Archive for December, 2010

Next Entries »

Crippled Inside?

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

A lot of talk about the SIG grants and what is or is not happening as a result.  Today, a new Mass Insight takes a look at the School Improvement Grants (SIG) initiative and offers some ideas on what should come next (pdf).

More generally, I wouldn’t characterize this report, the new one on Race to the Top from TNTP or the analysis on stimulus dollars from Bellwether as coming from purists but there is some useful feedback in all of them worth heeding in policy design…

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

…You Know It Ain’t Easy

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

Terry Ryan looks at the dual spending and achievement challenges.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Help!

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa steps up the rhetoric on education at the Huff Post:

It’s not easy for me to say this. I started out as an organizer for UTLA (United Teachers Los Angeles), and I don’t have an anti-union bone in my body. The teachers unions aren’t the biggest or the only problem facing our schools, but for many years now, they have been the most consistent, most powerful defenders of the unacceptable status quo.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Lions And Fatlings?

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

I’ll leave it to you to decide who is who but there is a lot of chatting today about the new Gates Foundation effort to get wolves and lambs to lay down on charter schools. We’ll see, a lot of risk but the status quo isn’t working.  BW did some work on this project.  Official presser here.

Also, a second round of attention on the the new McKinsey report on school systems, released a few weeks ago but the focus of a luncheon in D.C. today with Secretary Duncan and others.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Homeward Bound

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

Don’t get so into PISA today (can Finland fight off Shanghai and maintain its preeminent edutourism status?) that you miss two other important reports with more immediate implications for the U.S.   First, The New Teacher Project looks at Race to the Top and lessons learned on the process.   And CRPE takes a look at how to manage human capital across a portfolio district and some lessons there.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Straight Outta Compton!

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

Parent trigger action in California. Worth watching, big implications.

Update: More from LA Weekly here.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Shanghaied!

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

Lots of chatter about the PISA results, Kevin Huffman saves you a lot of time here.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Rhee Invented!

Monday, December 6th, 2010

Here’s the site for Michelle Rhee’s new education advocacy venture.

By the way, say what you want about Rhee, she’s not wrong about this (and if you haven’t been close to it, it’s even worse than you probably think):

Policymakers, school-district administrators, and school boards who are beholden to special interests have created a bureaucracy that is focused on the adults instead of the students. Go to any public-school-board meeting in the country and you’ll rarely hear the words “children,” “students,” or “kids” uttered. Instead, the focus remains on what jobs, contracts, and departments are getting which cuts, additions, or changes. The rationale for the decisions mostly rests on which grown-ups will be affected, instead of what will benefit or harm children.

Posted in Uncategorized | 44 Comments »

LIFOsuction At The LAT

Monday, December 6th, 2010

Today seems predestined to be Michelle Rhee day with the rollout of her new project.

But before all heads turn that way don’t miss a great article on seniority and layoffs from the Los Angeles Times. It’s exactly the kind of exercise many hoped they would do with their value-added database rather than what they originally did. Less outing of individual teachers and more analysis like this would help move this issue to a more productive place where performance, context, and experience are all considered in high-stakes personnel decisions.

Update: RiShawn Biddle and I debate the issue on Twitter.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Farewell Address

Saturday, December 4th, 2010

Joel Klein reflects on his time as Chancellor in New York.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

More Teacher Voice

Saturday, December 4th, 2010

A take from Indy (by Tina Ahlgren & James Larson) is well worth checking out and a harbinger of things to come in that state.

…many good teachers think those of us pushing for education reform blame them for their schools’ failures. We’re not. We’re actually making the opposite case: Good and great teachers are responsible for their schools’ successes.

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

More TFA

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

From Tennessee more evidence about why Teach For America is such a bad idea and must be stopped!

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Teacher Voice

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

Maybe TFA critics are right and it really is the Death Star! The winner of the inaugural Washington Post “Next Great American Pundit” contest was Teach For America alum Kevin Huffman (who now blogs here).   The winner of the second one…TFA alum Conor Williams!  Here is his first column.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

New Blog From Florida

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

From Florida John Kirtley and Doug Tuthill are launching a new group blog. Broader focus than Florida and more issues than choice.  Worth checking out.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Too Clever By Half (or $100 Billion)?

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

New analysis from Bellwether takes a look at the stimulus dollars for education, what happened, and what we can learn. Here’s a direct link to the paper itself (pdf). We produced this with Education First Consulting. Punchline:  A lot less reform than the rhetoric might you to believe but some bright spots and clear lessons if there is a next time.  The dollars were rhetorically structured to do reform and stimulus but, with a few exceptions, not designed to flow that way.

By the way, we used Patrick “Eduflak” Riccards’ Exemplar Strategic Communications for outreach and press on this report. If you need similar services, can’t recommend him strongly enough.

Update: Ed Week here, San Jose Merc here.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Fry Guy?

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Ben Wildavsky goes to Hamburger U. Peg Tyre grades grades in Week in Review.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

WTU Election

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

George Parker is out in DC and the incoming teachers union leader is a bomb-thrower.  Should be entertaining.  But before all sorts of national implications are read into this, remember that turnout was about 25 percent.  In other words, the candidate on the “I don’t give a f*** line” won overwhelmingly…so statements beginning with ‘this election shows teachers in DC are X’ should be suspect except for ‘teachers in D.C. sure are not very fired up to vote in their union election…’

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Wikileaks! The Eduangle

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

From The Times:

The diplomats also noted that while Mr. Putin enjoyed supremacy over all other public figures in Russia, he was undermined by an unmanageable bureaucracy that often ignored his edicts.

Sounds just like a large district or state department of education!

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Next Entries »