eduwonkette
Through the lens of social science, eduwonkette took a serious, if sometimes irreverent, look at some of the most contentious education policy debates in this opinion blog. Find eduwonkette’s complete archives prior to Jan. 6, 2008 here. This blog is no longer being updated.
Education
Opinion
NYC Links: Klein Petrilli Barcelona
1)Klein Petrilli Barcelona: Mike Petrilli has a stalker, he says, and it's not the sizzling Javier Bardem. Nonetheless, the NY Times blog chronicles it all here.
Standards & Accountability
Opinion
Guest Blogger Bruce Fuller: The Benefits and Dilemmas of Centralized Accountability
Bruce Fuller, sociologist and professsor of education and public policy at the University of California - Berkeley, has co-edited a new book, Strong States, Weak Schools: The Benefits and Dilemmas of Centralized Accountability. Below, he provides a Q&A on the book’s findings.
Bruce Fuller, sociologist and professsor of education and public policy at the University of California - Berkeley, has co-edited a new book, Strong States, Weak Schools: The Benefits and Dilemmas of Centralized Accountability. Below, he provides a Q&A on the book’s findings.
Education
Opinion
Cool People You Should Know: Amy Ellen Schwartz
Yesterday, in eduwonkette’s bombshell revelation that she is Jennifer Jennings, a Columbia doctoral student in sociology, she explained that the timing was influenced by the fact that there was potentially damaging misinformation about her identity swirling in the blogosphere and beyond. Many people thought that eduwonkette was Amy Ellen Schwartz. Who is this Amy Ellen Schwartz? Why, she’s a cool person you should know.
Education
Opinion
eduwonkette Unmasked
For those of you who pegged me as Amy Ellen Schwartz, Diane Ravitch, Amy Stuart Wells, or Randi Weingarten – what can I say?
Federal
Opinion
Yes, Beltway Wonks, Sampling Error Does Matter
It's in vogue these days to declare the building blocks of statistical inference irrelevant to assessing the performance of schools. For example, Joel Klein recently argued that statistical significance is "a game." Yesterday, Kevin Carey argued that accounting for sampling error - the idea that there is statistical uncertainty in measures from a sample rather than the full population - in the context of NCLB is "silly" because "unlike opinion polls, NCLB doesn't test a sample of students. It tests all students. The only way states can even justify using [margin of errors] in the first place is with the strange assertion that the entire population of a school is a sample, of some larger universe of imaginary children who could have taken the test, theoretically."
Education
Opinion
skoolboy Goes to the Olympics, IV: Differences across Schools
skoolboy’s jaunt to the Olympics concludes today with an examination of how much going to one school versus another matters for students’ achievement in different countries. The basic approach is to look at the average achievement in a sample of schools within a country, and to see how much those averages differ from one another. If students were randomly distributed across schools in a country, and each school had similar resources, we might expect to see relatively similar average achievement across schools, and we might conclude that which school a student attends in that country doesn’t matter that much. On the other hand, if some schools in a country enroll poor students and others enroll wealthy students, and the schools serving poor students have fewer social, cultural, and economic resources available to support student achievement than the schools serving wealthy students, we might expect to see large differences in achievement across schools, suggesting that which school a student goes to in such a country matters a lot.
Curriculum
Opinion
Should Teachers Adjust Their Teaching to Individual Students' "Learning Styles?"
Following rave responses to his first video, Brain-Based Education: Fad or Breakthrough?, UVA cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham returns with the unambiguously titled video, "Learning Styles Don't Exist."
Education
Opinion
AfterEd Gives Disney a Run for Their Money: Watch eduwonkette, Episode I!
AfterEd, a cool new web video channel on education run out of Teachers College, offered to make a series of animated eduwonkette episodes, and I couldn't resist. I already watched their weekly education news roundup, their "student spotlights," and loved their previous animation (teachers, check out Klona, a superteacher who can do it all), and knew they would do an amazing job. And they did.
Standards & Accountability
Opinion
Cool People You Should Know: David Figlio
Economist David Figlio, who has extensively studied the intended and unintended consequences of accountability systems, recently made a move from the University of Florida over to Northwestern. Figlio has a knack for the creative - but still substantive - paper: for example, see his papers on the unintended consequences of accountability systems including Food for Thought? The Effects of School Accountability Plans on School Nutrition, Accountabilty, Ability, and Disability: Gaming the System?, and Testing, Crime, and Punishment. More recently, he mounted an impressive survey of Florida principals to identify their responses to accountability pressures. (See Feeling the Florida Heat? How Low-Performing Schools Respond to Voucher and Accountability Programs.)
School & District Management
Opinion
Educational Research Cherry Pickers Need a Union
Over at EdWize, Leo Casey has offered to help Educational Research Cherry Pickers form their own union - they have been working too hard. Will the next cover of Education Next proclaim, "Hasta la victoria siempre?"
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
This Week's COWAbunga Award!
This week's "Comment of the Week Award," also known as the COWAbunga Award, goes to Attorney DC, whose understanding of collective action dilemmas cut to the heart of a debate about gender and the workplace:
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Leonard Sax, Girl Whisperer (Or: Why This Blog is Both Pink & Smart)
I'm beginning to think that Leonard Sax was one of those boys I lapped on the track in junior high who never got over it.
School & District Management
Opinion
Graduation Rates in NYC: The Long View
Last Thursday the NY Sun gave the Times editorial board a well-deserved spanking for ignoring its own backyard. Buried in the piece is a description of Bloomberg's latest temper tantrum, this time over the gall of a reporter for - gasp! - asking questions about the graduation rate:
Standards & Accountability
Opinion
Join a Chat about Testing and Accountability in the NCLB Era: Tuesday, August 19th, 3-4pm
On Tuesday, David Figlio - an economist who does great work on the intended and unintended consequences of accountability systems - and I will chat with Ed Week readers about testing and accountability. The event description is below, and you can submit questions here: