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2007 Winner, Editor's Choice Best Education Blog
-- Performancing.com

2006 Winner, Best K-12 Administration Blog -- "Best of the Education Blog Awards"
-- eSchool News and Discovery Education

2006 Finalist, Best Education Blog
-- Weblog Awards

Least influential of education's most influential information sources.
-- Education Week Research Center

"unexpectedly entertaining"..."tackle[s] a potentially mindfogging subject with cutting clarity... they're reading those mushy, brain-numbing education stories so you don't have to!"
-- Slate's Mickey Kaus

"a very smart blog... [if] you're trying to separate the demagogic attacks on NCLB from the serious criticism, this is the site to read"
-- The New Republic's Ryan Lizza

"everyone who's anyone reads Eduwonk"
-- Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media's Richard Colvin

"full of very lively short items and is always on top of the news...He gets extra points for skewering my high school rating system"
-- Jay Mathews, The Washington Post

"a daily dose of information from the education policy world, blended with a shot of attitude and a dash of humor"
-- Education Week

"designed to cut through the fog and direct specialists and non-specialists alike to the center of the liveliest and most politically relevant debates on the future of our schools"
-- The New Dem Daily

"peppered with smart and witty comments on the education news of the day"
-- Education Gadfly

"don't hate Eduwonk cuz it's so good"
-- Alexander Russo, This Week In Education

"the morning's first stop for education bomb-throwers everywhere"
-- Mike Antonucci, Intercepts

"…the big dog on the ed policy blog-ck…"
-- Michele McLaughlin, AFT Blog

"I check Eduwonk several times a day, especially since I cut back on caffeine"
-- Joe Williams, fallen journalist, Executive Director, Democrats for Education Reform

"...one of the few bloggers who isn't completely nuts"
-- Mike Petrilli, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation

"I have just three 'go to' websites: The Texas Legislature, Texas Longhorn sports, and Eduwonk"
-- Sandy Kress, former education advisor to President Bush and former chairman, Dallas Board of Education

"penetrating analysis in a lively style on a wide range of issues"
-- Walt Gardner, champion letter-to-the-editor writer and retired teacher

"thugs"
-- Susan Ohanian

Education News and Analysis

American Educator
Chronicle of Higher Education
EducationNews.org
Education Next
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eSchool News
Inside Higher Ed
Jay Mathews' Class Struggle
Phi Delta Kappan
New York Times Education
School Wise Press
Stateline.org
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Taking Note
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Tank'd
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WSJ's Blog Federation
Washington Whispers

EduReading


Collective Bargaining in Education: Negotiating Change in Today's Schools

Edited by Jane Hannaway and Andrew J. Rotherham


Why Newsweek's List of America's 100 Best High Schools Doesn't Make the Grade

By Andrew J. Rotherham
and Sara Mead

A Qualified Teacher
in Every Classroom

Edited by Frederick M. Hess, Andrew J. Rotherham,
and Kate Walsh

America's Teaching Crisis

By Jason Kamras and Andrew J. Rotherham

Rethinking Special Education For A New Century

Edited by Chester E. Finn, Jr., Andrew J. Rotherham
& Charles R. Hokanson, Jr.

Making The Cut: How States Set Passing Scores on Standardized Tests

By Andrew J. Rotherham

Education Blogs

A Constrained Vision
Andrew Pass
a schoolyard blog
ASCD
Assorted Stuff
Mr. B-G's English Blog
Barnett Berry
Bill Jackson's Education Blog
Bridging Differences (Meier and Ravitch)
Bulletin Board (NASBE)
Campaign K-12 (Ed Week)
Chaos Theory
Charter Blog (NAPCS)
Charter School Policy Inst. Blog
Chez Dormont
Chris Correa
Class Context
The College Puzzle
College Ready Blog (Athens Learning Group)
The Common School
Conversation Starters
Core Knowledge Blog
Critical Mass
Dangerously Irrelevant
Daryl Cobranchi
Dave Shearon
Dave Saba (ABCTE)
DC Education Blog
D-EDreckoning
Dems for Education Reform
The Deputy Head
Early Ed Watch
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edbizbuzz
EdPol
Edspresso
Educated Nation
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The Education Wonks
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EdWahoo
Eduwonkette
Edwize (UFT)
Eponymous Educator
Essential Blog
Extra Credit
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Fordham Fellows
From The Trenches
The Gadfly
Get On The Bus (Dayton Daily News)
Get Schooled (AJC)
The Gradebook (St. Pete Times)
Grumpy Professor
The Hall Monitor
Higher Ed Watch
Hip Teacher
I Thought A Think
IALA
In Other News (Ed Week)
Inside Pre-K
Instructivist
Intercepts
IvyGate
Jay Greene
Jenny D.
Joannejacobs.com
John Merrow
K-12 Hotlinks
Kindling Flames
Kitchen Table Math
Learning Now (PBS)
The Life That Chose Me
Mathew K. Tabor
Media Infusion
Ms. Frizzle
Moving At The Speed Of Creativity
NCLB Act II (Ed Week)
NCLBlog (AFT)
Newoldschoolteacher
NSBA's BoardBuzz
NYC Educator
Paper Trail (USN)
ParaNews (NCP)
Parentalcation
Paul Baker
Pedablogue
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The PrincipalsPage
Principal's Policy Blog (NASSP)
Quasi Dictum
Roy Romer
Running on Empty
School of Blog
School Zone (MJS)
Schools for Tomorrow
Science After School
SF Schools
Sherman Dorn
SITE Mentor
Small Talk
Special Education Law Blog
Starting Over (Ed Week)
Swift & Change Able
Teach and Learn
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Teaching in the 408
Teaching Rookie
Think Lab
This is how I Swim
This Week In Education
Tim Fredrick
Up The Down Staircase
Urban Angle
VARC
What up, Mz. Smlph?
Whitney Tilson
Why Boys Fail
Why Homeschool

Educational Resources and Organizations

AALE Charter School Accreditation
Achieve
Alliance for Excellent Education
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Aspen Institute
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The Brookings Institution
Building Excellent Schools
Center for American Progress
Center for Education Reform
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Center on Education Policy
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Citizens Commission On Civil Rights
Coalition of Essential Schools
Community College Research Center
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Core Knowledge Foundation
Data Quality Campaign
Democratic Leadership Council
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Education Evolving
Education Sector
EdSource
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Greatschools.net
Haberman Foundation
Hechinger Institute On Education and the Media
IssueLab
Joyce Foundation
Just for the Kids
Knowledge Alliance
Learning Point Associates
Local School Directory
Michael and Susan Dell Foundation
Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning
The Mind Trust
Montessori
National Academies Center for Education
National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
National Association of Charter School Authorizers
National Association of Secondary School Principals
NCLBWorks
National Center for Postsecondary Research
National Center on Education and the Economy
National Charter School Research Project
NCTAF
National Council on Teacher Quality
National Education Association
National Education Writers Association
National Governors Association
National Institute for Excellence in Teaching
National School Boards Association
New Leaders for New Schools
New Schools Venture Fund
The New Teacher Project
New Vision
Pre-K Now
Harvard's Program On Education Policy and Governance
Progressive Policy Institute
PPI's 21st Century Schools Project
Public Agenda
Public Impact
Reading Reform Foundation
Rick Hess' World HQ
The Savvy Source for Parents
Scholastic Administrator
School Data Direct
Standard & Poor's School Evaluation Services
Standards Work
Teach for America
The Teaching Commission
Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
Trust for Early Education
Uncommon Schools
United States Department of Education
The Urban Institute
WestEd

Opinions on Eduwonk reflect the views of the author, Education Sector does not take institutional positions. Outgoing links do not constitute an endorsement.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Reporter Voice!

Per the Cash Controversy, a journo writes (edited for anonymity and to achieve a PG-13 rating, the mouths on these folks...):

I was just talking with one of my editors. He was noting how much easier it is for USA Today to write a story based on an Ed Sector report than it is to do the legwork on their own. And he wasn't talking about the hassle of tracking down the info, but the political risk in biting the hand that feeds you. Since the union controls a lot of the below-the-radar information flow, most newspapers --especially smaller ones-- don't want to f**k with them. But if someone else comes forward and is willing to take the heat, they'll run with it 9 times out of 10.
Posted at 3:02 PM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

Reverberation Watch
Lax standards for athletes at a big D-1 school, who would've thunk it? Still, seems like this story is going to have legs...
Posted at 2:42 PM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

As Goes MS So Goes The Nation?
ABCTE hopes so!
Posted at 2:32 PM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

More Cash Controversy
Joe Williams weighs-in about the controversy over his recent ES report about the money the NEA is spreading around to undermine NCLB. Worth reading. The NEA is now peddling a ridiculous myths-facts sheet around the Hill which seeks to debunk claims the report didn't even make in the first place and falsely notes that there are no public sector employees on Education Sector's board of directors (in fact there are two currently practicing educators, including a former building rep for his teachers' union, and three members who hold official public sector roles -- maybe it is good that the NEA outsources its "research!").

But more to the point, no institution is above examination and it's ludicrous to suggest that questioning the activities of a teachers' union makes one "anti-union." Besides, in this case the report didn't even insinuate any wrongdoing (and went out of its way to make sure no one else could use it to make that claim) merely a lack of transparency around an important educational debate. All the hullabaloo has more to do with concern about the curtain being pulled back than any grand principles. Best thing to do: Read it for yourself and decide.
Posted at 1:21 PM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

Plum Dog Mean
Just in case you were not convinced that Rick Hess, known around these parts as I'm Rick Hess Bi*ch, is just a really mean guy...now he's against summer break for kids in the WaPo! Are there no limits to what he'll do? Seriously, Hess makes a good point here and it falls under this broader banner of moving away from uniformity.
Posted at 12:42 PM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

More Berserker!
Philly Inquirer's Graham takes a look at the bigger stakes in the New Jersey voucher case:

"This lawsuit today is as important as the Montgomery bus boycott of the mid-1950s," said the Rev. Reginald T. Jackson, executive director of the Black Ministers Council of New Jersey, which joined in the suit. "This, too, will launch a national effort."

Don't know about all that but this gambit does seem like a win-win for Bolick and company. If the case holds up it's a big legal win, almost regardless it's a political win. And don't underestimate 'ol Clint Bolick, he's proven again and again to be really effective. I can remember all the wise men saying how the SCOTUS couldn't possibly rule that vouchers do not run afoul of the establishment clause. The strategy that pulled that off was pure Clint...
Posted at 8:27 AM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Blog And Spend

Per yesterday's rosier than expected budget news my colleague Kevin Carey goes all drunken sailor on us. But isn't the punchline here, at the federal level, that we're not in quite as serious a jam as originally thought but the fiscal house this Administration has created is still pretty much a mess?
Posted at 2:47 PM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

Berserker!
He said he was going to do it, and he did it! All you need to know about the New Jersey voucher litigation can be found at Edpresso where the place is basically an orgasm cult today. And if you don't know about it you haven't been paying attention. This is potentially very significant. The political significance is obvious, just more caffeine headache, but these cases could impact the school finance landscape in some unpredictable ways. For instance which actors in today's school finance litigation would trade more funding for vouchers? Philly Inq. here.
Posted at 2:46 PM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

Summers' End
Chronicle of Philanthropy says Harvard is paying a price ($390m) for the ouster of Larry Summers.
Posted at 2:28 PM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

It's The PR Stupid!
Uh oh! Those hatchet men at RAND are up to it again...this time maligning the Pittsburgh schools! New RAND study says that, like most other urban districts, Pittsburgh has a dropout problem. It's apparently a devastating problem for the kids city:

"It's very incendiary to put something like this out there when there's so much gray area and speculation," board member Randall Taylor said at a meeting last night. "For us to tell the city we are not graduating this many students, this is devastating to the city."

The report also offers a nice walk-through of some of the issues surrounding calculating grad rates.

Update: This post should have mentioned that Brian Gill of RAND, an author of the report, is on the ES Research Advisory Board.
Posted at 1:15 PM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

100 Percenters

Typically tendentious and hysterical AFTie John post about this report. Kevin Carey responds here and pretty much says all that needs to be said in a post well worth reading. You’d think they’d see that this strategy of demanding 100 percent fealty is a loser over time considering the dynamics of the industry we’re in, but apparently not.
Posted at 1:08 PM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

Not A Moment Too Soon
Can't say he didn't go out in consistent style: Praising class size reduction with no attention to the trade-offs, ripping NCLB, and putting forth odd ideas (in this case holding politicians accountable for not addressing poverty...great idea that I'm all for, but I'm pretty sure there is a mechanism for doing that, it's called elections).

I'll use this occasion to float my old idea: Rather than have an education columnist, why not use the space to publish pieces by people in the education world from teachers, students, and parents to policymakers, experts, and politicians. Someone would have to sift through the submissions, someone else make the final call, someone else edit, and I'm sure the unusable would far outweigh the usable. Yet I'm equally sure that there would be some real gems buried in the submissions that each week would engage, provoke, and spark good conversations.
Posted at 12:57 PM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

More National Board...Is The Bulldog Stirring?
There is another study on National Board certified teachers floating around (pdf). Ed Knows Policy reviews it here, NCTQ* reviews it here. And this time the National Board reviews it in full, posts it on their site, and is otherwise transparent about it here...

Just kidding about that last part! Apparently the National Board learned little from L'affaire Sanders where they took a beating in the press for not being open about a study by Bill Sanders of national board certified teachers. And again the new study isn't even completely damning (though for my money the reality is somewhere between the NCTQ condemnation and Ed Knows Policy's "nothing to see here" deconstruction) but is going to become seen that way because of the board's posture...I should note that the Nat'l Board has redone their website and the research section is more confusing than it used to be and doesn’t show ongoing studies, only completed ones. But I might be missing something and perhaps this study is up somewhere on their site, if it is please send a link ASAP! All I can find is the overview. *Disc -- I'm on the Board of Directors.
Posted at 12:29 PM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

American Educator
The new issue of the always worth reading American Educator is online now, everything you might want to know about teacher retention. Also reprises one side of this debate and gives an AFTie shout out to this NCTQ report (pdf). A strange item reports on the ongoing grad rate debate but then says there is no evidence that high stakes tests might be creating a downward pressure on grad rates. I think Sherman Dorn might disagree with that and I'd say the research is more mixed. Check it all out, for free no less!
Posted at 12:27 PM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

More Cash!

Turns out the NEA is spreading a lot of cash around to undermine NCLB, so says journo Joe Williams in a new ES Connecting The Dots report. The report doesn’t allege any illegality, so this is somewhat different than the Armstrong Williams situation, but it does raise some questions about whether the media has been sufficiently diligent in relaying these connections to readers to help them understand the context.
Posted at 11:28 AM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

Monday, July 10, 2006

Bart Peterson, Winner (And Cash)

Indy's charter school initiative, spearheaded by Bart Peterson the city's mayor, wins the Harvard Innovations in Government Award. $100K plus priceless prestige. Charter school initiatives have won this more than once...I know I'm supposed to hate them but...
Posted at 8:58 AM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

Solidarity! (And Cash...)
Uh oh...well, we'll see how all that pro-union rhetoric plays now...Steve Barr has founded a parents union to demand some changes in the LA public schools. Months ago I mentioned that Steve is no rank amateur when it comes to organizing, believe me now? To be perfectly blunt he's kicking their asses out there (and privately the powers that be admit it...). For my money I still think deploying the Piscalnator is a more cost-effective way to accomplish the same thing, less than$500 as I score it, but regardless change is coming.

Also, seems the teachers' union in LA is spreading money around on the street and it's closely correlated with support for their agenda from all these "community groups." A lot of that seemingly going on...

LA Daily News weighs-in here and Susan Estrich says Barr is no Coulter!
Posted at 8:57 AM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post

Producers V. Consumers In CO
In CO, some school districts are suing to get back their exclusive control over public schooling. At issue is the statewide charter institute championed by Democrat Terrance Carroll. Carroll, a friend, championed the institute as a way to ensure that more minority kids were served by charter schools in CO and that there was more attention to quality. Two larger issues: First, again racing to court isn't in the best interest of public education. Second, not to put too fine a point on it but Carroll, an African-American Democrat, is largely fighting white liberals here. Considering the demographic trends in the country, not to mention the equity issues, that sure seems like a potential political problem.
Posted at 8:55 AM | Comments: 0 | Link to this item | Email this post