Districts and states are facing huge budget shortfalls and are being forced to cut education spending. If the face of this economic climate Education Resource Strategies (ERS) set out to reveal the most effective ways to cut costs while maintaining results. They find that billions of education dollars are trapped Read more
he New America Foundation’s Federal Education Budget Project (FEBP) released an issue brief on recently finalized fiscal year 2011 federal education appropriations. The paper, 2011 Education Appropriations Guide, by FEBP Director Jason Delisle and Senior Policy Analyst Jennifer Cohen, provides a summary and analysis of the $68.3 billion education budget Read more
Last month at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Governor Mitch Daniels touted his successes in Indiana education reform, stressing that bills passed in the just-concluded legislative session “end discrimination against charters” and put the state’s education system on the road to recovery after “a regime that attempted to Read more
The U.S. Department of Education announced that $150 million will be available for the next round of Investing in Innovation (i3) grants to continue support for evidence-based practices in education. Individual school districts, groups of districts, and nonprofits in partnership with districts or a consortium of schools are invited to Read more
In a lengthy article in The Atlantic Monthly, former NYC Chancellor Joel Klein writes that New York’s system has seen dramatic reforms over the past nine years, but “is still not remotely where it needs to be.” Klein points to several inhibitors — unions, politicians, bureaucrats, and vendors — and Read more
It seems that it’s becoming fashionable to poo-poo college education. After all, can’t you get all the information you’ll ever need for free on the Internet? Why pay tuition? In a recent Time magazine article, Andrew Rotherham explores the real value of a college education related to standard of living. Read more
Last month, the American Enterprise Institute held a day-long conference on the Federal Role in education. Video highlights, panel discussions and links to white papers are available at http://www.aei.org/event/100357#doc. My favorite video clip is of Michael Petrelli discussing how the federal government can “do what it’s good at.” Instead of Read more
The fact that well-qualified teachers are inequitably distributed to students in the United States has received growing public attention. Studies in state after state have found that students of color in low- income schools are 3 to 10 times more likely to have unqualified teachers than students in predominantly white Read more
Looking for a change of pace from academic reports and scholarly articles? Chloe Jon Paul, retired educator, has just released a novel detailing the experiences of four educators, Vera Harriss, Deidre Fletcher, Mark Pettingill, and Stu Martel, over the course of a single academic year. What causes Vera, who is Read more
The Department’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), part of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), released “The Condition of Education 2011,” a Congressionally mandated report to the country on education in America today. The report includes 50 indicators in five major areas — education participation, learner outcomes, student effort Read more
The announcement of regulatory flexibility for No Child Left Behind from Washington has caused quite a stir. Bipartisan critisims of the Duncan plan and critique from education reformers and special interest groups abound. Some object to the Department of Education infringing on law-making responsibilities that belong to Congress, others object Read more
The Obama Administration plans to provide regulatory flexibility around No Child Left Behind (NCLB) if Congress does not complete work on a reauthorization bill prior to the August recess, in order to help support reform efforts underway at the state and local level. Education Secretary Arne Duncan praised Congress for Read more
District-led, dramatic change efforts in failing schools-including turnarounds and school closures-often face strong resistance from families and communities. Resistance may be based on district-community tensions, failed past school improvement efforts, or a lack of understanding about what is possible in schools. In this new presentation by Public Impact, nine strategies Read more
The U.S. Department of Education and Asia Society released a report last week entitled, “Improving Teacher Quality Around the World: The International Summit on the Teaching Profession,” addressing lessons shared during the two-day event held in New York City in March. The summit marked the first-ever convening of education ministers, Read more
You won’t believe this, but MasteryConnect has just released a free app with searchable Common Core Standards for math and language arts. So now, if you’re in a long line at the grocery store and wondering what the standards are for reading informational text in 5th grade, you’ve got the Read more
As the reauthorization of ESEA draws nearer, Education Sector’s Policy Director Kevin Carey and Robert Manwaring, a fiscal and policy consultant, argue in a newly released report, Growth Models and Accountability: A Recipe for Remaking ESEA, that Congress should combine a measure of student growth with achievement into a single Read more