.   Bellwether has a Pioneer this summer to work on a few projects and, of course, she can fish.  Kelly Woodham just finished up at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia (where she led the education club) and is joining IBM’s Public Sector practice in the fall.

Past fish porn here. Previous Darden fish porn here.

“The Lottery” is a powerful film and the lottery scenes at the end of “Waiting for Superman” are as well.  These lotteries are heartbreaking spectacles, in part because of the angst of the families and in part because they’re just so avoidable through better public policies.

But what gets lets attention are events happening this time of year:  graduations from high-performing charter schools.  They’re as inspirational and moving as the lottery days are dismal, especially because many of the graduates are first time college-goers for their families and most of the communities where they operate have such abysmal graduation rates overall.

Paul Peterson offers an account of one in Mystic River, MA. and the the policy ramifications.

Interesting Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article on layoff issues there.  Expect to see more attention to health care costs and contributions going forward as budgets get tighter.   And, not sure stuff like this really helps the argument for the $23B federal bailout?   If districts won’t take any cost-containment steps it makes it a challenge for federal officials to send more money.  This one is particularly ill-considered because it’s Wisconsin, the state the leading proponent of the bailout money in Congress represents.

Also, note the reference to “bargaining in public.”  Aren’t these public schools?  I’m all for bargaining in public,  I think we need more of it!

Several really interesting and fun RTT-related opportunities in Delaware are open now.

Two Revs has two really interesting positions:  Director of Operations and Talent Cloud Design Consultant.

There has been a lively debate on this blog and elsewhere about the Harlem Success Academy in New York City – a high-performing public charter school there.   A new study from a CPRE researcher at U-Penn finds positive results (pdf).

Update: It’s so easy to get Geoffrey Canada and Eva Moskowitz mixed up, happens all the time…