On Friday February 3, 2012 Bellwether is hosting a free one-day blog training for education bloggers in Washington, D.C. The day will include writing coaching led by seasoned journalists and writers (for instance Carl Cannon) as well as workshops by experienced social media experts (for instance Megan Carpentier) about how to market a blog and build readership and engagement.  The goal is to help some fresh, interesting, and provocative voices raise the profile of their work.

If you’d like to attend you have to blog at least 50 percent about education (pre-k, k-12, higher ed and/or lifelong learning issues).  Independent or organizational blogs are welcome.  Attendees will be selected based on ability-to-benefit not based on organizational affiliation or political or educational viewpoint. This is a workshop about how to write and market not about what to write or market.  Bear in mind that slots are limited because of the interactive nature of the writing workshop and although the application deadline is January 3rd we will be selecting applicants on a rolling basis to allow people to make travel plans.  Attendees are expected to pay the cost of travel to Washington and accommodations.  However, limited financial aid is available.

More complete information and the application can be found here.

The new Brookings index on school choice is interesting and worth a look but as I go through it two things seem to jump out. First, despite the rhetoric in the public square there still isn’t a great deal of real choice in education.  And second, the index seems to reward places (relatively speaking) that have limited choices but still do all the things you should do (information, transportation etc…nonetheless).  That’s like having an incredible restaurant with easy valet parking, wonderful fresh food, great service, and lovely ambiance – but that can only seat four people a night.  Nice but limited.

Update: Here’s RiShawn Biddle on the index.

What has six balls and screws teachers?  State lotteries. Virginia is not the only state with this issue.

Seems to me the big AP story on Teach For America’s expansion and the risks missed the real questions and risks.  The story went for the easy non-committal angle – the research is “mixed” – and misread the research, too. In fact it’s not mixed, ample studies indicate that TFA teachers – on average – outperform their counterparts including veteran teachers.*  It’s why school districts are clamoring for TFA teachers – they’re a better bet than a random draw from the applicant pool. But, there are two big caveats here the AP story ignored and that are actually the crux of the TFA expansion risk question.

First, the TFA margin isn’t enormous, on average TFA teachers outperform but not by leaps and bounds.  How will expansion affect that?

Second, the debate assumes – and some TFA proponents perpetuate – an ecological fallacy when discussing the TFA program.  Just because TFA teachers outperform on average does not mean that every TFA teacher does. There is a high-degree of variance among TFA teachers, just like other teachers.  TFA is a field leader in selecting teachers likely to succeed – in my view that’s the core innovation of the program – but they get some wrong, too. How will expansion affect that?

Overall the quality of the TFA corps has increased as the program has expanded – noteworthy because quality is often inversely related to scale – but like a mutual fund past performance is not a guarantee of future success.  That’s why these two questions bear watching as the program grows further.

BTW - Also, more generally lost in the debate about TFA is the extent to which the research today reflects strong practices by TFA or weak practices by most of the field.  I think it’s a combination and the teacher training establishment has done a poor job putting forward compelling models, but that’s a question also worth some discussion.

*Here, for instance, is an analysis of prep programs in TN.

Save yourself some time, via TNR here’s the article everyone is going to be chattering about. (OK, not such a time-saver, but now updated with a non-subscriber link!)

The Times story about for-profit teacher alternative certification programs in Texas is sparking some conversation, which is good, it’s a trend worth paying attention to and evaluating. But it’s amazing that in 2011 the article is chocked full of “some question” and “some believe” statements.  And this:

Principals offer mixed reviews of teachers hired from for-profit programs. Most say those teachers succeed in the classroom at the same rate as traditionally certified ones, but others report that they seem less prepared.

This is basically an empirical question.  And its one that Texas could answer.  States like LA and TN are moving in this direction now.

Readers are also left to figure out on their own a key piece of context – teacher preparation programs vary widely in quality today.  I’m skeptical of some of the for-profit outfits (and many alternative routes overall) but when people complain that some of the for-profit teacher preparation programs take anyone, it might be a good time to signal to readers that this problem exists across the board with many programs and what the state of quality is.

More generally, in my view proposals to regulate these programs by mandating various inputs and trying to make them look more like traditional programs is the wrong the way to go.  We have an input-driven system now and it creates a culture driven by compliance and reporting rather than performance. It’s also a cumbersome system that often obscures more than it reveals. Instead, why not require a high-level of accountability based on how those who complete a program perform in the classroom?  That’s a metric that can be applied across the board to traditional programs, non-profits and for-profits alike.  And only then can we get away from a ‘he said, she said’ way of thinking about these questions.

Stand For Children* and EEP have merged, John Legend is joining the board of Stand’s leadership center.  You can hear him discuss that and learn more here.

And here’s a fun site – Voices for the Planet – with videos from students about climate change.

*BW works with Stand.

Inaugural class of the Aspen Teacher Leaders Fellows rolled out today. Great group of teachers and people working to empower teachers.  You can read more about them and the program via the link above.

Over at Title I Monitor Chuck Edwards takes a look at some other policy implications of the health care case the SCOTUS will hear. Here’s a 2005 post looking at Chief Justice Roberts’ take on this issue.

Some education results in this new CA poll. Count me as skeptical on the tax one though, people consistently tell pollsters they’ll pay more for education through taxes but then behave differently at the ballot box.  But perhaps the fiscal situation in CA is so dire it’s going to overcome that dynamic?

Speaking of odd dynamics, the NRC report on accountability raised a lot of eyebrows when it was released. Now,  Rick Hanushek directly takes it on in Ed Next. This is a debate worth watching.  Implications in terms of the substance but also implications for how signals and cues travel in our field.

ERS has created a game to visualize education budget decisions – and  you can play along.

In the next issue of Education Next Martha Derthick and I discuss and debate the No Child Left Behind waivers the administration is offering. Are they illegal?  Necessary?  The inevitable result of the dysfunction in Washington? Or a power-grab by the executive branch? You can read our articles now via this link.

Cowen Institute in New Orleans is seeking an ED. And if you’re into school choice, hard to beat this job directing the parental choice program at Fordham.

Occupy the public schools. That’s this week’s School of Thought column at TIME:

It’s easy to get angry at banks and CEOs, especially as more Americans slip below the poverty line while the rich keep getting richer. But if the goal of Occupy Wall Street is improving social mobility in this country, then the movement really needs to focus as much on educational inequality as it does on income inequality. There is perhaps no better example of how the system is rigged against millions of Americans than the education our children receive.

You can occupy the entire column by clicking here.

Terry Grier in Ed Week on what’s happening with teacher evaluation in Houston:

These immediate, common-sense steps were a vast improvement over the evaluation system we were working to replace. The staff-review process helped principals hold their teachers to higher expectations, but, just as important, it helped us hold principals accountable for being instructional leaders, not just building managers. For the first time, we were requiring our school leaders to distinguish great teaching from good, good from fair, and fair from poor, and insisting that they help all teachers chart a path to take their professional skills to the next level.

This video is pretty amazing.

The Teaching Channel is launching some new tools and expanding its content.

Student art contest about “What Math Means to Me,” sponsored by MHE.  You can vote for one of the 72 finalists.

And TNR takes a look at inequality and elite universities. Must-read.

Over at TIME Julie Rawe and I talk with Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Ron Tomalis in an exclusive interview about what’s happening at Penn State, the investigation he is helping to lead, and what’s next.

Pennsylvania Secretary of Education and Penn State trustee Ron Tomalis spoke with TIME about the special committee the university’s board of trustees created on Friday to investigate the culture at Penn State and what led to the grand jury indictments of two school officials and former football coach Jerry Sandusky regarding his alleged sexual abuse of boys on school facilities. Fellow trustee Ken Frazier, the CEO of Merck and a graduate of Penn State, will chair the committee. Tomalis is vice-chair.

You can investigate the entire column for free at TIME’s site by clicking here.

On Wednesday Navy SEAL Eric Greteins stopped by the blog to discuss helping veterans with their education. Keep that and other veterans issues in mind today.  Here’s one initiative you may not be aware of.

Last Friday a major study looking at charter school management organizations was released.  Here’s my take on it from TIME. And here’s an Eduwonk post about it.  Now, below, for the first time the researchers spell out what they see as some key takeaways:

CMO’s: Are We There Yet?   By Robin Lake and Paul Hill, Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington

Charter management organizations were built to bring consistency and scale to the charter movement by replicating high-performing schools in large numbers. Have they delivered? A new study by the Center on Reinventing Public Education and Mathematica Policy Research shows that, unfortunately, the answer is not yet.  CMOs have created a number of high-performing charters, but many others don’t perform as well as nearby public schools. As is the case with independent charters, there is a great deal of variation in the effectiveness of CMOs.

The good news is very good. A number of CMOs have stellar results. They make it possible for students to make three years of learning gains after just two years of enrollment. CMOs that get strong results in reading and math also do well in other subjects, suggesting that these schools are not simply prepping students for the most tested subjects. And the most effective CMOs have positive impacts that are substantially larger than the negative impacts of the least effective CMOs. We found that high-performing CMOs tend to have intensive professional coaching of teachers and high expectations for student behavior, with clearly defined discipline policies. Teacher coaching is often packaged with a sophisticated use of data and more instructional time.  But the news is not all good. CMOs included in our study appear to differ dramatically in the value they add as measured by test scores. While about half of the CMOs we studied produced positive results, about a third showed negative results in math or reading. This is well short of the consistency that we should expect from efforts to replicate high quality charters.

(An important caveat – the overall quality of CMOs may be better or worse than we know right now.  Our study used the most rigorous methods available to eliminate selection bias and isolate the value CMOs add to student achievement. That level of rigor requires achievement measures for each student before entering the CMO school—measures which do not exist in pre-kindergarten, thereby eliminating elementary schools from our analysis. What’s more, we haven’t yet looked at college admission and success, which some CMOs emphasize over test scores.  A fuller picture of school effectiveness should include college attainment and success.  We’ll have more results on that front soon.)

Many have argued that CMOs deserve fast-track approval processes and require more limited government oversight. While streamlined and customized application processes have promise, they can’t substitute for rigorous oversight.  And charter school authorizers must realize that scale brings its own challenges.  In some cases, CMOS are in danger of being too big to fail, given the thousands of students they serve. Poor authorizing or investment strategies, then, carry all the more risk, putting a premium on discriminating up front due diligence and ongoing oversight.

So where do we go from here? Giving up on replication of excellent schools is not an option. U.S. public education needs thousands more schools that help students excel in the ways that the top-performing charters, CMOs, and conventional public schools do. But funders and charter authorizers need to recognize that all CMOs are not created equal. They need to carefully assess CMOs’ achievement records—carefully measured in “value-added” terms—their instructional and operational models, and their financial viability before they give the green light and dollars to start new schools.

For their part, CMO leaders must attend to uneven quality, perhaps starting by focusing on promising practices such as intensive coaching of teachers and comprehensive behavior policies. In addition, they need to figure out how they can grow without continued infusions of philanthropic dollars. That means experimenting with technology to reduce costs, engage students, and help teachers reduce their workloads. It means innovating with strategies to run central operations more efficiently, partner with other organizations that can provide services at lower costs, or negotiate with school districts to provide affordable buildings.  And while doing this, many CMOs need to find ways to serve more students with disabilities and English language limitations.

The bottom line is that many CMOs are very effective, but charter authorizers and funders should not assume that schools affiliated with CMOs are necessarily better than independent charters. More than a half-billion philanthropic dollars have supported CMO development and expansion in the last 10 years. Large grants by the U.S. Department of Education are supporting the replication of effective charter schools generally and the growth of CMOs specifically. Our study suggests that such investments must be directed with care to support quality and scale in the charter sector. Put plainly: The next generation of scaling strategies should build on CMO successes and acknowledge their limitations.

Teachers are organizing in LA.

This week’s TIME column takes a look at teacher pay – always a lively debate and one that often obscures more than it reveals:

Listen to the pundits, and public education has a Goldilocks problem. Are teachers being overpaid, underpaid or paid just right? Few arguments in education are as contentious — or as misleading. A report released Nov. 1 by two conservative think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, set off fireworks with the claim that teachers are overpaid by a collective $120 billion each year and that their pensions, health care and other benefits make their total compensation 52% higher than “fair market levels.”

The report looked at a variety of factors to reach its conclusion. Some are well known issues; for instance, teachers enjoy more generous benefits than most workers. But the analysis also rested on a variety of debatable assumptions about the quality of the teaching force, the job security that teachers have and opportunities for teachers in the private sector. Only by accepting all of the authors’ assumptions do you reach the eye-popping $120 billion figure.

Not surprisingly, teachers’ unions blasted the report, and conservatives saw its findings as further evidence that the unions are putting one over on the American people. Mostly lost in the back and forth was the more complex reality of teacher pay. Here are three important factors that need to be considered…

You can see all three factors with just one click on this link to the entire article.

Ed Note – The post below is by Eric Greitens, a Navy SEAL and founder of The Mission Continues.  You can read more about Mission Continues in this NYT story or by visiting their website. Here Greitens discusses education and American’s veterans.  Veterans Day is Friday, please keep these issues in mind.

Once they packed for War, now they pack for College: How to help veterans win the fight to stay on campus.

By Eric Greitens

Anthony Diaz was a 19-year old student when the Towers fell. As the nation watched the smoke rise from the rubble of Ground Zero, Anthony watched his father, a U.S. Marine, pack his bags for war. Three years later, inspired by his father’s commitment, Diaz dropped out of college to enlist as a Marine and serve his country.

By 2009, Diaz suffered from myriad medical issues including degenerative disk disease, a torn rotator cuff, and a case of high anxiety disorder that would prohibit him from reenlisting. Diaz returned home to face the reality of a new beginning and a new fight—the battle to rebuild his life at home.  First, he dedicated himself to pursuing the degree that he had abandoned when he enlisted.

For many veterans, an education can serve as a stepping-stone as they transition back to civilian life. The 9/11 GI Bill, which was passed by Congress just months prior to Diaz’ departure from the Marines, promised to pay full tuition, a housing allowance, and an annual stipend for books and supplies. Diaz believed it was his ticket to the future. But reality soon hit.

The fact is, many universities are still not equipped to serve the specific needs of a veteran population. As a result, Veterans register for classes, but with little direction from the school. They lack clarity about how their military experience and schooling can translate into a civilian credential, and then find themselves in programs that are unaligned to their career goals. Many leave without ever obtaining a degree.

According to Col. David Sutherland, Director of Warrior and Family Support and special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, “88% of post 9/11 veterans are dropping out of school.  When they drop out of school, they reenter a labor force in which male veterans aged 18-25 have a 21.9% unemployment rate.”

Nevertheless, demand for an education will continue to rise among our veteran population. Almost 800,000 veterans used their GI Bill benefits in 2010, up 40 percent from 2009.  And current trends suggest that within two years of their return home, approximately 25 percent of returning veterans will enroll in school.

As these men and women come home, our Nation’s colleges and universities must organize to meet the unique needs of veterans during their transition. Some schools, such as Syracuse University and the University of Michigan, have led the way with initiatives like the Student Veterans Assistance Program, which provides opportunities for one-on-one counseling about class selection, seminars on student life, and networking events with veteran-friendly employers.

But success for the post 9/11 veteran population will not come from just tuition assistance and smart academic counseling. There is another critical ingredient: providing opportunities for continued active community service.

While the majority of college students have yet to pursue a career, a veteran has already given years of his or her life in the service of this country. Many have risked life and limb, and gone through profoundly moving experiences. To transition from that reality to the “bubble” of academia is traumatic. The All Volunteer Force survey, conducted by Civic Enterprises in 2009, revealed that 92 percent of post 9/11 veterans feel that serving their community is important to them, compared with the 43 percent of college students nationwide who hold this belief.

Academic institutions that incorporate service-based programs into a veteran’s college experience will provide them with critical tools for a successful transition.  In service, veteran students develop camaraderie and overcome feelings of isolation.  In service, veterans rebuild their sense of purpose through meaningful community engagement.  In service, veterans help to draw the parallel between military service and community service.

When veterans around him were struggling, Anthony Diaz pursued a fellowship from The Mission Continues in conjunction with Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi. Today, he serves with the Student Veterans of America, where he is the Texas Director and oversees all Texas chapters of the SVA. As part of his service, Diaz is helping other veterans:  “I love to see the look on a veteran’s face when I tell them that I can help. I know that if I help at least one returning veteran earn an education and not become a statistic, then I did my part.”

This year, an estimated 325,000 service men and women will leave the military.  As they pack their bags for school, let’s ensure that when they arrive on campus they are enrolled in meaningful programs of study and engaged in service to our campuses and our communities.  If we do this right, we’ll create a cadre of veteran leaders across the county.  We’ll help veterans to make the transition into citizen leaders here at home, and they’ll help their fellow students to walk a path of both success and service.

Eric Greitens is a US Navy SEAL and the Founder and CEO of The Mission Continues.

Head Start: This Head Start announcement today is not just an event for an event’s sake.  The policy here matters on the thorny issue of Head Start reform. Update - Sara Mead has more.

Politics: All edueyes on Ohio, that matters, but pay attention to the state level elections in Virginia, important harbinger of what next year portends in a key swing state with some eduimplications.

Reports to read: ES takes a look at pensions in Rhode Island and what’s happening there.  Little state but big implications.  And the new report on harassment from AAUW is worth a look. Important issue and as opposed to past ones the measures here are tighter.

Op-eds: If this is the best NYT’s Michael Winerip can come up with to criticize Tennessee about then Race to the Top implementation there must be going a lot better than I thought.  At TIME Jon Schnur takes a look at why parents think their own school is great and the nation is a mess.

Housekeeping: You can get automatic tweets when content is posted on Eduwonk @eduwonk or if you want a live person I am @arotherham.  You can also post your own content at the Eduwonk Facebook page.

Public Impact is hiring consultants (pdf). Terrific outfit that does interesting work on a variety of school improvement issues.

Tutor.com is hiring for their military family initiatives.

Forbes asked TFA’s Wendy Kopp who the most powerful educators in the world are – here’s her take via this photo gallery.

In all the back and forth on NAEP results this week I was surprised that the free-and-reduced price lunch figures didn’t get more attention.  In 2003 there were 40 percent of students in the  4th-grade sample eligible for free-and-reduced price lunch (a reasonable proxy for being low-income).  In 2011 that figure was 49 percent.   I’m inclined to the view that even accounting for this we should expect a great deal more from schools, but that’s not to say poverty doesn’t matter.  And this trend matters.

Here’s the link to the study itself (pdf).  From yesterday’s TIME column here is the sum takeaway on performance:

Of the 40 CMOs that were selected for inclusion in the study for various reasons, including having a minimum of four member schools, 22 networks had sufficient data for the student-achievement analysis, which looked at three years of middle-school performance. The study found that, in general, students at charter-network schools outperform similar students at traditional public schools, although sometimes not by very much. But that overall average masks an enormous variation among different CMOs. High-performing CMOs are so effective they are providing the equivalent of three years of schooling for students every two years. But CMOs at the low end are so bad they are effectively costing students a year of learning every two years. Bottom line: 10 of the 22 CMOs are outperforming their public-school peers in math and reading, in some cases substantially; eight are middling; and four are serious laggards.

If you follow the issue closely don’t miss the – cliche alert – treasure trove of descriptive information in this study about how CMOs are operating. A few pro and con commenters have opined to the effect that this data must be either “forged by public schools and teacher unions” or not valid because it doesn’t use a pure RCT or randomized model as, for instance, Caroline Hoxby does in her research on charter school effects.  The methods are solid, learn about them yourself at the link above.  The focus on middle schools stems from a data availability issue.  It’s harder to do longitudinal studies for elementary school students because most states don’t assess in the early grades and at the high school level the assessment policies are very mixed, creating data issues there and necessitating the use of other measures – eg graduation, college-going, etc…in addition to this ongoing research effort the new Broad Prize for CMOs will also shed some light on those issues.

How you interpret the performance data probably has a lot to do with that you think about charters and CMOs in the first place. My take is two-fold.  One, given where a lot of CMOs operate I’m not surprised by the quality issues.  A problematic mix of poor quality charter authorizing and badly designed state policies create an environment where school replication is not always a function of quality.  But, while we can certainly do better there, even with improved laws and better authorizing no one should expect 100 percent success.  There is inherent risk in creating new entities.  Worth noting that even the very good CMOs have some individual schools that struggle.  In my view the question is how much risk are we willing to tolerate and given that we’re talking about schools, how much should we tolerate?

Update: Good overview from NSVF’s Jim Peyser.

This week’s TIME column looks at the issue of charter school quality. A new study coming tomorrow shows results that are at once exhilarating and sobering.  Is the price of creating space for more great schools the creation of some lousy ones as well?

The two most common criticisms about charter schools are that A) many of them aren’t that good and B) the good ones can’t be replicated to serve enough kids to really make a difference. TIME got an exclusive first look at the most comprehensive evaluation of charter school networks ever, and although the study, which will be released on Nov. 4, underscores the challenge of creating quality schools, it also makes clear that it is indeed possible to build a lot of schools that are game-changers for a lot of students.

Leader?  Lemon?  Regardless you can click here and read the entire column over at TIME including a preview of some of the findings in the new Mathematica-CRPE CMO study.

Ed Note – All week Eric Hanushek and Diane Ravitch have discussed and debated the pros and cons of more assertive policies to deselect the lowest-performing teachers.  Hanushek started on Monday, Ravitch responded on Tuesday, again Hanushek on Wednesday, and here is Ravitch with the final installment today.  Many thanks to both of them for this discussion.

By Diane Ravitch

I made two arguments in my first blog. Rick seems to have misunderstood both. Let me try again.

My first point is that the dramatic benefits he promises if schools fire 5-10 percent of teachers is not based on real world evidence. It is a talking point, not a policy.

Rick is a respected economist. When he tells policymakers that firing the “bottom 5-10 percent” of teachers would boost U.S. performance to that of high-achieving nations, they believe him. They think there is actual evidence that a systematic “deselection” policy will generate massive, miracle improvements over a relatively short period of time.

But no such evidence exists.

If Rick believes that firing based on comprehensive evaluation ratings comprised of multiple measures will produce the same results as “deselecting” teachers based solely on their ability to raise test scores, he’s entitled to that opinion. But he is just speculating. And he’s probably wrong.

Rick’s calculation is based entirely on wide variation in value-added scores in math only. Most teachers do not even receive value-added scores, and nobody – including Rick – can say how even well-designed evaluations will vary, or how well they will measure teachers’ ability to promote cognitive and non-cognitive skills, both of which should be valued outcomes. Rick can’t say how widespread “deselection” policies will affect the labor supply, or morale and teamwork. He can’t say whether these annual firings will hurt poor schools that already have very high turnover. In other words, he can’t say how his hypothetical calculation will play out in the real world.

I agree with Rick that administrators should fire bad teachers. In fact, it happens all the time. Teachers are easily and routinely dismissed in their first three or four years. If there are incompetent teachers who have tenure, they should get a chance to improve, and, if they can’t or won’t improve, they should be dismissed, after a fair hearing.

But it is irresponsible for Rick to claim, without qualification, that his formula for firings will increase student performance to the level of Finland or Canada within ten years.

The second, more important point I was trying to make in my response was that “deselection” by itself is not the best course of action if our goal is to improve the quality of American education.

We can’t fire our way to excellence.

It’s not that simple.

We need to change the recruitment of teachers. Entry standards should be set much higher. Before they are hired, prospective teachers should have at least a year of study and training, in addition to their undergraduate degree in academic studies. Once teachers are in the classroom, they should get support from mentors. If new teachers had better working conditions and consistent support, there would be less turnover. Instead of focusing on “deselecting” teachers, we should concentrate instead on recruiting better qualified people into the profession and making sure that new teachers have a fair chance to improve and succeed.

We should do whatever is necessary to raise the status of the teaching profession and make it truly professional so as to stop the current revolving door policy of high attrition and turnover. A policy of “deselection” will create needless turnover among teachers who might have become great teachers had they only been given the help they needed.

Unlike university work, where scholars often work alone, teaching is a collaborative enterprise – teachers share what they know with colleagues and often work with other teachers. Morale matters. The real purpose of evaluations by supervisors and peers should be to foster improvement among teachers, not “deselect” them.

The fact that Rick supports efforts to improve and support current teachers is exactly what makes his “5-10 percent” talking point so perplexing. Rick’s simulation shows only that teachers vary widely in how they affect math scores. By itself, this is not evidence that “deselection” will produce huge results.

Rick uses this argument often and without clarification. He fails to explain that its promised benefits are hypothetical and highly unlikely to hold up in real world implementation. He has allowed himself to become associated with a simplistic, uni-dimensional approach that belies his knowledge and actual beliefs. The endless repetition of his argument has convinced some people that all we need to do is “deselect,” and we’ll be Finland in ten years. This is unlikely, to say the least.

As it happens, I just returned from a week in Finland, where I visited schools and talked to teachers, principals, and university researchers. Finland did not rise to the top of international performance in reading, mathematics, and science by “deselecting” teachers. Entry into teacher education programs is highly competitive. Teaching is a respected profession. Every teacher must have a masters’ degree. There is very little attrition, very little turnover, and certainly no “deselection” of teachers. Finland administers no standardized tests until the end of secondary schooling; it trusts its teachers’ judgments about student progress. They are professionals, after all.

Finland improved its performance by long-term, intelligent action: by a steady investment in the recruitment, support, and retention of teachers. We should do the same.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the limits to the Moneyball analogy in education for TIME.  But that obviously doesn’t mean there is not a big role for data and a smart paper from College Summit takes a look at the postsecondary space and what’s possible and what’s needed to help high schools improve (pdf).