Education Next

The Obama Administration will announce today that 10 states will receive waivers from NCLB requirements. In the Winter 2012 issue of Ed Next, Rotherham and Martha Derthick debate whether President Obama was right to offer states conditional waivers releasing them from some requirements of NCLB.

In Chicago, an evaluation of the city’s aggressive efforts to turn around failing schools is spurring heated debate over whether the gains seen in turnaround schools are signficiant and whether the approach should be expanded to more schools. The study, by the Consortium on Chicago School Research, found that elementary and middle schools that were part of the turnaround effort were catching up to district averages, but high schools were not. In the Winter 2009 issue of Ed Next, Bryan Hassel and Emily Ayscue Hassel wrote about the key ingredients for successful school turnarounds. In the Winter 2010 issue of Ed Next, Andy Smarick argued against the turnaround approach.