In a commentary piece for Education Week, Alan Blankstein of the HOPE Foundation and Pedro Noguera of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education detail their concern at “the approach prescribed by the US Department of Education” for school turnarounds. While they agree that the approach is “well intentioned,” it is also “misguided.” Due to the Read more about Department of Education Has it Wrong on School Turnarounds[…]
Roland Fryer and Will Dobbie, researchers at Harvard University, have released a new study that claims “what happens inside New York City charter schools is more important than their ideological affiliations in determining academic success.” The paper, Getting Beneath the Veil of Effective Schools: Evidence from New York City, consists of in-depth case studies at Read more about New Study Attempts to Isolate What Works in Charter Schools[…]
Public Impact has launched the implementation phase of its effort to bring excellent teachers to every classroom. In this phase, the organization seeks to identify five “model” sites that can be used to extend the reach of these teachers beyond their own classrooms. Seeking to create what it calls an “Opportunity Culture,” Public Impact wants Read more about Public Impact Seeks Five Sites to Extend the Reach of Excellent Teachers[…]
Last month, the Center for Education Reform (CER) released The State of Charter Schools: What We Know—and What We Do Not—About Performance and Accountability, a report analyzing the nation’s charter schools. The report found that historically, charter schools have a 15% closure rate. Charter school closure is usually the result of a failure to meet Read more about The State of Charter Schools[…]
In a recent blog post for The Huffington Post, Jack Jennings of the Center on Education Policy reflects on the current “business” of education reform. Benchmarking, once used only in top performing companies, has tricked its way down to education, the most prominent example being the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The CCSS were written Read more about Have We Gotten It Wrong on School Reform?[…]
A recent Huffington Post article describes the new education lobby: ambitious, expansive, and mainly created by hedge fund managers and former government officials. In some ways, it is modeled on large, single-issue lobbying organizations like the NRA and AARP. The newer lobbying groups are focusing on teacher evaluations using student performance data, merit pay, better Read more about The New Face of the Education Reform Lobby[…]
In a recent opinion piece for Education Week, Craig Hochbein and Bradley Carpenter, assistant professors of K-12 leadership at the University of Louisville, reflect on what they call “disciplined improvement.” Using examples such as Ty Cobb and Ernest Hemingway to illustrate that disciplined improvement encompasses both “the commencement and termination of actions. In addition to Read more about Solving the Real Problems: Disciplined Improvement[…]
Education writer Andrew Rotherham speculated in Time this week about the current data analysis “trend” that is sweeping the education reform movement. He reflects on Michael Lewis’ 2003 book Moneyball, which “traces the rise of new methods that the Oakland A’s used to identify undervalued baseball players so the team could win more games with Read more about ‘Moneyballing’ Education[…]
Jack Schneider, postdoctoral fellow for innovation in the liberal arts at Carleton College, recently blogged for Education Week’s “Teaching Now” blog on the “mania” for educational technology. He touches on the apparent consensus that the solution to the nation’s education problem is new technologies: smartboards in every classroom, iPads for each student, and collaborative projects Read more about Education Technology: After the Investment[…]
This past Tuesday, Missouri decided to strip the Kansas City, MO school district of its accreditation. School board members and the Education Commissioner called the decision “agonizing,” but asserted that given the lack of improvement after two years of lukewarm efforts on the part of the district, removing accreditation was “the only recourse we [had].” Read more about Kansas City School District Loses Accreditation[…]
As the economy continues to falter, many school districts have been faced with staffing challenges. Teacher and staff layoffs abound, but in some cases a round of layoffs is followed by another practice: last-minute hiring. To some degree, late hiring can be considered an inevitability for schools. Administrators don’t always know for sure how many Read more about Last-Minute Teacher Hiring Produces Long-Lasting Effects[…]
The new Common Core Standards for math and language arts are scheduled to be rolled out in the 2014-2015 school year, and 44 states plus the District of Columbia are starting to shape how the Common Core will play out in their education systems. Teacher preparation programs, professional development, and instruction/instructional materials all need to Read more about Impacting the Future: Implementing the Common Core[…]
A new book by researchers at the Carenegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching examines the movement towards the changing face of teaching from an “occupation” to one based on scientific scholarship. The movement’s impact on teacher education programs is examined with particular attention. Authors Pat Hutchings, Mary Taylor Huber, and Tony Ciccone imagine a Read more about The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Reconsidered: Institutional Integration and Impact[…]
In an article published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, author Carrie R. Leana argues that education reforms have yet to identify a major component to boosting student achievement: teacher collaboration. She calls these patterns of teacher interaction “social capital,” the quantity and quality of which can measurably affect school improvement. Leana asserts that the Read more about The Missing Link in School Reform[…]
Thirty years ago Education Week printed its first issue. Over the years, the periodical has seen many of the ups, downs, stagnations, steps forward and leaps back that the public education system has experienced. To commemorate this anniversary and remind us all of where we have been and where we are now, Education Week has Read more about K-12 in America Since 1981[…]
Last year the Newark, NJ school system accepted a $5 million grant from the federal government to turn around the failing Malcom X. Shabazz High School. As part of the deal, the district agreed to replace at least half of the school’s teachers, believing that principals could then hire better ones. What happened instead was Read more about Teacher Swap Quashed in New Jersey[…]