Kosar Takes The Helm, Three Cheers for School Advertising

This guest blogpost is by Kevin Kosar, author of Failing Grades: The Federal Politics of Education, who edits the Federal Education Policy History website and is a senior fellow at the R Street Institute. Thanks to Andy Rotherham for giving me the keys to Eduwonk this week. I will resist the temptation to post fish …

Public Relationists Ascendant! Please Sir, May I Have Some Policy…Sara Mead Is Going To Clean You Out! Biddle With Rights Talk, Aldeman Talks Pensions (Pensions Are The Plumbing), Life Advice From Tilson, Whistleblowing Or Bullying? Bellwether In Rock Videos.

Quick primer to understanding most education debates. If you look at them from the perspective of, “is this good or bad for kids, or does this matter to kids?” you’ll constantly be baffled by what is going down. If, by contrast, you look at it through the lens of public relations – is this good …

Guest Post: Kim Farris-Berg What Happens When Teachers Call The Shots

I’ve mentioned the work of Kim Farris-Berg and teacher cooperatives here a few times (and she’s also appeared in fish porn). Today, Kim has a guest post with some of the ideas from her new book, Trusting Teachers with School Success:  What Happens When Teachers Call the Shots: Sometimes we become so accustomed to the way …

Coming Attractions

I’m taking next week for family but Sara Mead will be here to inform and amuse.  In addition to being a leading analyst on pre-k policy, Mead is also an appointed member of the District of Columbia Public Charter Schools Board and an expert on charter school policy (and she and I have worked on …

Programming Notes

Next Tuesday I’ll moderate a fun discussion at an Askwith Forum at HGSE on the World Peace movie. The filmmaker (Chris Farina) and the teacher (John Hunter) featured are from Charlottesville, VA.  Monday 5/2, in Washington, the Bipartisan Policy Center is hosting what should be a good discussion about education politics and policy (Spellings, Tomalis, …

Get In On The Ground Floor!

New CMO, led by Matt Candler (yes, he of “sucks less” fame as well as fish porn fame), called 4.0 schools.   Unique mission and geographic focus (Southeast US) and interesting operating plan.  You can learn more about opportunities there as well as read the business plan here. And they’re on YouTube, too!

Edujobs!

No, I’m not talking about the legislation the president signed yesterday. I’m talking about a rare opportunity to become part of the Bellwether Education team! Bellwether is currently hiring for an Associate Partner to work with our Strategy Consulting team and an Analyst. If you’re a self starter committed to expanding educational opportunity for low-income …

Open

Spent part of Wednesday at a gathering of folks who are into open content and open source.   You could even say it’s the folks who have a monopoly on open right now…Anyway, really interesting conversations and learned a lot more than I new about the issue.  I’m left with a couple of questions though.   First, in …

Odds & Ends

Big thanks to Elizabeth for sitting in the past few days while I was away.   I’m sure I speak for most readers when I say that it’s great that she’s landing in our space for her next gig.   Clay Risen’s Michelle Rhee profile is now out in The Atlantic.   Clay really delivers in vivid form.    …