The ballyhooed AJC cheating package is worth checking out but here’s the much less sexy key takeaway from the article:

Statistical checks for extreme changes in scores are like medical tests, said Gary Phillips, a vice president and chief scientist for the large nonprofit American Institutes for Research, who advised the AJC on its methodology.

“This is a broad screening,” he said. “If you find something, you’re supposed to go to the doctor and follow up with a more detailed diagnostic process.”

The AJC’s methods are too imprecise because of how state tests work to offer much more.

My take on the larger cheating issue here.

Domonique Foxworth in as the new President of the NFL Players Association.  You can catch him talking NFL and schools at this Askwith Forum at HGSE next Monday.

In the wake of the Trayvon Martin situation people are taking a look at ALEC – the American Legislative Exchange Council – a conservative-leaning state legislators organization and a promulgator of a variety of laws including the increasingly controversial “stand your ground” laws.   Ed Kilgore explains how ALEC (and many other groups on the right and left) exploit the under-staffing of state legislators by providing “just add water” model legislation on various issues.

The real money behind ALEC is business, ALEC is a staunch anti-regulatory, anti-tax, and pro-business force.  A couple of ways the organization touches education policy (they have an education task force) is by supporting aggressively pro-corporate liability laws that make it hard for states to hold corporations accountable. This is why there is often so little recourse beyond actual costs (which rarely are that much) when testing companies make major errors.  They’re [ALEC] also big boosters of the tax credit scholarship programs that are springing up in multiple states.  So in general a happy coexistence.  But, fundamentally what business wants is good schools – provides skilled workers for the future and attracts workers to various geographies now.  Increasingly what many of the legislators in ALEC want is local control, an almost purely choice-driven system, and other very conservative education touchstones.  There is a conflict there.  You saw a flash of it last year with the ALEC debate over Common Core.  Assuming education policy continues on a generally centrist path expect more.

Steven Pearlstein has a smart column in the WaPo looking at how the inherent tension between efficiency and equality has been hijacked in our current political debate about fiscal policy.  You could also argue that the opposite of what Pearlstein is talking about – getting the balance wrong the other way – is happening in the debate about education innovation.

Elsewhere at the WaPo Valerie Strauss posts a column ostensibly to show the folly of Common Core’s focus on actual texts and their context.  It was immediately circulated by Common Core critics on the left and right. But, if you know your history (and even if you’re skeptical of formulaic curriculum, which Common Core is not) you’ll see it inadvertently highlights the need for such a focus.

In the new print issue of TIME I take a longer look at homeschooling.  A few weeks ago I looked at the contentious issue of sports access in a column – should homeschoolers be able to play public school sports?  One of the most interesting aspects of that debate is that homeschoolers are not uniformly in favor of expanding access.  That points up the real tensions within the homeschool world as homeschooling evolves.  As Quinn Cummings – who has a book on homeschooling coming out later this year – told me:

“There are people who want to separate from the rest of the community, they don’t want to play sports.  But that community is about as large as it’s going to grow. That was the first two decades of homeschooling. The families that are coming in now are more likely to say we’re not doing this to limit our opportunities but to expand them.  We want to do this and to play lacrosse in the afternoon.”

That’s an evolution with big implications for homeschooling and public education, the article looks at how it’s playing out.

Are you ready for some football? Final speaker line-up for for the “What Can The NFL Teach Teachers” event at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.  Domonique Foxworth – he’s an NFL free agent cornerback and member of the NFL Players Association Executive Committee – will join Tim Daly from TNTP and Brendan Daly from the Minnesotta Vikings for the event.  It’s open to the public, Monday 4/2 from 5:30 – 7 at HGSE.  Among other topics we’ll look at how the NFL has combined a unionized work environment with a focus on performance and you’ll see actual NFL video and how coaches and players use it to learn and refine technique and a discussion of how that informs the increasing use of video in education.

If you’re on DC fun event on 3/30 at American University to discuss what’s happening on education.

LAT 0n Parent Trigger.  And Doug Tuthill says parent trigger makes teachers unions sound like management. Elsewhere, the CT reform debate is worth keeping an eye on, sky not falling.

Citizen Schools’ Eric Schwartz sits down with Harvard’s EdCast to talk programs and service.

The Achievement Network – great organization that works with teachers to use data and an org BW works with – is hiring for a few roles. Reading Partners – one-on-one tutoring for low-income students – is also hiring for multiple roles.  And Aspen Institute needs a deputy on its education program – spectacular opportunity.

In this week’s TIME School of Thought I get dolled up:

Barbie turned 53 this month. She’s now several years into an AARP membership and yet wisdom has apparently not come with age. She’s still driving parents like me up the wall with her vapid sexuality. My daughters are in the prime demographic for Barbie and other dolls. Thankfully, at least from where I sit, they’re more excited by American Girl dolls than by Barbies. Both brands are owned by Mattel, yet only one moves beyond tired stereotypes. American Girls manage to teach kids history and resilience and, even with their thick waists and sturdy ankles, the dolls look pretty — and pretty normal.

American Girl dolls are too expensive, forcing many people to buy the cheaper Barbies. But you know what’s free for you?  The entire column, which you can read by clicking this link.  There is a bonus doll poll!

Is being an i3 grant competition reviewer on your bucket list?  Then here’s your big chance to be considered. 

What’s more interesting, the new report on American education from the Council on Foreign Relations or all the after-action sniping and scolding?

But, how do you put some of this data in positive and affirming light? Eg -  40 percent of minority kids don’t finish high school on time.  Are you a hopeless naysayer because you’re not patting people on the back for the 60 percent that do?

New teacher opinion survey from Scholastic just out, check it out here.

Sandy Banks takes a look at a common contractual provision and unintended consequences in Los Angeles.

Teachers, The Equity Project charter school is hiring. $125K to start plus peer collaboration and a professional work environment.  If you don’t need $125K but could use $25K then here’s a contest for innovative STEM lesson plans and classroom ideas via McGraw-Hill.

And speaking of money, more on Title I formulas – and proposed formulas – from New America.

Ed Pioneers is hiring an expansion manager for Houston and a program assistant for the DC region.  And Charter Board Partners – interesting group tackling a big problem – is hiring as well.  KSA needs a writer/strategist. 

Are you and your rowdy friends ready for some….Askwith Forum? If you’re in Boston on April 2 you might enjoy this conversation about what lessons the National Football League offers education featuring the Daly Brothers (NFL coach and teacher quality expert) and a player to be named later.  I’ll moderate the conversation and plenty of opportunity for audience engagement.  Here’s a TIME column looking at the issue – all the great stuff that got left on the cutting room floor will be discussed live.

Jobs For The Future may not be a household name but is a great organization doing important work.  They are releasing three new papers worth checking out.

Apply now for data fellowships via Harvard!  Great program

Broad Foundation is hiring a senior director and an assistant director.

And structured internships at Students First.

Lots of fun reaction to today’s TIME column on what lessons the Marines might offer the public schools.  But also a few worth looking at more.

Marines go through a brutal 6-wk training resembling brainwashing. This is what makes the other things you mention possible.  Well, the initial training is 13 weeks and it’s not really brainwashing.  It is an intense and deliberate training period though, but there is value in that for what they do.  The takeaway is merely that clarity on what essential pre-service and in-service training is helps with effectiveness whether your mission is fighting a war or teaching kids.

 It’s an all volunteer force, how can you possibly compare it? While I think there are some lessons from Marine training about values and character education that are transferable when we think about students, the all-volunteer nature of the Marines (and entire military today) is important context and in some ways limiting, of course. But, our teaching force is all-volunteer and the ideas about organization, training, etc…can travel easier.

One goal of edreform is to militarize teaching.  To be clear for the literal amongst us, it’s not the specifics of what the Marines do that matter for education, it’s the elements and ideas we can learn from, as the former Marine Major discusses in the column.  Communicating in a decentralized organization operating in a fluent environment, for instance.  And I’d suggest we’d have happier – and more effective – teachers if education leaders were as good as the Marines are at coupling a fair amount of empowerment with meaningful training, accountability, and structure.

There is obviously a visceral dislike of many things military in the education world – it’s one symptom of the troubling divide between those who protect us and the rest of American society.  But an irony that jumps out at me is that when you talk to Marine officers and seasoned NCOs, including some pretty battle-hardened guys, some are better at articulating how all the soft skills matter, teamwork, leadership, even feelings etc…than many people in our allegedly hopelessly touchy-feely field are.

(1) As a Marine, I’m a bit flattered. Though, respectfully, this comparison is off the mark. The values equate, the missions do not.  (2) …the last thing our school system needs is to adopt the Marine ethos. A Marine has to be what he is because it is a matter of life and death. The training, the discipline, are [sic] the instant execution of an order are the differences between life and death in combat situations.  Absolutely.  But again, the issue is not adopting the specifics, many of which are totally unrelated to the work of schools.  The point is to look at elements and ideas that make one institution effective in its mission and think about how they can be applied to another. How the Marines emphasize markmanship is not relevant, why they do it offers some ideas.  And when you talk to Marines in leadership positions about what they worry about they are focused on mission and being ready to deploy immediately.  That focus on mission transcends particular missions or purposes . A similar urgency and immediacy around the critical aspects of education – which you do see in schools that are succeeding in challenging situations – would be valuable, no?

A few years ago I became interested in the question of how the Marine Corps takes average young people and turns them into really competent and effective Marines in a relatively short period of time. There are lessons there, but what I came to realize is that the broader  question for education is what lessons we can draw from how the Marines have learned to create a decentralized organization (with a lot of empowerment for those on the front line, so to speak) that is nonetheless completely organized around a core mission. We haven’t figured that out yet in education.  So as part of all that this week’s TIME column takes a look at 5 lessons the Marines offer schools:

Fallujah probably isn’t the first place you’d go for ideas about how to improve our schools. It was the scene of some of the toughest fighting during the Iraqi War. But the city’s successful recapture by the United States highlighted why the Marines Corps is such a respected fighting force. In that battle, as in others, 19- and 20-year-old Marines were trusted to make extraordinary split-second decisions in an environment more dangerous and confusing than most of us can imagine. Yet back home in American schools, we still haven’t figured out how to give our teaching force – whose members are college graduates, more than half of whom have advanced degrees – autonomy and accountability in a far less dynamic workplace. In school districts and state capitals, we veer between giving teachers insufficient training and oversight and giving them almost no autonomy at all.

Semper Fidelis?  In education our motto could be ‘Semper Semotus’ given how insular the field remains.  Not feeling insular?  Then you can read the entire column at TIME free via this link.

From Wendy Kopp’s HuffPo essay, a figure lower than you might think:

…Teach For America is working hard to be one significant source of the leadership we need. More than two-thirds of our 24,000 alumni are working full-time in education. Although few of them intended to enter the field at all before their involvement with Teach For America, today a third of them are teaching, 600 are serving as principals, and many others are working as district leaders. Of the remaining third of our alumni, half have jobs related to low-income communities or schools, and only three percent are working in the private sector — hardly the “corporate” stereotype Ravitch is so fond of perpetuating. This growing alumni force is working, together with many other dedicated teachers and leaders across the country, to fundamentally change things for the better…. [Bold added]

Disc – new Bellwether partner Rex Varner was a VP at TFA, he still works with the organization.

Here’s a depressing story from Rochester, NY that’s illustrative on a few levels and surprising given Rochester’s status as a hotbed of reform unionism.  I took a look at the larger issues around sex abuse in TIME a few weeks ago.

#1 Riddle me this.  If the Democrats fare well in the midterm election this won’t Republican anger really get going when they wake on up November 7th and contemplate four more years of President Obama?  Seems like low-hanging fruit could be vulnerable in places where the Rs have some leverage. So what’s an initiative that Republicans think is  federal overreach, that a lot of state officials/legislators aren’t that enthused about, and that you could undo in red states with minimal disruption and cost? I can think of one…Common Core standards and assessments!  On the other hand, if the Republicans do well in November they’re going to roll back some Obama Administration education initiatives – with Romney and Santorum the only question is by how much not whether that’s going to happen.  So what’s a big initiative they see as federal overreach and could back off of through executive action?  Oh wait, I can think of one…Common Core standards and assessments!  I’m generally in favor of the Common Core, though for reasons other than what many are expecting it to do, but the politics do seem trickier than is generally being acknowledged in the political dialogue. Common Core supporters seem to think that the opposition is just a few people with email lists, that’s a misreading of the environment out there.  So isn’t Common Core’s basic challenge to become deeply ingrained enough to survive before January 2013?  This isn’t binary btw – meaning the choice isn’t Core or no Core.  Rather the issue is whether there is some significant peel-off.

#2 It’s no secret within Virginia or outside of it that Governor Bob McDonnell would like to be Vice President come 2013. And who can blame him.  But did the lack of action on education in Virginia during the almost concluded legislative session hurt him?  Republican legislators found all kinds of time to debate a variety of social measures – including some pretty far out there provisions on women’s health that put the governor in a political vise.  But they couldn’t get it together to pass any meaningful education reform – for instance expanding school choice in a state that’s an embarrassment on an increasingly mainstream issue.  Don Soifer tries to put lipstick on a pig with regard to the pending charter law revisions but if anyone thinks it’s going to change the status quo then I’ve got some ocean view property to sell you in Virginia’s lovely Floyd County.  Meanwhile some of the other Republican  governors are getting a lot done on schools.  Why didn’t the governor go big on education? It’s a real need for the commonwealth and would have been a strong calling card, something the governor needs given the dynamics of the GOP contest and his profile.  And there is plenty that can happen absent a constitutional change with strong leadership.

#3 Speaking of vises (with an ‘s’ not the more fun ‘c’ kind).  Seems like the ground is starting to shift under the teachers unions some. Some of their leaders are trying to respond to the pressure for reform by striking some deals and trying to move things forward and are now increasingly attacked from both sides – for being insufficiently reformist and being too pro-reform.  It’s an old story in certain instances (see how to win a local teachers union election 101) but seems to be becoming more widespread.  Big signal: When the leader of New York’s state teachers’ organization has to push back on Washington Post reporter/propagandist Valerie Strauss because of a bunch of misinformation about a deal he was party to it’s a sign that the alignment is shifting. And more teachers union leaders are starting to discuss the challenges of being significantly cross-pressured. Or it’s a sign that things are going to get crazier and more contentious? Or both? Also speaking of NY and teacher eval, good overview of situation there via Andrew Ujifusa.

It’s Pi day! So check out this music video by some LA math teachers.  It’s not their only one…

Changing the tone? Wendy Kopp seems to have had enough of the distortions – hard and must-read pushback on Diane Ravitch’s frankly ridiculous article in NY Review of Books.  Significant.

TNTP has a pocket guide for various education policy questions – free to your email box via this link.  Whitmire has the 411 on the Students First ad buys.

Chuck Edwards dives into the New York Reading First decisions – what happens on controversial issues after the chattering caravan moves onto other things?

Keep an eye on Washington State and teacher evaluations - a deal struck but a lot of work going forward.  And keep an eye on Louisiana and the leg session there.

I see college as a great economic mobility strategy – the data are clear about the value for low-income Americans but I do worry that some of the rhetoric devalues all the productive and useful ways one can earn a living with other post-secondary training.

If you want a smart critique of the college-for-all emphasis jump in the wayback machine, set it to 2010, and read this commentary by Chris Myers Asch in AFT’s American Educator.

Two takes on the Florida action on parent trigger.  Ron Matus here and Gloria Romero here.

My take on the larger questions around parent trigger here via TIME.

By the way, you can add Matus to that long list of respected media figures jumping to the reform world.  Is that more of a signal about education reform or the economics of the news business?

At TIME Kayla Webley takes a look at the new Ted Ed initiative.   And Tom Edsall takes a look at how college can now divide us.

This is astounding – if you teach kids a content rich curriculum they learn to read. Who knew?

Political analysis meets college hoops prognostication.

They love each other! This AP story about overlap between Secretary Duncan and the Republican Governors is a solid check-in on the state of play and a good look at what’s happening behind the scenes and underneath the pundit chatter. But isn’t there an understory here that AP didn’t include?  Duncan does have good relations with Republican governors but at the same time pretty lousy ones with Capitol Hill.

Per yesterday’s TIME column on parent trigger, Parent Revolution leader Ben Austin tells me that on the supermajority issue, “I don’t agree…because in order to get over the 50% threshold in the face of union opposition they need a super majority anyway.”  That’s true enough but I don’t think it addresses the potential problems of ongoing instability.  Perhaps one way to think about the parent trigger is in the context of Soviet – U.S. relations during the Cold War.  Because there was a nuclear option it forced people to the table to head off using it.  Parent trigger does change the power dynamic and get parents into a game they were not in before.   But, it’s not just a strategic tool, it does seem likely to become operational – hence the question of what then…

Speaking of the Russians, Neerav Kingsland takes a look at lessons from the fall of the Soviet Union for public education.

DC Public Education Fund’s Young Professionals Committee held a trivia night yesterday evening at DC’s Madhatter and I played host.  Among the prizes – for really obscure knowledge and 1st and 3rd prize – some guestblogging time right here in addition to some other goodies so look for some of that in the next few weeks. Strong showing from teacher teams.

And this NYT op-ed is well worth reading.

This week’s TIME School of Thought column takes a look at the hot issue of the “parent trigger.“  Big time pols weighing in, furious lobbying on both sides, and lots of action.  But what happens the day after the trigger is successfully pulled?

If your child’s school is lousy, would you want the option to band together with other parents and take it over? That’s the idea behind “parent trigger” legislation that enables parents in low-performing schools to vote to change the governance of their children’s school — and remove teachers and the principal if they want to. Although only four states have enacted such a law (California was the first to do so in 2010), legislators in Florida are debating this week whether it should become the fifth, and similar bills are pending in a dozen states.

You don’t need a majority, super-majority, or even teacher union sign-off to read the entire column by clicking here.

Surprise! Our teacher prep programs aren’t really getting the job done on teaching about how to use data (pdf).

Wendy Kopp weighs in on the teacher data report release in New York City via the WSJ.

Mass Insight rolling out a new forum for ideas and research on school turnarounds and a new blog “In the Zone.”

In The Times Charles Murray proposes dropping unpaid internships, abolishing the SAT, and shifting to class-based affirmative action among other class isolation remedies.  He proposes a way – already somewhat in use today – around the reason the SAT soldiers on today.

For God’s sake choose Lake Placid.

Back from a few days in Idaho, around the country everyone wants to talk about Idaho’s education policy reforms, in Idaho they want to talk wolves and wolf policy.

Racial disparities in school discipline – new data but an old problem.

Phillip Howard says government is too big to succeed.  Doug Levin wonders if the commonness of Common Core is already at-risk.  Even if you’re not a soccer fan this soccer story will impact high school athletics. 

Education Delivery Institute is hiring.  Here’s the press release of the day.

And don’t play Bandy!

James Q. Wilson has died. Agree with him or not his work contributed to our understanding of social issues in various ways, but in terms of education if you want to understand the challenges of accountability it’s hard to beat his classic “Bureaucracy.”

I’ve written the education column for TIME since 2010 and today’s is my least favorite of all of them because it deals with such a revolting issue – adults in school who prey on kids. They’re a very small minority but the problem is more widespread than some assume. And it’s one we should confront forthrightly – the history of other institutions makes that clear.

When Bud Spillane was a school superintendent in New Rochelle, N.Y., he had to deal with removing an elementary school teacher suspected of sex abuse. “It was pretty evident he had done something,” Spillane recalls. The biggest obstacle to removing him from the classroom? “Parents came out of the woodwork…against me,” he says. They loved the teacher, the afterschool time he put in, and the weekend trips he liked to take students on, so they fought to keep him in school. Later in Spillane’s career, while he was leading the Fairfax County Public Schools outside of Washington, he had a teacher’s attorney demand a public hearing in a dismissal action involving multiple instances of alleged sexual misconduct with students. It was a shrewd move; instead of letting the school board handle the action in a private executive session, the lawyer wanted to force children to testify in court. Several parents understandably refused to put their kids through that spectacle. Welcome to the complicated and ugly world of sexual abuse in schools.

You can read the entire column – which includes more context -  via this link.

Teachers United scores an op-ed in The Seattle Times – anti-LIFO. It’s another alt group to keep an eye on.

NAF’s Cohen speaks up for the rurals.

If you’re in NYC LinkEd’s 6th annual education expo is March 10.

Not sure of the exact education policy implications here but it’s interesting nonetheless.

If you want to work on education policy in Indiana here are two research/policy jobs at the state’s department of education.  (Job opening ID 578178).