Bill Jackson on choice in San Francisco and the uptake. Columbus Dispatch story on how Ohio Governor Kasich is taking tax-effort into account in school budget cuts.

And I’ve said it before here, the ed schools (and I’m on the boards of two of them) will lose this fight with NCTQ as this “Transparency” 2.0 website illustrates.  An update on the old saw, don’t pick a fight with someone who buys pixels by the megabyte (or something like that…).  They’re walking into a political box canyon here.

Diane Ravitch (new not old) and I are doing NPR’s “Fresh Air” today.

Today’s School of Thought column at TIME.com deals with what I see as a key issue in education today: We have these raging debates about various reforms but a look at outcomes shows that even the best ideas in practice today are still not shifting the curve the way we hope. Problem is, it’s hard to talk about that because it this highly politicized environment we are in today data are weaponized rather than discussed thoughtfully. Perhaps this new data release from KIPP today, which is both interesting and important, is a chance to change that:

A new report being released today will add to the debate about the Knowledge Is Power Program or KIPP schools — a highly influential non-profit network of public schools serving low-income students. The study is important because it’s the first large-scale look at the college completion rate for students in schools at the leading edge of today’s reform efforts. The results show that while KIPP graduates—who are 95 percent African-American and Latino and overwhelmingly low-income—far outpace the national averages for similar students, they also fall short of the network’s own goals: 33 percent of students who completed a KIPP middle school at least 10 years ago have a bachelor’s degree today. Among similar students nationwide, just 8 percent have graduated college.

Read the entire column here.

New study and also MJS story on health care costs for educators in Wisconsin shows the complexity of the issue and the competing claims.  Worth noting that even modest savings, for instance $500K a year in a smaller district, creates real pools of funding for other school priorities.

If the Eduwonk iPhone app isn’t enough for you now there is an Android app as well.  Both are linked on the right.

Ed Sector has a new tool to let you see where federal School Improvement or SIG grant dollars are going – allows you to drill down some to see, for instance, what turnaround model a school is using.  Some reason to be concerned about how some of this money is being used but this is a great way to see where.

Achievement First is seeking a principal for its Bushwick Middle School in Brooklyn, NY. Education Pioneers is looking for a Program Director in Washington, DC. And is this the most interesting small district school superintendency in the country? Could be…

Poverty: Joe Nocera takes a look at education and poverty.  Worth reading but two big strawmen oversimplify a complicated argument.

First, Nocera writes, “At its core, the [education] reform movement believes that great teachers and improved teaching methods are all that’s required to improve student performance, so that’s all the reformers focus on.” Actually, if you substitute “are key to improving” for “all that’s required” you’d have a more accurate view of the landscape.

Along the same lines, Nocera writes, “Yet the reformers act as if a student’s home life is irrelevant. “There is no question that family engagement can matter,” said [Joel] Klein when I spoke to him. “But they seem to be saying that poverty is destiny, so let’s go home. We don’t yet know how much education can overcome poverty,” he insisted — notwithstanding the voluminous studies that have been done on the subject. “To let us off the hook prematurely seems, to me, to play into the hands of the other side.”

Again, no one in the mainstream of the debate argues it’s irrelevant.  The debate is whether, even all else equal, schools can do more than they do today despite the challenges of poverty. With dropout rates for minority student approaching 50 percent, a college completion rate by age 24 of just 8 percent for low-income students, and the enormous disparaties in achievement we see on state and national assessments, disparities in participation in gifted education and special education, etc..etc…I would say the answer is unequivocally yes.  But that’s absolutely not the same thing as irrelevant.*

Pensions: New data from Pew Center on the States about public sector pension liabilities.  Actual report here. Three cautions.  First, while there is obviously a serious problem here some of the data here lags so just as states are still feeling the effects of the downturn they’re not yet feeling the full effects of the recovery. Second, while unfunded liabilities and assumptions in some places are out-of-control it is worth remembering that we probably don’t need to hold public and private sector plans to the exact same standards because there are some differences in the nature of the institutions.  Third, look state-by-state, the extent of the problem varies a great deal.

Pre-K: Also from Pew and NIEER is the new Pre-K yearbook with data about the status of pre-k efforts. Worth checking out, will be a big issue in coming months because the new Race to the Top money in the budget deal has a Pre-K component.  Also, hard to miss the juxtaposition and the inter-generation fiscal tension…

*Update: James Merriman has a good take on all this, too, well worth a click.

Really good debate on the FP letters page about Ben Wildavsky’s recent piece on international test scores. Wildavsky makes a key point that I tried to make in this TIME column a few months ago: Arguing that some of the focus on international test scores and the Chinese is hysterical is not the same thing as an argument for complacency.

It’s April 25th.  In, 404 BC the Spartans defeated the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War.  Today, education’s silly wars continue unabated. But first three clips:

Signal article in the Boston Globe looks at the issue of what various tax-exempt institutions pay in property tax on property they own.  In some cities when you add up the churches, universities, hospitals etc…it’s a significant share of the property.  As revenue pressure increases look for more of this . Wash Post article takes a look at airline safety and the challenges of regulation. “The bottom line is regulators have put airlines in control of their own aviation safety, and passengers are strapped in for the ride.”  Sounds familiar…

Via Ed Week, more on pensions from Costrell and Podurgsky.

On federal policy one reason it’s so hard to have a serious conversation about program consolidation and performance-agreements for states is because of ideas like this that poison the discussion. Federal dollars are the best targeted education dollars toward low-income students.  It makes no sense to lessen that given the reality of state and local education finance. No Child Left Behind (and some choices about what formulas to use over the past decade) actually improved targeting.  Why roll that back?  Especially because it’s not at odds with greater state flexibility overall? Specifying where you have to spend federal dollars is not the same as saying how.

In the New York Times Michael Winerip again identifies an important issue but then mangles it.  Last week it was diversity and this week it’s the tension between independent charters and big networks (or maybe it was just intended to be a hit on Eva Moskowitz, it’s not quite clear).  Anyway, there are legitimate friction points between one-off or independent charter schools and the big non-profit networks.  They raise issues around what genuine choice looks like, philanthropic strategy, and how to manage the tension between reaching the scale to serve more students better and diversity of schooling options.  These issues are not new but are apparent and playing out in cities around the country – and there are not easy or pat solutions. Yet Winerip instead focuses on some emails between Joel Klein and Eva Moskowitz? Really New York Times?

But, it could be worse, my hometown paper, The Washington Post, decided that this was worthy of print space this morning…

Changing belief systems.

Next Tuesday I’ll moderate a fun discussion at an Askwith Forum at HGSE on the World Peace movie. The filmmaker (Chris Farina) and the teacher (John Hunter) featured are from Charlottesville, VA.  Monday 5/2, in Washington, the Bipartisan Policy Center is hosting what should be a good discussion about education politics and policy (Spellings, Tomalis, Eubanks, and Weast, I’ll moderate that one, too).

Also, lots (surprisingly!) of emails wondering where Friday Fish Porn has gone.  I have a big file of pictures, Dep’t of Ed’s Michael Robbins’ son with a genuine fly fishing celebrity, McGraw-Hill’s Larry Snowhite’s son, and just some really great pictures of edu-types with fish (including New Schools’ Ben Riley who recently demonstrated that he knows his way around a river).  What I haven’t had is time to get them up on a Friday, but they’re coming soon.

CO is close on a new state education commissioner, in Washington Checker Finn isn’t excited, reviews in the state itself are mixed. In many ways CO is the most interesting non-Race to the Top winning state, in particular because of their new teacher evaluation plans, so a lot riding on this.

Michelle McNeil has a great look at the No Child Left Behind waiver issue. Plus, John Merrow will send your favorite teacher a signed copy of his new (and good) book.

This week’s School of Thought column at TIME takes a look at two recent teacher studies that didn’t get a lot of attention and some larger implications.

Teacher effectiveness matters more to student learning than anything else schools do, and there are substantial differences between teachers. Those two points often get lost in the din about teachers unions or tenure. Underneath all that noise, however, researchers are quietly looking at teacher quality. Two new studies that didn’t get a lot of attention challenge beliefs of reformers, teachers unions, and reform critics.

Read the entire column here.

Richard Whitmire’s worried about a reform backlash.  Meanwhile, more pushback on the NCTQ – US News rankings project from ed schools. This seems like a remarkably counterproductive strategy and to the casual observer will just reinforce stereotypes.

More impact from Teach Plus.

Also, be sure to check out Pathway To Prison and other content on the Teached website.

And if you’re in Chicago or interested in Chicago education (and a lot happening there right now) this forum looks pretty good.

The Harvard Future of School Reform blog and commentaries continue over at Ed Week.  Paul Hill and Terry Moe turn in a look at the mixed model of schooling.  And my response to it is here.

50Can needs a finance director. MATCH school is hiring and the new MATCH Teacher Residency is hiring for a few roles. TFA needs a new Executive Director for the Washington DC region. High impact job, about 25K kids inside the Beltway are taught by TFA Corps members every school day.

At Bellwether we’re in the process of hiring for a few roles but a new one is a Manager of Strategic Communications and Events.  We do a lot of meetings and convenings and this person will play a key role in that work along with other Bellwether projects.

Bob Compton and Anthony Priest turn in a little film about chess at a D.C. high school.

More from Howard Fuller via RedefinED blog. Background here.

Good look at what happened in Illinois via Chicago News Cooperative. Sandy Kress challenges the administration on No Child Left Behind.  He does include one tidbit that eluded the national press – the disaggregated data on the school President Obama chose for his recent No Child speech.

The always constructive Michael Winerip notes that some proponents of education reform went to private school.  Unmentioned? Many others didn’t.  You could, of course, go through the same exercise for critics of reform (and for journalists). That’s why the article is a pointless exercise in rhetoric and divisiveness that’s beneath the New York Times.

Update: Amateur Hour – For some actual thoughtfulness on issues of diversity (and lack thereof) check out Heather Harding’s blog post today.

Update II: Just one other thought on this public – private issue (and a more general issue than the Winerip article and the schools it focuses on).  These public/private categories are not monolithic and can be tossed around way too casually.  Just for instance: Someone who grew up in a low-income family, went to Catholic schools through high school may have in fact been exposed in their schooling to much more socioeconomic diversity than someone who grew up in an affluent suburb – and although they attended public schools was actually in a pretty homogeneous environment all the way through because of out of school factors like housing patterns or within school issues like tracking, GT/AP participation etc…Update III: More on this idea here via Fordham.

The “parent trigger” debate has been pretty over the top in terms of the rhetoric but here’s a refreshingly sensible take from Kristina Rizga in Mother Jones.

My initial take on what happened in Wisconsin with the debate over collective bargaining there was that it had, counter-intuitively, given teachers unions an argument that most people on the center-left and left agreed with them on and distracted from the important – and fixable - problems in state law and teachers contracts. In the new Education Insider a majority of policy and political elites disagree with that view and think Wisconsin hurt the unions.  And while it’s still too soon to tell for sure, events over the last few days point the other way as well.

Tennessee passed a teacher tenure reform bill and the governor signed it. And in Illinois a coalition of reform groups and teachers unions agreed on a set of reforms there including LIFO reform. And in both places this happened without the theatrics of Wisconsin. A couple of relevant takeaways from the Illinois experience.

First, again state education advocacy groups were instrumental in driving change – In particular Advance Illinois** and Stand For Children*.  And changed happened because of a multi-pronged approach that was about policy, advocacy, and politics.  Second, while the narrative is all about collaboration, it’s important to note the context in which that collaboration happened – the teachers unions were boxed in because legislation was going to move and there was a lot of pressure on key elected players, the issue was the details.  That said, they could have fought this to the bitter end and didn’t and deserve credit for that.   So it’s about collaboration and cover in practice. Finally, the urban/suburban split was again in evidence here – for instance different rules on strikes for Chicago and downstate – worth watching that issue as it is not a great one for reformers because the suburbs are often more about masking problems than fixing them.

*Bellwether provides policy analysis, strategy, and research for Stand for Children.

**Update: It turns out that one of my colleagues at Bellwether did search and placement work for Advance Illinois when they were launching in 2008 (I obviously wasn’t involved in that project because I didn’t remember it and was not yet at BW anyway) but it’s on our website so I should have and it should have been mentioned above along with the note on SFC).

That there isn’t one.  That’s the topic of my School of Thought column this week in TIME. I don’t know what was more dismaying, how badly the Black appointment turned out for New York or how the education world responded to it.

Mark Twain famously cautioned us to take from an experience only the wisdom that is in it and to stop there. That sensible admonition is routinely ignored in our overheated debate over education. The latest example? The reaction to last week’s firing of Cathie Black as New York City’s schools chancellor. Critics of education reform quickly rushed to declare it a verdict on the effort to improve schools overall, or at the very least, on non-traditional school superintendents — as though Black was the only one of that breed. You want nuance? Don’t look for it on this issue…

…So that’s the mundane reality here: The Mayor of New York made a bad decision for the schools — and to his credit owned up to it, and addressed it.

Around the education world, however, mundane realities fail to provide enough fuel for ideological fights…

Read the entire thing here.

Everyone wants to get rid of No Child Left Behind’s tutoring provisions right? Well, not exactly and at 2pm today you can get a taste of that in the Capitol if you’re in D.C. (pdf). Not unlike the current “gainful employment” rule fight the tutoring issue will create some strange alliances as the debate unfolds.

ConnCan needs a CEO, great job in the state policy advocacy sector. And Boston Teacher Residency has several good openings.

Also a couple of roles at Leading Educators.

You always hear/read how Howard Fuller is just a tool of right-wing Republicans and yet he keeps doing stuff like this. Here’s a previous example…

Folks in the administration say this David Rogers article is a good place to start if you want a sense of the education piece of the budget bill (and the tenor overall).  Expect some howling from the ed world though when it’s released and read the fine print on allowable uses of funds.

A month ago we added a daily email feature for readers who want a daily summation of any content posted here.  But even better in an effort to be responsive to feedback, now there is now an Eduwonk iphone app if you read on your iphone or ipad. Enjoy!

Not too surprisingly D.C. vouchers are back in action as part of the budget deal.  They were included with a set of policy riders as part of the final deal.  Two interesting dimensions to this.  First the actual implementation.  Running a school voucher program is harder than you might think because of issues around income and residency verification, various admissions and policy issues at participating schools, and assessment and accountability requirements and so forth.  After Congress discontinued the program the infrastructure supporting all that was basically dismantled and the operators have moved onto other things because only students in the program at the time Congress ended it would continue in it.  So stay tuned to see how that’s handled.

The politics are interesting as well. You don’t have to be a D.C. statehood advocate to bristle at the way Washington is treated as a chit in these negotiations.  But while positions on the abortion and needle exchange issues are more straightforward the politics on vouchers are complicated in a few ways.  First, with a few exceptions (for instance former Mayor Marion Barry) the city’s elected class, starting with Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and including current Mayor Vincent Gray don’t like the voucher program but parents generally do – especially those that do or can participate.  Meanwhile, there is really only halfhearted opposition to D.C. vouchers these days at best among national Democrats – in no small part because vouchers haven’t lived up to the billing of either proponents or foes and the city’s schools still have such a long way to go.

Elsewhere: The Washington Post gets its revenge on Richard Whitmire by commissioning Diane Ravitch to review his recent book “The Bee Eater”, Whitmire responds here. I don’t really care that the paper chose Ravitch to review the book, I like an edgy review, but am disappointed that the review didn’t engage with the actual manuscript and its ideas (as most reviews have failed to).  Bee Eater has become a classic example of book as conversation piece, which is too bad because the Rhee story was – and is – complicated if you move past the topline stuff.  And the book has some good reporting and analysis on all that!  AFT head Randi Weingarten may need a better speechwriter but given how she handled this I think it’s hard to label her a plagiarist as some are trying to do today.  Speaking of strawmen and of The Post, there are obviously problems with (and limitations to) standardized tests and today’s accountability methods but this essay on standardized testing in Outlook seemed to go out of its way to obscure them – but many strawmen slain in the process.  And speaking of the AFT some interesting (and potentially tension creating) stuff in their new Gen Y report.