Friday, December 10, 2004
Public Service
Heading into the weekend, the holiday season, and the new year, Mr. Sun offers some very sound advice.
Here is a must-read on school improvement efforts at a CO school that unpacks a lot of the jargon and shows what can be done.
Some buzz about a letter the Department of Education sent to Illinois officials about supplemental services there. Read it for yourself here and then decide what you think, or continue with some of the wild speculation, your choice!
Reading this (pdf), Eduwonk is baffled about why anyone would question the relevance of the work at colleges of education. Per the article, Eduwonk can think of plenty of metaphors, and they all have something to do with things that failed to change with changing circumstances…
Three Reports, Two Gems, and One Sandi Irony!
Check out this new report from Jobs For The Future about helping low-skill/low-literacy adults through community colleges. And, while you're at it, check out this report on teacher quality from the Center For American Progress, some pretty good stuff in there. Finally, do not miss this study on the disconnect between the leadership of CBO's and the constituencies they serve... Update: Alert reader JJ points out that there is a good hook for after-school programs buried in the CBO study...
NYT's Winters writes up the latest Gates Foundation initiative, early-college high schools. Also in the NYT, another gem from Freedman.
From San Diego, don't miss this deliciously ironic nugget: Incoming board member and anti-Alan Bersin water carrier Mitz Lee says that the board must shun "special interests whose agendas do not serve our children." Ha! Ha! Ha! Oh wait, she wasn't kidding...The local paper runs this straight, apparently missing the irony. But the editorial board comes down hard on all the shenanigans out there.
Stateline writes-on the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence and ABCTE's Madigan takes exception to the report.
Punchline: The folks now saying that ABCTE is too costly because of its high up-front costs relative to the number of teachers certified (including two in this article both of whom should know better...) sure were not saying the same thing when that charge was being leveled against the National Board For Professional Teaching Standards a few years ago...
Madigan is also right on the GAO issue. But, as Eduwonk has said before, the lack of execution from ABCTE is troubling as is the slow pace of state adoption; it can't all be blamed on politics...
New 21st Century Bulletin out, you can read it here, and sign up to get it by email free every other week here.
A Slew Of Must Reads: Hard Truths In MA, In Politics, In Religion, In Finance, In Language, And In Red State Porn!
Here's a bombshell for Pearl Harbor Day: It's not the kids! New analysis from the Massachusetts Department of Education says that in many of the state's lowest performing schools it's not resources either, it's - gasp - instruction! The Globe story is a good summary, go to the MA DOE for the reports.
Writing on NRO, Dukto's Gary Andres says the education issue helps the Republicans among Hispanic voters right now. Duh. Via Jacobs. (Worth reading though, particularly for recrimination seeking Dems who don't believe the party can just talk its way* out of the current jam...)
NYT's Winter takes a look at school finance in Kentucky and potential lessons for NYC. Wash. Post's Strauss sums-up the evolution-creationism debate. Charles Haynes lays out the reality...
E-rate fans rest easy. It looks like the program will get another Anti-Deficiency Act exemption for another year. Powell is in favor, too.
Oh yeah, new PISA results, cue handwringing.
Yikes!
*Teachers' Unions = 'Learning Suppression Agents'? Might work.
Tom Wolfe V. US News & World Report
Eduwonk likes a little literary feud now and then and also enjoys the ongoing debate about US News' college rankings. Now you can perhaps get both in one place. Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons has a scathing passage (pp. 514) that's far beyond anything Paul Glastris has lobbed toward the rankings!
Eduwonk can deal with the "fu*k patois" and the rest of Wolfe's mature-audiences-only romp through collegiate life...but pillorying eduwonkery like that, cover my tender ears!
More on the book itself later, but not surprised that it is not a big hit among a lot of folks in higher ed...
This fight over the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has educational implications, too (lefty advocacy groups, to the barricades!) .
Alexander Russo looks at education policy over the next few years here (NCLB foes, to the barricades!).
Voucher proponents are feeling pretty confident in TX (Boardbuzz, to the barricades!).
Sol Stern writes (pdf) in a Fordham essay that New York City's reforms have the curricular piece wrong (whole language proponents, to the berrikades!).