Month: July 2010

Be sure to check out the recently launched CO-Fund. It’s a P to P donor platform with a “pay it forward” pledge to help students with college financing.

I’m going to take a blogging break for the next two weeks.  But some good things lined up in the interim.  Next week a bunch of great folks are going to drop by to guestblog, including fly fishing pinup idol Paul Herdman, D.C. Deputy Mayor Victor Reinoso, the Piscalnator, Sarah Usdin from New Schools for New Orleans, The Commodore, Tim Daly of TNTP, Terry Ryan from Fordham Foundation and some others.

The week following that, Jim Ryan, from the University of Virgina’s law school and an expert on education law is coming.   He has a new book on educational opportunity coming out soon.  Very interesting guy.

Enjoy.

One of those quirks of meeting planning is that sometimes it is the most high-end places that give the biggest discounts for groups.  This was especially true at the bottom of the downturn when higher-priced places were especially slow. It unfortunately creates the optical problem of non-profits meeting in nice hotels but makes sense in terms of saving money for NGOs.

This month there was just a meeting on school turnarounds in D.C., where educators from Texas came to work with the University of Virginia’s turnaround initiative.*   The meeting was hosted at the Ritz Carlton in Washington, and the hotel deserves a mention for good corporate citizenship: On top of  room rates far below the DC mean, they threw in a 10 percent donation to DC Boys Town.

*Though not on the event mentioned here, an organization BW does work with.

August beach reading for you: In a new paper from ES Chad Aldeman and I take a look at the teacher pension issue (pdf).    Punchlines:  Big fiscal problems with a few culprits (and you can’t just lay this one at the feet of the unions), the current system out of alignment with the emerging workforce and efforts to improve human capital in education, but all the reform options have trade-offs as well.  Complicated.  Political.  Interesting.

But this is a looming fiscal crisis in more than a few states, some are basically already there, and it’s an issue that demands attention.

RiShawn Biddle takes a look behind the scenes on this week’s education agenda rollout.

First graf’s a killer…

Update: Ruth Marcus has more.

Here’s Paul Herdman, sage of Delaware, past fish porn feature, thoughtful commenter, idol of beauty pageant contestants, Outward Bound guru, and all around good guy with a plump rainbow trout he caught recently in Colorado.    He didn’t used to fly fish…but then the light went on.   Past fish porn via this link.

…the data genie, it is.  Here’s an analysis of school performance in RTT Round 1 winner Tennessee.

A lot of elections for governor this year, but here’s a list of gubernatorial seats widely considered to be in-play right now.   The ones that are Race to the Top finalist states are in bold.  Some big implications and questions around RTT implementation and durability if those states emerge as winners.

CA, CO, FL, HI, ME, MD, MN, OH, OR, RI, WI

A reader writes to note that Green Dot’s Marco Petruzzi (pictured here) does look a lot like James Spader in his pre-TV series days.

Short version of some takeaways from today’s Ed Insider on ESEA are in this tweet.

Two big takeaways are the substantial misalignment on the issues between reformers, the admin, and Congress on some key issues.   But data for pro-and anti-reform types to take comfort in.  Systemic reform more likely to have support than some of the leading-edge reforms.  In other words, one plausible reason No Child Left Behind is still in place is because it’s pretty widely credited among those in positions of influence.  Specifically:

• Insiders believe we may not see a final ESEA bill until the end of 2011, but more than 40% believe it could be 2012 or later.
• There is less support in Congress for advancing charter schools, Common Core Standards, and other reforms in ESEA then many advocates have assumed.
• Insiders believe there is more support in Congress for Supplemental Education Services and online learning then what the conventional wisdom has suggested.
• More than 90% of the Insiders believe that the Recovery Act funds actually slowed the pace for reauthorization.
• More than 80% of Insiders approve of the Obama Administration’s handling of education issues.

There is a webinar at 2pm today to discuss the complete results and analysis about what they mean going forward.