Last week, Time’s Andrew Rotherham addressed a growing movement led by young teachers: taking action against traditional teachers’ unions. “These renegade groups…are trying to accomplish what a generation of education reformers, activists and think tanks have not: forcing the unions to genuinely mend their ways.” Rotherham nicknames the three most-talked Read more
The fifth annual Education Next-PEPG Survey was released last week, which focuses on American opinions on education and the teaching profession. The survey interviewed a nationally representative sample of 2,600 people, with special attention paid to the affluent (defined as college graduates who are in the top income decile in Read more
Reporter-turned-charter school teacher Marilyn Rhames blogged last week on an experience that changed her perception of education and the core values that should guide education reform. She began her student teaching in an elementary school on the West Side of Chicago, where conditions were such that “after six months, I Read more
The Save our Schools March and National Call to Action wrapped up in Washington, DC this weekend. The event consisted of a two-day conference and followed by a march and rally in the nation’s capital. The event, hosted by a grassroots teacher advocacy group called Save Our Schools, was staged Read more
Ten years and $5 billion into his philanthropic push for school reform, Bill Gates is doing some soul-searching. “It’s been about a decade of learning,” he says, and acknowledges that education isn’t only a civil rights issue but also “an equity issue and an economic issue…It’s so primary. In inner-city, Read more
The Center for American Progress has released a report examining the role of state education agencies, their leaders, and their potential impact on education reform. In the past, state education agencies (SEAs) have been small offices in the background, mostly tasked with administering state and federal education laws, allocating federal Read more
A recent report released by Public Impact, in collaboration with the University of Virginia’s Partnership for Leaders in Education, studied the potential impact on school turnarounds of importing leadership talent from non-education industries. The authors explore lessons about when and how organizations in other sectors import leadership, including what it Read more
Last week, the Center for American Progress published a paper discussing an alternate path to school system reform: collaboration of stakeholders through labor-management partnerships among teachers’ unions, school administrators, and school boards. The authors base their recommendations on six examples of how teachers’ unions have been critical to improving public Read more
American Teacher is a new full-length documentary based on the New York Times bestselling book Teachers Have It Easy, produced by co-authors Dave Eggers and Ninive Calegari and directed by Academy Award winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth. The film seeks to shed light on the startling statistics of the teaching profession—such Read more
Several weeks ago renowned education journalist John Merrow began speculating on who might be the most influential educator in America. Of his four “nominees,” (Wendy Kopp, Big Bird, Arne Duncan and Joel Klein), Merrow settled on Joel Klein, former New York City School chancellor, for his “remarkable network of eleven Read more
The Christian Science Monitor reported on July 5 that at least 178 teachers and principals in Atlanta Public Schools cheated to raise student scores on standardized tests, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). So far 82 teachers and principals have confessed to changing student answers and conspiring to Read more
The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) released its eighth annual National Educational Technology Trends Report, State Leaders Leveraging Technology to Transform Teaching and Learning. This annual report highlights innovative educational technology activities that are playing a crucial role in K-12 school improvement efforts in states and local communities across 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
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
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