One-stop shopping on Colorado Vouchers. Denver Post story here, the actual ruling here. Plenty of over-the-top dueling press releases but you’ll have to find them yourself.
USA Today strongly endorses Teach For America in the wake of the Mathematica study and also says experiment with other reforms. In response NEA’s Weaver ignores TFA but seems to come out against differential pay.
In this list of steps the Jacksonville NAACP wants taken to address low-performing schools and achievement gaps there, you will find differential pay.
LA Times’ Anderson looks at NCLB as a campaign issue. He misses, however, the real CA angle and important national angle on the recent Hechinger Institute confab about NCLB: George Miller’s passionate defense of the law which one attendee said “sounded exactly like [former Bush education aide Sandy] Kress and [House Education and the Workforce Chairman John] Boehner”…A good question is how the Bush Administration has managed to alienate strong NCLB supporters like Miller…so much for uniting and not dividing…[Brian Friel of National Journal tried to answer that question in a very good article a few weeks back but it’s not free online.]
USA Today’s Cauchon marshals new evidence to show what a lot of people have been saying for a while, college tuition isn’t as unaffordable for the middle class as the CW leads one to think (for low-income Americans it’s a different story…).
Denver Post’s Sherry profiles the talented head of the Denver teachers’ union, must read for the cognoscenti…
The Columbus Dispatch comes out strongly for allowing single-sex public education options.
Useful new product (PDF) from the Center for School Change about how charter schools can work with the media, though it’s more broadly applicable than that.
Important new study (PDF) by Robert Balfanz and Nettie Legters about “promoting power” at high schools around the country. Don’t let the term throw you, it’s an important look at the dropout problem that isolates the challenge by region and school characteristics. It’s at once more acute but more manageable from a public policy perspective.
And, speaking of charter schools, the Lodi News Sentinel ran a three-part series looking at charter schools and pretty much, deservedly, beatifying Aspire Public Schools founder Don Shalvey. You can read about the debate over charters here, Shalvey here, and another CA charter here. If you don’t like charters, save time and just click here.
Joanne Jacobs notes a new kind of grade inflation in Iraq.
Columbia TC’s Belfied takes a short but sweet look at drivers of home schooling.
New NCES report looks at language minorities, trends, and relevant labor market indicators.
If you: (a) are into education, (b) are not going to the Democratic Convention in Boston, and (c) aren’t put off by a lot of lawyers, then there is a lot to recommend this conference in Portland, Maine, July 26-30.
Finally, a bunch of helpful comments and suggestions about state NCLB requests, but alert and well connected reader CC is now the proud owner of a brand new, genuine, U.S. Department of Education Collector’s Quality Man Purse. Thanks also to reader JE for additional info that was useful.