Policy & Politics Blog

K-12 Schools: Beyond the Rhetoric

In this blog, Jack Schneider, assistant professor at the College of the Holy Cross, hosted productive dialogues about contentious K-12 policy issues. This blog is no longer being updated.

Education Opinion Reading List: The History of Testing and Measurement
Five suggestions for interesting and thought-provoking reading on the history of testing and measurement.
Jack Schneider, July 14, 2014
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4 min read
Education Opinion Summer Reading List: Why Reform Fails
Summer's halfway over, but there's still plenty of time to do a little professional reading. Here are my picks for this summer.
Jack Schneider, July 12, 2014
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2 min read
Education Opinion How Teachers Can More Effectively Speak Truth to Power
By participating more frequently and more vocally in the ongoing national dialogue about K-12 education, teachers can help ensure that discourse reflects reality and not merely the musings of policy elites
Jack Schneider, July 5, 2014
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4 min read
Education Opinion Ten Reform Claims That Teachers Should Know How to Challenge
Reform bluster is as ubiquitous as it is shallow. Here are ten claims teachers should be ready to respond to, along with some questions they might ask in response.
Jack Schneider, June 27, 2014
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2 min read
Education Opinion What's Next on 'Beyond the Rhetoric'?
K-12 Schools: Beyond the Rhetoric will continue.
Jack Schneider, June 26, 2014
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1 min read
Education Opinion Final Questions
In our final week, we ask each other the lingering short questions that hadn't made it into our previous conversations.
Jack Schneider, June 25, 2014
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5 min read
Education Opinion Improving (Not Eliminating) Due Process
We agree on the broad contours of a plan to improve due process. But we are less in agreement about details.
Michelle Rhee, June 19, 2014
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3 min read
Education Opinion The Vergara Decision
What would true compromise around teacher tenure and dismissal procedures look like?
Jack Schneider, June 17, 2014
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5 min read
Education Opinion Teachers' Unions and the Near Future
The unions are currently the only bodies that connect teachers with each other--the only professional organization equivalent to those that exist in other fields
Michelle Rhee, June 12, 2014
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4 min read
Education Opinion Unions and the Concept of 'Adult Interests'
We agree that policies like "last in, first out" are problematic. But we disagree about why such policies exist and what should be done about them.
Jack Schneider, June 10, 2014
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7 min read
Education Opinion Federal Policy and the Role of Research
We agree that evidence is important in policy decisions, and that certainty is problematic. But we have different views on how reform efforts should be paced and whether or not they should proceed incrementally.
Michelle Rhee, June 5, 2014
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7 min read
Education Opinion What Should Federal Involvement Look Like?
What is the appropriate level of federal involvement? What can the Department of Education bring to the table that state and local actors can't? When does federal involvement become problematic?
Jack Schneider, June 3, 2014
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6 min read
Education Opinion Can Principals Be Instructional Leaders?
Is it realistic to imagine that we can recruit two football stadiums full of exceptional ?
Michelle Rhee, May 29, 2014
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4 min read
Education Opinion What Does an Effective Principal Do?
What does an effective principal do? We both agree that instructional leadership is a part of the equation.
Jack Schneider, May 27, 2014
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5 min read
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