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 This blog is no longer being updated.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
Russo In DC On Tuesday
It's big news, I know. The New Teacher Center (NTC) at the University of California, Santa Cruz is releasing a new cost-benefit report on teacher retention at a Senate policy lunch tomorrow, October 23rd. Senator Jack Reed (Rhode Island) will attend. The briefing will take place in G-11 Dirksen from 11:45 am to 1 PM and lunch will be provided. Space is limited. To RSVP, contact AliciaL@ucsc.edu or 831-459-1305 or Dara Barlin at 646-391-1984 ( dbarlin@ucsc.edu). Yours truly is moderating -- no one else must have been available! No, that's not me in the picture, but I wish I had the t-shirt. I would wear it to the event, for sure. To add gravity and seriousness.
Education
Opinion
Alternative College Rankings Make Colbert Report
In case you missed it, check out Washington Monthly editor Paul Glastris on the Colbert Report from last week, talking about the magazine's alternative ranking of colleges:
Education
Opinion
"Honk If You Have An EdWeek Blog"
The ever-amusing folks over at the AFT blog have a little fun at EdWeek's expense, pointing out the seeming proliferation of blogs that have sprouted up on the site:AFT NCLBlog. It's true, there are an awful lot of blogs around here these days, creating a fair amount of overlap (as well as some helpful new coverage). But it's EdWeek's site, so they get to add as many separate blogs as they want. Whether it's NCLB news, politics, or media criticism, you can still find pretty much everything you need here.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Teachers Behaving Badly, States Ignoring The Problem
Between last week's report from the Small Newspaper Group (see chart) and today's AP story, we've got a glut of information about teachers behaving badly. According to last week's story, only Virginia revokes or suspends fewer teaching certificates than Illinois.States such as California, Georgia or Utah are 25 times more like to remove a teacher from the profession than Illinois.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Hidden Teacher Violations...In Illinois & Nationwide
Speaking of teachers, there's a new slew of stories from the folks at the Small Newspaper Group in Springfield Illinois that may blow your socks off: Illinois does poor job of dealing with teacher misconduct "Small Newspaper Group filed open records requests with 50 state education departments and built a national database of revocations and suspensions of teacher licenses during its "Hidden Violations" investigation. Among the 50 states, only Virginia revokes or suspends fewer teaching certificates than Illinois. Even if a hearing officer upholds the firing of teacher, they are free to seek employment in another school district." These are the same folks who did an award-winning investigative report on teacher tenure two years ago.
Education
Opinion
Tracking Teachers' Disciplinary Records In Ohio
The folks at the Columbus Dispatch have been running a great education series all week, and even created a database for parents to see which educators if any at their school have been disciplined. Check it outL The Columbus Dispatch
Education
Opinion
Best Of The Blogs
Over at EIA, Mike is not jumping on the PFP bandwagon (Sorry, I Can't Join the Party). Meanwhile, Joanne Jacobs tells us about how some districts are gaming the AYP ratings system by transferring students (The ‘alternative’ dodge).
Federal
Opinion
UPK: Just Don't Call It Childcare
You might think that Gail Collins' column about controversy over child care has nothing to do with school reform, but you'd be wrong. As Collins points out, we've got a substantial child care problem in the US, and little political appetite for discussing it. But universal preschool does an end-around on this, by providing an additional year of government subsidized care for children that parents otherwise would have to be covering out of pocket. Check it out: None Dare Call It Child Care. If there's any relief for working parents on the horizon, this is probably it.
Education
Opinion
Debating Education At The Economist
The Economist has been holding an online education debate, and I've missed it entirely. Well, the questions posed to us didn't seem all that compelling. Was it (is it) any good? Let us know: Economist.com
Education
Opinion
Pay Bloggers, Or Send Us To Rehab?
Blogging is fun. Too much fun. As this Time.com article points out (here), it's crack for journalists, whose best ideas otherwise get killed or blocked by ogre editors, and who are usually straightjacketed by the requirements of objective journalism (blandness, rigid even-handedness). It's also good business, since it doesn't take much time to find and slam someone else's hard work. (Doing that to to Diana Jean Schemo's NYT piece a couple days ago took about a half hour at most.) But I don't know if publishers are all of them really that business-oriented, or that online advertising brings in enough revenue -- yet -- to justify the expense of even the cheapest bloggers churning out the most salacious gossip. Recently, the Huffington Post announced it was going to pay its 1800 bloggers... never. And Gawker pays $12 per post.
Education
Opinion
Fictional Baltimore Mayor Declares Victory On Education
Just like in real life. As you may recall, last year's season of The Wire, HBO's gritty convoluted tale about cops and criminals and kids in Baltimore, focused in part on the opportunistic decision by the mayor to focus on school reform. Well, the good news in this lengthy New Yorker article about the show is that SCORES ARE UP! Of course they are. And of course this mayor has moved on already to another issue without really solving the underlying problems.