A “Race to the Top” flip-flop Fordham
Now states will be able to claim that they have “narrowed achievement gaps” when all they’ve done is make their tests so easy to pass that virtually all kids—black and white, rich and poor—do so, magically erasing any group differences.

Boston Consortium Brings Together All K-12 Sectors Lesli Maxwell 
Educators from the public, charter, parochial, independent, pilot, and suburban schools that make up the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity have agreed to work together on promising teaching practices.

Homecoming Rape Case Proceeding Insanely Slowly The Awl
Six of the suspects in the Richmond High School homecoming gang-rape of a 15-year-old have pleaded not guilty to rape. Somehow, the other four (or more) suspects have not been charged yet. Nor have the approximately twenty on-lookers!

Arizona Takes on Seniority Stephen Sawchuk
A few weeks back, I mused whether we'd see more state and local action to review seniority provisions, since it seemed like states were doing a lot on evaluation and pay, but not the related issue of seniority. Somehow I...

An Overview of the Nonprofit and Charitable Sector Open CRS
Having a greater understanding of the nonprofit and charitable sector as a whole may help policymakers evaluate proposals that may impact the sector.

What's The Right Role For Government In Children's TV? National Journal
I tend to agree with Diane on this one.  Now, a short video from Yo Gabba Gabba! 

DHHS Secretary Mike Bloomberg announced his resignation in the wake of last week’s ill-timed statement, at the height of the battle for health insurance reform, that heart surgeons would be evaluated based on their patients’ survival rates. Though gracious in praising the outgoing Secretary, President Obama was reported to have murmured "At a time when we are trying to recruit the best talent to serve our most vulnerable populations and stress early interventions, we are going to punish doctors for conditions that may be beyond their control? ‘You can’t make that up!’ Those data-driven guys need to get a life."

Seriously, I’m hopeful that the failed politics of the RttT will kill chances of an ESEA reauthorization that seeks to reform NCLB-type accountability.

For instance, at a time when the administration needs union support for health insurance reform, its education "reformers" are challenging core principles of collective bargaining. At a time when Secretary Duncan and union leadership are seeking fair, valid, collaborative, and negotiated systems for using student performance to upgrade teacher quality, Duncan shares the stage with Mayor Bloomberg as he blindsides the unions. Secretary Duncan claims that the RttT process has already produced reforms, but to teachers it looks like another beat-down.

That being said, I believe that good will come out of RttT. Years of teaching have made me more sensitive to the value of avoiding mistakes as the overwhelmingly most important factor in improving schools. By emphasizing the role of trained and objective judges in evaluating proposals, however, the chances of RttT producing relatively more benefits than harm been increased.  In don't know if Tom Vander Ark would accept my logic, but I'd apply his thoughts on the i3 process where he predicted that "grants will go to about 75 awardees and a dozen will do important work."  I'm betting on a similar bell curve-type result of RttT with a fairly small number of great successes and disasters on each end, and ambiguity in the middle.  But if the process creates incentives for no-nonsense systematic planning, I would happily eat my words.   

Still, the politics of RttT could go either way. NCLB is a discredited brand, so a newer, patched-up, and tighter accountability regime will be more attractive?  Educators are exhausted by the endless cycle of fads, quick fixes, silver bullets, and utopian schemes innovations, so a competition guided by true believers in "disruptive innovation" is supposed to generate good will? RttT is a process where there will be many more losers than winners, and it will thus build support for ESEA reauthorization according to what scenario?

And let’s just assume that RttT will produce miraculous results in a few years, and that money will be available to sustain those results. I do not see how months of trashing out the details of regulations and painful renegotiation of longstanding policies will produce goodwill for reauthorization of a law that promises continued conflict between teachers and other Democratic constituencies. After all, that was Karl Rove's recipe for using NCLB as a part of a three-pronged strategy to destroy the Democratic Party. 

Whether you support or despise NCLB, it is hard to deny the conflict and the headaches it has created. So next year, as the RttT winners are wrestling with the short term pain of revolutionary transformations in the hopes that this time innovation will work, and as the losers nurse their wounds, and in the wake of months of litigation in D.C. (and perhaps New York), I’m hoping that the blame and shame game that is data-driven accountability will no longer be seen as the prime educational reform option.

Getting back to Vander Ark, he accurately wrote "NCLB reflected a consensus that 1) measurement and transparency would help us understand the problem, 2) that a basic template for school accountability would ensure that things would get better for underserved students, and 3) the federal government should play a bigger role in ensuring equity and excellence."

So, how did the consensus' #1 and #2 work out?  Why would the consensus have thought something so silly?  Now, Vander Ark is placing his hopes in the "most talented, most aggressive, and the most well funded Department of Education ever,"  but he doesn't mention a role for talented practioners, especially those with the experience to moderate their aggressive preferences. Perhaps the best outcome of RttT would be the recognition that desite the best of intentions, the federal government will continue to fail to ensure equity or excellence if it continues to ignore the wisdom of educators.  

Carmel Martin looks like she might be about to fall asleep in this picture but the folks at EdWeek put the screws on Arne Duncan during a recent visit to EdWeek's Bethesda compound (Education Week).

Now that the rubber is almost about to hit the road on RTTT, Duncan seems to be backpedaling and defending his positions on charter schools and turnarounds and whether RTTT is based on evidence or not. 

Duncan's ideas about ESEA still seem unformed, though.  Someone needs to remind him that, unlike with RTTT Congress will be closely involved in ESEA reauthorization.  Prepare to spread that money around.

"I do not have power of attorney over first graders" (Bart's Blackboard)

There's something "off" about the Brookings report release and panel being held today, though I can't quite put my finger on it.

Or maybe I can. 

Oh yes, now it's coming clearer. 

Right there.  Yep.  That's it.

The "olde timey" thing.

Perhaps it's the fact that, while I admire Russ Whitehurst and EJ Dionne greatly, I don't think of either of them as particularly expert on the topic of education journalism.  These are not folks who've thought long and hard about this issue, or whose knowledge is particularly deep.

Or maybe it's that the panelists they've gathered for the event include two esteemed former journalists (Richard Colvin and Dale Mezzacappa) whom I would describe as traditional if not downright reactionary in their views on new media such as blogs, plus a think tank guy (Andy Rotherham) who until recently didn't even allow reader comments on his blog. (Still no response, by the way.)Most problematic of all, there's no one currently in a newsroom involved on the panel, nor anyone with a strong background in new media.

Then there's the report itself, which from what little I've read comes off as awkward and obvious and not particularly helpful. The "No Reader Left Behind" title is awful and lazy. Sure, it's good to know that during the past nine months coverage of education made up just 1.4 percent of national news coverage, and that K12 education dominated what little coverage that got produced. But I for one am not prepared to write off coverage about budget cuts and H1N1, which the report belittles as being unimportant to the core issues of learning.  Gak. 

And at this point I'm also a little bit tired of the "woe is me" moaning and groaning about the sad state of the journalism industry, and surprised and disappointment at the continued diminishment of nontraditional coverage: "None of these [new methods] can replace regular, systematic and ongoing coverage of education by news outlets," states the executive summary. It's as if my Chicago blog District 299 (recently added to the Chicago Tribune's hive of blogs), GothamSchools in New York, or any of several other examples of regular, systematic education coverage don't exist.

Then again, I've only read the first couple of pages of the report, which you can find here:

Improving Media Coverage of Education

State charter schools program is 'out of control' Minneapolis Star Tribune
In the past decade, 18 charter schools have been built with $178 million in junk bonds, with financing costs on some projects chewing up nearly a quarter of the funds raised.

Green Dot charter schools founder repays group $50,866 LA Times
Local charter school founder Steve Barr, a national figure in school reform, has repaid his organization more than $50,000 after an internal review determined that expenses he had charged were undocumented or unjustified.

Louisiana Audit Faults Vallas for Use of State-Owned Car EdWeek
The superintendent of the Recovery School District misused his state-owned vehicle according to an audit released last week.

Mission: Educational engagement Journal Sentinel Online
Milwaukee Public Schools will spend some $4 million in federal stimulus money over two years to support a major parental involvement program in 35 schools

The Innovation Economy Conference (video)
A Conversation with Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education Moderator: Gwen Ifill, Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Moderator and Managing Editor, Washington Week

Healthy, organic and cheap school lunches? Order up USA Today
Starting with just one school in spring 2006, Revolution Foods has quietly grown year by year and now delivers about 45,000 breakfasts, lunches and snacks daily to 235 public and private schools in California, Colorado and the District of Columbia .

I'm guessing that the 2nd graders in Kimberly Spring-Winters' classroom don't know that her husband is --gasp! -- also her first cousin.   They probably don't care. 

But they and their parents might know soon, given that the teacher (pictured) is featured prominently in a New York Times article about people marrying their cousins. 

Will her principal and school board leave her alone?  I sure hope so.  Spring-Winters (is that a real name?) lives in the small town of Muncy, PA.  The school district is not named. 

Mr. President: Be the bad guy, start closing schools Uncle Jay Mathews
Many fine people, including President Obama, are trying to make public schools better, but I don't see much progress.

Are Single-Sex Schools Bad For Boys? Jezebel
I'm not convinced that the excitement of the opposite sex helps hetero kids learn math. But it does seem logical that, regardless of sexual orientation, children learn social lessons from opposite sex peers.

The Report That Got Away LFA
Journalists barely flutter an eyelid when think tanks churn out reports pushing radical changes that rest on little or no evidence.

YouTube Beatings Migrate Down to Middle School Gawker
Time was, vicious YouTube beatings didn't start until high school.

Sixth Grader Tells Obama Afghanistan Drains Resources Chris Prevatt
“There’s nothing left to cut, Mr. President.”

Improving Media Coverage of Education Education Next
A Brookings panel discussion Wednesday afternoon should be interesting.

Platoons! What Are They Good For? Nancy Flanagan
I hate it when teachers say they're "in the trenches." Calling common standards "goalposts" grates on my sensibilities, as do drills, recruits, maneuvers, tactics and...

"You’re really unlikely to find better times than 2009, 2010, and 2011 to spend a bunch of money on large-scale projects." (Matt Yglesias)

Dean is a hard act to follow. After reading Tom Toch's original document, as opposed to his Education Week article, I still see the same pattern. The Education Sector and the Eduwonk have long battled with themselves over facts and their meanings. Now, Tom Toch and the Education Sector agree that Charter Management Organizations (CMOs). have won "congratulatory coverage in the national media," at a time when Secretary Duncan hopes they can play an increasing role in turning around the toughest schools. But Toch then writes "the research for a report on CMOs that I’ve produced for the think tank Education Sector reveals that many of these organizations are going to be hard-pressed to deliver the many schools that Duncan wants from them." The Education Sector sees the same evidence and writes "state and national leaders increasingly see leading CMOs as an important part of their larger plans for educational reform in the toughest educational environments."　(emphasis mine)

Toch describes "four dozen charter networks’ opening about 350 schools with some 100,000 seats over the past decade. This is a long way from the 5,000 failing public schools. ..." The Education Sector introduces the report, writing "nearly four dozen new nonprofit enterprises ... or CMOs, have set to work alongside Achievement First (which hopes to open 30 charters) to replicate the nation's best urban charter schools, .... There are an estimated 4,600 charter schools serving some 1.4 million students."

Echoing Toch, the Education Sector reports "CMOs have expanded more slowly and required more resources than they had hoped" facing "the extraordinary demands of educating disadvantaged students." Somehow, this record is mitigated because CMOs have "sought to create "proof points," evidence that large numbers of disadvantaged students can achieve at sharply higher levels than most do now ..."

While clearly supporting charter schools, Toch writes "getting good results also has required CMOs to spend more heavily than they had expected to support their schools." Moreover, "CMOs increasingly face the challenge of either paying their teachers more as they gain seniority, or churning through teachers and making it tougher to sustain their schools’ powerful cultures." Also, "student attrition is high in CMO schools, fueled by higher standards, long hours, and transient families. A study of four San Francisco Bay Area KIPP middle schools found that 60 percent of entering students departed before graduating. The loss of revenue from so many departing students is devastating, but the price of bringing in replacement students is also high."

The actual Education Report, "Growing Pains," as opposed to the Education Sector’s characterization of the report, then tells the same story. It is particularly astute in explaining the dire lack of principals that would spearhead any expansion of CMOs. "It was a point of perverse pride that [running a KIPP school] had to be a job only for Superman," says John Kanberg, a senior official at the KIPP Foundation. Also, "principals in schools run by prominent CMOs tend to be as young and nearly as inexperienced as their teachers. Aspire Public Schools hired four principals in 2006–07—ages 24, 25, 28, and 30. In contrast, the average public school principal is 49."

So, the difference between Toch’s interpretation of evidence and the Education Sector’s may be no greater than the continued differences between the Education Sector’s research and the spin that it gives to the evidence. And the same dynamic seems to be producing those discrepancies. The Education Sector research duly reports the disappointing results of its favored reforms, but to the Education Sector spin masters, those shortcomings are not as important as the ambitions of "reformers." And it may also be illustrative that the Education Sector concludes by praising "the core mission that unites all leading CMOs" while Toch ends with a plea for collaboration between charters and public school systems. 

To his credit, Stephen Colbert seemed like he wasn't having a lot of fun during last night's interview of Cevin Soling, the director of the new movie, The War On Kids.  But I could have suggested a bunch of more interesting guests to have talk about education (call me!).  The War On Kids is a scare-you-mentary about how public schools are like prisons and kids are being drugged into conforming with militaristic school rules.  It repeats lots of favorite incidents -- true or not, I don't know -- about prison designers being used to design schools, six year olds in handcuffs, widespread drug use required. 

A magazine about foster kids?  Sure, why not.  A magazine by foster kids?  Now that's something special.  It's called "Represent!" and it includes some pretty amazing, gritty content from kids who are "in care."  And I'm not just saying that because my friend Virginia is one of the editors there. The Fall issue focuses on kids and art.  The summer issue focused on mental health.  There's content for kids and for social workers and teachers who work with these kids (about 500,000 nationwide).  Check it out.  

Charter schools hold promise, but they're no magic bullet LA Times
Charter schools are on the cusp of national stardom. Less clear, though, is whether charter schools offer real, long-term solutions to fixing public education in America, or whether the Obama administration should be relying on them so heavily as a means of turning around the nation's record of academic mediocrity.

Fixing Poverty Freakonomics
If you want to fix poverty, you’ll have to fix governments first.

More standardized testing nightmares Valerie Strauss
Here are some of your test horror stories about testing--and at the end, one that the author calls “the ultimate” such disaster.

Innovation Follies LFA
We shouldn't abandon important work just because it isn't flashy enough for the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Blather, Rinse, Repeat TCKB

The more pertinent question might be which of the two groups is paying attention to the academic needs of poor children. Based on the evidence, it’s hard to say.

Study Sees Little Traction for NCLB's Tutoring Provisions Inside Research
A study by the National Center for Education Statistics finds that only about a fifth of eligible students are getting free tutoring services under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Five strikes against an education writer Jay Mathews
Others can assess my successes, if any. I prefer to dwell on my failures.

After Newt Gingrich misstated the facts regarding Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia, the media could have checked into the true story of the schools’ outstanding accomplishments without distorting the  challenges faced by the toughest neighborhood schools.

So it was doubly dismaying when Secretary Duncan was even more inaccurate in claiming that Mastery kept "the same students," and he was not challenged by the press. Duncan made a similar misstatement in Oklahoma City, but I had hoped he was just being overly effusive in praising the wonderful KIPP students who were accompanying him.

I do not understand how the first 123 students of Moon KIPP Academy could be mistaken for being "the same (501) students" who were "in the same building" the year before the neighborhood school was closed. Six years later and long after the demand for KIPP’s rigor has topped out, 215 KIPP students, with 11% on IEPs, get an excellent education - even though their turnover rate is 52%. This compares with the old school’s pattern of a 90 to 100% poverty rate with 24 to 33% of students on IEPs.

The old Moon made the Harper’s Index after a lunch riot where 80% of  the 6th grade students were suspended. Long before they attended that troubled school, many of my neighbors would pick flowers at our house, visit the fish pond, and go sailing with us. One did not ask for a reward when returning our lost dog, but he asked me to walk him home through rival gang turf. I comforted my young friends after they witnessed a drive-by murder of a classmate and we dealt with several 2:00 am family crises.

The students who later attended Moon would ride on my back as I swam the pool until I was too exhausted to climb out of the water without the ladder. When I visited the crack houses where some lived, I negotiated with their guard dogs. Some chastised me for driving off a white junkie, and they did so in a way that will always remind me of the kids’ generosity of spirit. The soundtrack for those years was Spike Lee's "Do it a Cappella" and their favorite song on it was "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." I have never doubted those kids' abilities to succeed in a system that celebrated their full humanity.

A lot of schools claim to be "an alternative school to the alternative schools," but Moon really was. A lot of schools claim that the sheriff brings kids in handcuffs, unlocks them, and wishes the teachers luck as they drop troubled kids at the school but, frankly, I have never seen it. That reality wasn’t uncommon at Moon.

Representing the union and a bipartisan committee of community leaders in a listening tour of all of our schools, I had plenty of conversations with Moon's principal, his administrators, teachers, parents and, of course, my young buddies who attended the school. I don’t recall anyone claiming that they were allowed to enforce discipline in a consistent manner. In fact, I thought the administrators were as bold as possible in asserting that neighborhood middle schools aren’t allowed to assess discipline. I do recall a wonderful assistant principal who suggested that we line up all adults and line up all students, count off one, two, three, four, and divide the school into four small schools and let each school experiment with their own approaches. Now that would be a way of really addressing "the same socio-economic challenges."

By the way, my senior who was one of the 136 suspended 6th graders, claims he was innocent.

Joblessness adds to burden on D.C. area schools Washington Post
As the lunchroom poverty barometer rises, schools are solidifying their role as centers for social services.

To Pay for Longer School Days, Some Parents Try Raising Money NYT
Parents of students in public and magnet schools must get creative to finance extra hours in the classroom.

Taking Tater Tots Off the Tray Miller-McCune
Recommendations from a panel of nutrition experts seek to make school lunches healthier, but enacting them is easier said than done

Why Are Selective Colleges Getting So Selective? The Atlantic
Studies show that the schools we apply to are a better indication of future success than the schools we attend.

Prescribing marijuana to kids The Week
Proponents of cannabis for kids say it can help treat autism, ADHD, cancer and AIDS symptoms.

At This School, It’s Marijuana in Every Class NYT
At most colleges, marijuana is very much an extracurricular matter.

Are Girls The New Boys Matt Yglesias (again)
If it’s true that society has developed an aggregate preference for girls that would, of course, be a change from the historic pro-boy bias of the peasant farmer.

What's Going to Happen to Textbooks? Atlantic Wire
Some think this might be a good idea, given the high cost of traditional textbooks. But it's not clear that will be enough to get e-readers on college campuses and in high schools.

Here's Arne Duncan's upcoming schedule of media events and photo ops -- though I can't manage to get excited about any of it.  

Be assured there will be the usual mix of fear-mongering, repetition of talking points, and exhortation. 

Retired Los Angeles teacher keeps at it, for free LA Times
Five mornings a week, Bruce Kravets, 66, puts on a coat and tie, straps on his helmet and bikes to work at Palms Middle School on L.A.'s Westside, where he teaches math. For free.

Two charter school studies, two findings on effectiveness Washington Post
As President Obama pushes for more charter schools, the education world craves a report card on an experiment nearly two decades old. How are these independent public schools doing? The safest and perhaps most accurate reply -- it depends -- leaves many unsatisfied.

Schools work to improve parental involvement Journal Sentinel
It's a vexing issue in Milwaukee, as well as thousands of other districts where students face major hurdles and many parents lack the knowledge, power or will to help their children succeed.

Chaos control is a challenge as Montgomery enrollment surges Washington Post
Oakland Terrace Elementary School in Silver Spring, one of the most overcrowded schools in an crowded district, has 800 students, 10 kindergarten classes, 11 portable classrooms and only four and a half restrooms. But the numbers are an abstraction until lunchtime.

Teachers begin using cell phones for class lessons AP
Cell phones, the subject of tugs of war between parents, teachers and students across the nation, are taking on a new role in the classroom: learning tool....

City’s Schools Share Space, and Bitterness, With Charters NYT
Charter schools, a third-term priority of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, are squeezing the city’s public schools for space, and more are on their way.

Good news.  Starting this week, longtime education industry insider Marc Dean Millot (pictured) is going to be posting a weekly piece on the education industry on this site.  I've been a fan of Millot's for a long time, though we come from different ends of the political spectrum and don't always come to the same conclusions.  Here are some previous TWIE posts addressing Millot's insights and opinions:

Problems With Foundation-Funded Research
Think Tanks: A Row Of Little Georgetown Boutiques
Are Management Companies Better For Charters? (No)
The "New" Think Tanks: Management Consulting Firms

Millot understands that public education is, among other things, a $600B a year business, and has the background and patience to explain to the rest of us how money affects schools (through vendors, nonprofits, private foundations, management consulting firms).  He's knowledgeable, insightful, and usually fearless in what he is willing to say. And he's not a wide-eyed enthusiast for "businessy" concepts that may or may not actually work in schools.  You can read a biography here.

I am convincing few if any of the innovationistas at the National Journal's education blog that, perhaps, we're asking too much of so-called "inovation."  After all, the question put forth to start the conversation (What's Needed To Make Sure Innovation Is Working?) presumes that innovation is fundamentally a good and right strategy for addressing education's woes.

But I'm having a grand time losing, and have enlisted Dana Goldstein's fascinating and timely article on the rise of innovation as a favorite (fetish?) of the Obama administration.  It's called The Innovation Administration. 

Don't think it's dry and boring or predictably progressive.  There's politics, romance, opportunity, and some surprisingly critical quotes from folks like Eric Nee and Vanessa Kirsch you might think would be unwaveringly enthusiastic. 

The first 13 contributors to the National Journal’s discussion on innovation largely echoed the heroic infatuation of theorists with "disruptive innovation," arguing that education needs "radically new approaches," "federal leverage" to destroy local policies and "antiquated" contracts, and the adoption of Frederick Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom as the innovators’ Bible.

Diane Ravich provided a reality check, however, "educators do not need to reinvent the wheel. They need schools that are stable ... (educators) do not need is a plethora of programs showered upon them by non-educators who know everything ..." Agreeing with Ravich’s reminder that "it is not the role of the federal government to dictate ‘solutions’ that are not based on research or court orders," Bruce Hunter noted "many innovators have a political and ideological agenda, rather than an educational agenda."

The discussion’s turnaround was prompted by Alexander Russo, who asked whether innovation is "over-rated and ... (whether) implementation of simple ideas is the real thing we need more of? Health care organizations have learned the immense power of extremely simple tools like mosquito nets, home visits, water filters, cell phones, and small loans. ... I worry that we'll end up with too many wild-eyed innovations and another distracted decade."

Then, common sense and tough-minded researchers took over the conversation. Jim Shelton echoed Russo citing Atul Gawande who has written about "the power of a simple checklist in medicine: when doctors used basic five-step checklists in prepping before placing large IV lines into patients, they were able to cut infections by two-thirds and, over the course of 18 months in ICUs across Michigan, save more than 1,500 lives and $200 million. The steps on the checklist were not revolutionary, not even new. Among others, they were things so simple ... (as) washing their hands and putting on a sterile gown and gloves. All the materials necessary to catalyze the change, minus the checklist, already existed in every hospital. This innovation was the essence of simplicity ..."

Sherman Dorn applied Russo’s logic to one of education’s most maddening problems describing a school’s several years of "boiling down" interventions "to a simple behavioral contract approach that a coordinator at any school could manage," producing a "significant reduction in behavior troubles and referrals to special education." John Easton recommended "asking practitioners to let their experience shape our research agenda, and as part of that engagement, to help test and improve promising innovations. If we want schools to be stable, coherent organizations...."

And Steve Peha contributed brilliant and hilarious syntheses of T.S. Kuhn, a scorecard of "innovation versus schools," and detailed recommendations for bringing innovations to scale.　

It is fitting that Russo, curmudgeonly, got in the last word "with no expectation of convincing anyone in the near term, I will still sound the warning against fetishizing unproven, small-scale, marginal-benefit ideas. Innovation is not magic. Calling a program "innovative" does not make it any more effective, affordable, or scaleable." - John Thompson

"She's into education and rehabilitation and thinks Obama is all about welfare and handouts." (UsMagazine)

NY dad pleads guilty to kidnapping superintendent AP
A former New York City police officer has admitted he held a suburban school superintendent at gunpoint in June....

Obama Turns to Sesame Street & Corporations to Invigorate Science Ed Change.org
Obama wanted $115 million, which was cut to $7 million by the House, and to zero by the Senate.

Oregon teachers may get OK to wear religious clothing in class Oregon Live
Oregon's prohibition on allowing teachers to exercise their faith by covering their heads or wearing other religious garb dates to a shameful anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant period in state history and is overdue to be changed, House Speaker Dave Hunt, D-Gladstone, said Monday.

Historic Bangs Avenue School will be retitled to honor President Obama Asbury Park Press
The next step is to send an already-drafted letter to Monmouth County Schools Superintendent Carol K. Morris, who then will notify the state Department of Education. A ceremony is expected to be announced at a later date.

LAUSD Superintendent orders hiring freeze and other cuts Daily News
Cortines said the district is facing an estimated $50 million to $60 million deficit this year and a possible $480 million deficit for the 2010-11 school year.

Mass. Senate hopeful Khazei touts City Year legacy AP
During the first half of 2003, Alan Khazei watched as his life's work skittered toward the edge of a fiscal cliff. [you read about him in Dana Goldstein's innovations article, remember?]

An education love triangle joins forces to invade Washington Post Gotham Schools Good will and holiday cheer all around as Michelle Rhee’s current fiance endorses her ex-husband in his quest to get a column in the newspaper Rhee spurns.
 
Tween Protests Anomie of Modern Urban Life  Gawker
Francisco Hernandez—after being warned by his mom that she needed to have a serious talk with him about his performance at school—hopped on a subway train with ten dollars in his pocket and just rode the rails. For eleven f'ing days, before a transit cop recognized his face from a poster.

Should School Reformers Pay More Attention to the Non-Academic Needs of Poor Children? EdNext
Joe Williams and Pedro Noguera debate the proposition in Poor Schools or Poor Kids?, an article just published on the Ed Next website.

From Test Takers to Test Makers ASCD Inservice
Norwegian educator Kari Smith found that her students who were good at retaining factual knowledge and answering what and when questions often did well on tests but did not necessarily understand the material. In contrast, students who did understand the material and the relationships between facts had trouble demonstrating that knowledge at test time.

While N.Y inner-city schools struggle for survival... Small Talk
"Ross Global, Courtney Ross’s new charter school, is holistic, organic, Ayurvedic, artistic, and evolutionary. But when you’re building an educational Utopia, there are going to be some casualties."

Is Wall Street Stealing Our Rhodes Scholars?  The Atlantic Wire
Is something wrong if the crème de la crème of American undergraduates are going to Wall Street? This is question has long troubled some in the Ivy League, but now it is being asked with reference to a very specific group of élites: the Rhodes scholars.

“Performance management” is one of those buzz phrases that I usually like to make fun of, but I did my best to withhold judgment last week when I had the chance to talk with Lori Fey from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, which is all over the concept and has a new report out on the topic. (Plus which, my favorite Bush-era press guy Kevin Sullivan pitched it to me.)

Five years ago there were “precious few” examples of performance management in school settings, according to Fey, and now there are at least 18 district examples and 14 charter networks doing it.  The newest cohort of Dell grantees includes Denver, Charlotte-Meckl, and PG County.

I remain skeptical about the power and usefulness of this approach, but I did take away at least one hopeful idea:  streamlining data collection and analysis so that it’s a tool not an obstacle to educators and teachers.  It's gotta be easy and fast for it to be of any real use. And I do like the notion that sometimes the data is useful to debunk myths about school performance and start new conversations.  Lord knows we need some new conversations around here.