I mentioned Carolyn Bucior’s book on substitute teaching in my summer books TIME School of Thought column.  Summer is over but she’s still going. She talks with CAP’s Raegen Miller about the issue here.

In case you missed it over the holiday weekend The New York Times’ look at education technology deserves reading. If anything the piece was too kind and ought to be a wake-up call on some of the boosterism accompanying this latest round of ‘technology as savior’ in education. The history is littered with lessons (here’s an obvious one – instructional quality matters) but it’s unclear if anyone is paying attention.

And here’s some exclusive video from the first day of the Department of Education’s back-to-school bus tour. Here is some from last night.

A lot of new reader content posted at the Eduwonk Facebook page.

Finally, The Washington Monthly’s new college guide is out, always worth a look if you follow that issue – and the methods are interesting.  This past weekend Daniel de Vise took at look at the US News college rankings in the Wash Post. Couple of thoughts on what is a generally thoughtful story.  First, the article alludes to some internal critics at U.S. News without really giving the full context including some masthead changes and larger issues, there is a more to the history.  Second, I can’t speak for the college rankings – and do think the critics of the methodology have some very valid points – but I did help U.S. News design its high school rankings (and also used to write an education column for them).  In creating the high school rankings there were multiple opportunities to design things in a way that would have sold more magazines and online ads but not been as methodologically defensible.  We were never pressured to do that in any way.  Outside of things like baseball standings rankings are inherently subjective so these disagreements generally stem from different interpretations of what matters and should be measured rather than bad faith.

Former Fordhamite and School of One’r Mickey Muldoon is now blogging. He speaks his mind and doesn’t hew to the party line so worth checking in on.

Here’s another up and comer well worth checking out: Ainsley O’Connell.  Here’s her post on what teachers can learn from chefs.

Here’s my pick for a good book for the weekend. Denise Giardina’s fictionalized account is pretty good, too.

Smart take on Chicago and some larger issues from Seth Lavin is below. He’s the guy behind Chicago Schools Wonks – a solid and must-read free weekly e-newsletter.  Subscribe by emailing him here.

We’ve had Brizard for 100 days. Noreen Ahmed-Ullah has a Trib piece with a decent overview of what he’s been talking about (longer day, new accountability, emphasis on principals) and areas he’s faced criticism (conflict with the teachers union).

She also has a few weird paragraphs on “suggestions that Board of Education President David Vitale and Chief Administrative Officer Tim Cawley — both Emanuel appointees — are actually running the district,“ adding “many wonder if he selected his team or Emanuel did it for him.” Ahmed-Ullah offers an even weirder explanation: “rumors are likely fueled by his unpretentious style. He is driven around town in a 2008 Ford Crown Victoria, opting to sit in the front rather than the back.” http://trib.in/o8ntlf

The team around Brizard actually gives me confidence he doesn’t. It feels like Chief Education Officer Noemi Donosi’s been putting an emphasis on quality of change (not just shiny-ness of change) that I don’t see from Brizard of Rahm. If she and the others were brought in as a hedge on Brizard then good for whoever brought them in.

My big problem with the Trib piece is that it mostly follows a lazy pattern a lot of edujournalists use. The world’s divided into reformers and traditionalists. Reformers like charters, testing and accountability metrics. Traditionalists like unions and primary investment in neighborhood schools. Ahmed-Ullah plops Brizard in the reformer camp then gets some quotes from predictable folks on each side who either praise or disparage him—not based on what he has or hasn’t accomplished but on what he says he believes. The whole thing’s set up as reformer vs. traditionalist (Brizard vs. union), then we get to decide our opinion of his administration based on whichever camp we think we support.

But what does that really tell us about how things might change for students? Can Brizard’s stated philosophy really help us predict his success as a change agent? Brizard (and Rahm) like charters and accountability and streamlining. We get it. But how are they making decisions? What data do they look at? What programs and places do they see as models and what information do they use to determine that? Brizard follows two reformer schools chiefs in Chicago, one you may recognize as the current US Secretary of Education. They said most of the same things he did, yet he says the school district he inherited is failing. What went wrong? I’m not insinuating the concepts behind the reformer camp are wrong. I don’t believe they are. I just believe that the key reformer buzz ideas (opening charters, implementing test-driven accountability, promoting alternative certification) succeed or fail based on how carefully and thoughtfully they’re implemented. I wish Ahmed-Ullah and the Trib would cover how Brizard is doing rather than what he’s saying. The reformer vs. union story just isn’t that interesting and it’s not that helpful for people trying to make things better for students.

Good concise analysis from the New York City Charter School Center about how the law actually works with regard to profit-making and charter schools (pdf). Nationally (and in most locales except Michigan and Ohio) for-profit charter management organizations are such a small part of the charter school landscape that it’s amazing how much rhetoric is devoted to them.  In New York, for instance, despite all the hoopla about “privatization” just 9 percent of the schools have a relationship with a for-profit manager.

Chris Cerf on evaluation reform in the Garden State.

Former LA teachers union head A.J. Duffy is opening a charter school and basically dumping tenure rules.

Obviously, this story is one of those ironic ones that says it all. But it’s also good to see, given the cast of characters involved this could be a great school in a place where there are not enough.  Don’t get the reference in the title? It’s not about Duffy.  See this for backstory.

We’ve made some additions to our team at Bellwether, one of which – a fifth partner – I’ll highlight below and several others – two associate partners and an analyst- I’ll post about soon.

But first we’re saying goodbye to three terrific people who were part of our D.C.-based team this summer.  Alana Laudone and Rhonda Henderson were Education Pioneers with us working on some internal projects as well as some research, analysis and strategy work. Rhonda, a former teacher in D.C. is heading back to the University of Virginia for her second year in business school.  Alana a former consultant among other gigs and also in her second year of B-School at Yale, is off to China for a semester.  They’re both outstanding and rising stars to keep an eye on.  We’re also saying goodbye to the thoughtful and quite dynamic  Jamie Rees.  He’s heading back to Harvard for his final year where he’s studying economics.  Jamie’s on the Harvard soccer team and you can look for him to be playing professionally here or in Europe next year if we can’t lure him back into the education sector instead. Finally, on the west coast Abby Gillespie, an Education Pioneer data fellow and former North Carolina teacher, is leaving after a year + on our team as part of that fellowship program.  Abby worked out of BW’s San Fransisco-based team and is another one with a lot of potential. She’s deciding between a few opportunities for what’s next for her but is staying in the education sector.

We’re also really excited to announce the addition of the first non-founding Bellwether partner:  Rex Varner.  Rex is joining Bellwether this fall, coming from Teach For America where he is Vice President for Strategy, Administration, and Human Assets.  A native of West Virginia Rex has worked at McKinsey, the Corporate Executive Board, and is a former Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali.  He’ll be working on a few fronts but primarily helping us expand our strategy work further and be based out of our D.C. office.