This Week In Education
Written by former Senate education staffer and journalist Alexander Russo, This Week in Education was an opinion blog that covered education news, policymakers, and trends with a distinctly political edge. (For archives prior to January 2007, please click here. For posts after November 2007, please click here.) This blog is no longer being updated.
Education
Opinion
Merrow Team Wins Third Emmy Nomination
Kudos to the good folks at Learning Matters, whose PBS series on a failed effort to bring in superstar principals to turn around struggling schools has just been nominated for an Emmy -- the third they've gotten. The competition -- ABC World News, CBS Evening News, Good Morning America and NBC Nightly News -- doesn't stand a chance. You can read about and watch the program here: Turnaround Specialist.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
Louisiana Gives Teacher Mercedes Benz
Thanks to a friend for passing this one to me. They really know how to do things down there, I guess.Louisiana Department of Education
Federal
Opinion
Opting Out Of Highly Qualified Teachers
All of these bills are just markers for future wrangling, but one of the most notable elements of the NCLB proposal unveiled yesterday by Senators Lieberman, Coleman, and Landrieu is that it would let states opt out of the current HQT requirements, which have been pretty ineffective at doing anything beyond making sure districts didn't hire uncertified teachers (an accomplishment, actually), and replacing that with measures of teacher effectiveness.
Education Funding
Opinion
University Of Chicago Calls Out Rest Of Higher Education Community
This week's EdWeek includes a noteworthy commentary from UofC education honcho Tim Knowles (pictured) in which he calls out the rest of higher ed for not being more substantially involved in K12 school reform issues (John Dewey for Today). As Knowles describes, the UofC is running a fast-growing network of charter schools, providing support services to another set of regular Chicago public schools, and even have a small practice-based teacher prep program. All this without having a formal ed school.
Education
Opinion
The Yellow Boxes, The Orange Tab: More Ways To Never Come Here Again [Revised]
Never want to see my grinning gargoyle of a head shot again? I got no problem with that.
Education Funding
Opinion
Civil Rights & Business Groups Join Together To Fight For NCLB
You may or may not think it's significant that there's another new NCLB-related organization. Hard to keep up with how many there are these days. But this one includes a pretty diverse set of players including the Business Roundtable, the Chamber of Commerce, La Raza, NCEA, the Citizens' Commission, and the Ed Trust. And it's pretty staunchly in favor of keeping, if not strengthening, NCLB.
Education
Opinion
Joking About The Use of Unofficial Emails
I was more than happy to find out I'd been included in Slate.com's roundup of blog posts from a few weeks back, but I wish they'd been able to tell that I was joking about why Bush Administration officials including ones at the USDE might use RNC e-mail addresses instead of their official ones (Today's Blogs). I said that maybe the RNC email was easier to use.
Federal
Opinion
Convenient Arguments
There's something a bit too convenient about the most recent "bubble" kids study that says low- and high-performing kids are being left behind, while "bubble" kids in the middle get all the attention. Ditto for today's Clarence Page column in the Chicago Tribune, which riffs off of the study to -- no surprise -- call for lowering NCLB's proficiency requirements (Leaving children behind, again). You could argue that the bubble kids are increasingly higher-achieving, as the NCLB proficiency cutoff moves up over time. But the answer to teachers focusing on the middle kids (as they always have) doesn't seem to me to be lowering the NCLB proficiency standard. Instead lawmakers might think of giving schools extra credit for moving kids up from the bottom quartile, even if they still don't make AYP.
Education
Opinion
Rod Paige, Beauty Contest Judge
What to do if you're no longer the Education Secretary and can't judge schools anymore? Judge beauty contests, of course. In Mississippi. That's what Rod Paige is doing these days, according to this Sun Herald story (Miss Heritage is the new Miss Mississippi). Better to judge than be judged, I guess.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
What To Do When The N-Word Just Slips Out
What to do if you happen to use the n-word during a board meeting? Resign, I guess. (R.I. School Official Resigns After Slur AP). Meanwhile, educators in New Mexico found out they won't get in trouble from the feds for a high school racism project that labeled water fountains "Whites Only" and, quaintly, "People Of Color". See: No sanctions for mock-segregation project MSNBC.
Education
Opinion
Bang For The Buck -- And Tricks Districts Use To Look Good
Forget the Challenge Index and all that nonsense about Advanced Placement Courses. So 90's. Now Forbes is out with its ranking of districts, based on their notions of who's got the most bang for the buck(Best And Worst School Districts For The Buck). According to Forbes, Marin County, California comes out number one. The others in the top five are Collin, Texas; Hamilton, Ind.; Norfolk, Mass.; and Montgomery, Md. Losers include Alexandria, VA. Others on the bottom of the list include Glynn, Ga.; Washington, D.C.; Ulster, N.Y.; and Beaufort, S.C. For all its obvious flaws, the Forbes story notes how difficult it is to obtain comparable data, and how many gimmicks and tricks districts use to make their numbers look better.
Federal
Opinion
Dem Groups Concerned About Miller NCLB Bill
Not everyone's so sure they're going to like what House education committee chairman George Miller comes up with, according to this letter sent last week from left-leaning progressives who are concerned about Miller watering down the law too much.