The Most Interesting Charter School Debate Has Nothing To Do With Betsy DeVos, High School Football, Competitiveness, Teacher Diversity, Partnership Schools – Third Way Or Trap? All That Plus Tom Petty!

Bonnie O’Keefe on local and tailored solutions to local teacher turnover issues. We are growing and hiring at Bellwether, a communications manager among other roles.

This isn’t fake news, but this Wall Street Journal article succumbs to the catnip of Betsy DeVos friction and pro-con charter debates and totally misses the real story with this gathering of charter leaders in New York. I’ll spare you the Game of Thrones analogies but the story here is the ongoing tension between faster growing charter management organizations, CMOs, and independent charter schools not the larger war over charters. At one level it doesn’t matter – 100 great new schools is 100 great new schools whether they’re in a big network or independent. But as a practical matter it does matter because CMOS can grow faster, and some evidence indicates they can do it with less variation in quality. On the other hand, independents can bring more pedagogical diversity into the sector. So reasonable people can disagree! But there are big questions of public dollars, philanthropic strategy, voice and ownership, and other issues bound up in the conversation. It’s really interesting! Yet the article misses all of that.

Education makes the Hollywood Reporter!

Are partnership schools a third way forward or a pathway/roadmap/camel’s nose under the tent [insert your metaphor here] to the erosion of charter school autonomy?

Urban Institute teacher diversity project.

If you promise unprecedented transparency you lead with your chin for stunts like this.  Also, where have you gone Article I, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you…

Two things that are not unrelated:

RAND on teachers and their take on standards and testing. America Succeeds on the future of work.

Dana Laurens and Charlie Barone on ESSA gaming.

If you think high school football, at least contact high school football, might be on its way to being a regional activity – you may be right.

Want a job with a low chance of being outsourced or becoming obsolete? You should have been a school finance attorney. More from Kansas.

Tom Petty.

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