Earlier this week I used the New York example to discuss the larger question of what do/not do about low-performing charter schools.  The actual RFA from the authorizer in New York is out.  It’s basically a restart not a turnaround, if they can find the right operator.  That’s a good approach but stayed tuned to this debate elsewhere.

The Maya Angelou New Beginnings program has been on the blog before and I’ve looked at the larger issue of incarcerated youth. In Ed Week Mary Ann Zehr turns in a must-read about New Beginnings. Important and too over-looked issue.

In all the manifesto madness the last few weeks you may have missed this smart take from Harlem Village’s Deborah Kenny in the Wall Street Journal.

For a guy obsessed with productivity, Rick Hess is not doing his part.  In D.C. meetings and events are the acceptable alternative to work.   Here are three Rick Hess is cooking up this month: Post election roundup next Tuesday, Arne Duncan on stretching school dollars on the 17th, and a  great panel to discuss Rick’s new book on the 30th.

Here’s a post-midterm education discussion you can watch from your desk.

Last week we discussed a shrewd move NJ Governor Chris Christie made with regard to the teachers’ union there.  It’s been followed-up by a boneheaded one. Going in front of groups you don’t agree with and discussing the issues is the right thing to do.

Karen Hawley Miles looks at the class size outcome in Florida. If you want to be depressed about the disconnect between research and policy the class size debate is a great place to start.   Perhaps, as part of the dollar stretching theme, the Department of Education should sponsor a competition for creative research-based class size ideas that are cost-neutral.  For instance a district that lowered-class sizes to the levels where it really matters, in the mid-teens, for at-risk kids and offset that by raising class-sizes elsewhere and deploying effective teachers and other tools to offset the difference?

When I wrote this Baltimore Sun op-ed and some papers a few years ago I was called a Chicken Little for worrying about the sustainability of education finance.  Admittedly, Rick Hess is a worrier, too, but here he takes a look at the current education fiscal situation (pdf), it’s not good!

Speaking of productivity, in several senses, John Danner of Rocketship Education won the McNulty Prize today.

Kiryas Joel is back in the news in New York, this time with a RTT windfall.  And Mayor McKee is back in office and still leaning into education.

Over at Rick Hess’ blog Andrew Kelly has some election outcome observations worth checking out.

In this week’s School of Thought column at TIME I look at what John Boehner thinks about education policy. Actually, that’s not as important as what he might be able to get done given the caucus he’ll be leading and the environment in Washington, so I look at that:

What do Tuesday’s election results mean for education reform? Kentucky’s Rand Paul is among the newly elected candidates who want to dismantle the Department of Education. That won’t happen, but what lies ahead for our students and teachers? Right now all eyes are on John Boehner, the Ohio Republican expected to become Speaker of the House when the new Congress convenes in January. A seasoned negotiator who in the past has succeeded in passing education laws, he could hold sway over policymaking in Washington. But in many ways, his views about education matter less than the question of what he can accomplish given the fractious caucus he will be leading.

Read the whole thing here.

The mood today: Education groups panicked (Republicans!  We thought we were done with them!).   Republicans in disbelief.  Democrats more so.  But don’t let the usual suspects spin you, this election had little to do with education and when voters told exit pollsters their big concern was the economy — they meant it.

Eduoutcomes from last night to keep an eye on. Colorado Senator Michael Bennet (D-Ed Reform) is hanging on in a tight race there.  Update: Denver Post is calling the race for Bennet.  Though he’s still a relatively junior senator he’s widely seen as key to getting an education bill done in the Senate.   Sleeper one to watch is Chris Coons (D-DE), he’s a pragmatist, cares about education, and has strong reform instincts.   Was a reform Democrat before it was cool to be one and he accomplished a lot of reform, on several fronts, in his role as a county executive in DE.

Hurdles up on Race to the Top? Rhode Island just got a governor who is not much on reform.  And while a bunch of state legislative chambers flipped from D to R, Pennysvlania, North Carolina, and Ohio are ones to watch on Race to the Top.  In Ohio more generally the new governor (former Republican House member and Budget Committee Chair John Kasich) has a lot of sway over education given changes that were made there to the state’s governance arrangements.

Boehner the eduwonk? 60-plus House members didn’t get elected last night to expand the federal role in education, grow federal spending, or help President Obama and Arne Duncan achieve their goals.  Incoming House Speaker John Boehner has a good record on getting things done on education but he’s going to be ringmaster of a three-ring circus.  And keep an eye on investigations, big wild card given the new majority and members like Darrell Issa (R-CA) and some talk about Reading First payback.

Odds and Ends. Unfortunately, Andrei Cherny (former WH aide, Democracy co-founder, author) got swept under by last night’s wave in Arizona.  It’s another down ticket loss that’s unfortunate if you want to see government reform.  Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) was also good on the issue. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) a key opponent of coercive federal school accountability rules is gone.  But given Wisconsin’s overall education posture it’s hard to see this impacting the debate too much and Feingold was a principled senator on a variety of fronts.

Keep an eye on Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN).  He wasn’t on the ballot last night but was a big winner.  He’s a linchpin on education now.  Offline debate among eduwonks who worship the Aqua Buddha:  Is the obvious entertainment value of incoming Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) on the Senate HELP committee handling education sufficiently offset by the ensuing gridlock to make it worthwhile?

Also, prepare for the first congress without Ted Kennedy or David Obey, big changes.

Inside baseball: Rick Hess’ excellent election party last night drew more Ds than Rs.

While you’re waiting for the election results to come in check out this new paper by Julie Kowal and Emily Hassel about cross-sector lessons on teacher evaluations (pdf). Smart stuff.

Related: Recent takes on teacher evaluation and principal evaluation.

This story in The NY Post about whether charter school authorizers should try to improve low-performing charter schools rather than shut them down is illustrative of a conversation you’re hearing a lot right now.  It’s easy to understand the motivations, school closures are disruptive in multiple ways.  Still, I part ways with many of my charter friends on this one and have serious concerns about the approach.  Here are three reasons why:

You can’t play and call balls and strikes.*  Charter school authorizers are the referees, umpires, judges, [insert metaphor here] for charter schools.  They’re supposed to make the calls on the front end about who gets to open a school, and close down the ones that are not working.   That’s a vital role and one of the big lessons from almost two decades of chartering is how important authorizers are to quality.  It’s a hard enough role as it is.  Once you put authorizers in the position of being at once a regulator and a support agency, you’ve put the authorizer in the game too much.  If they’re helping schools improve they own those decisions in a way that blurs the lines too much.  We already have plenty of school districts that refuse to acknowledge and address failure because the incentives are wrong.  Why create more?**

That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be assistance for schools.  In our analysis of charter policy in 12 cities and states (pdf) Sara Mead and I found that intermediate support agencies are key for charter quality.   But authorizers are badly positioned to play that role.

There is a pipeline of good schools. One thing authorizers can do is make sure that the space a low-performing school is in can be used by a different school, public or public charter, after the low-performing school closes.   There are a lot of great charters that struggle to find adequate and cost-effective space.  From an operational standpoint, in general the best place to open a school is in a former school.  The necessary facilities (eg classrooms, library space, refrigeration and commercial kitchen for meals, etc…) is already there saving money on expensive renovations.   From a governance standpoint there are a variety of ways to address transitions but the choice should not be framed as lousy school versus no school.   Done right it’s lousy school versus more promising school.  That helps with the disruption issue.

The ‘no crap’ doctrine matters.  It takes lots of tangible and intangible things to make a school outstanding.  But one of them is a belief is success and the ability to achieve it.  That’s why Joe Williams’ ‘no crap’ doctrine is important to bear in mind.  The culture we need is a one that doesn’t tolerate low-performing schools in any sector.    Leave aside the operational and regulatory issues here, moving down this road opens the door for too much tolerance of struggling schools.   We have too many of them already and ought to take a hard line here as on the quality issue more generally.

Related: My thoughts on where we are on charters more generally here. A look specifically at charter school closures here (pdf). On the closures issue, here’s a thought:

If the FDIC can come in and seamlessly take over a failing bank with it barely being visible to the consumer, why isn’t there some non-profit offering similar services to charter school authorizers? The messiness of school closures is a disincentive to act.  Isn’t one way to minimize disruption for kids to, you know, minimize disruption for kids?

**And worth noting that most charter school authorizers are still school districts in the first place, which is why I never understand why the charter quality problems are somehow considered a great vindication for the existing system.

*Unless you’re Joe West?