Author
Frederick Hess
Articles
Combating the ‘Culture of Can’t’
When it comes to reforming American education, school officials have far more freedom to transform, reimagine, and invigorate teaching, learning, and schooling than is widely believed.
Creating a Corps of Change Agents
What explains the success of Teach For America?
Pyrrhic Victories?
The following essay is part of a forum, written in honor of Education Next’s 10th anniversary, in which the editors assessed the school reform movement’s victories and challenges to see just how successful reform efforts have been. For the other side of the debate, please see A Battle Begun, Not Won by Paul E. Peterson, [...]
Fueling the Engine
Smarter, better ways to fund education innovators
The Accidental Principal
What doesn’t get taught at ed schools?
Few States Set World-Class Standards
In fact, most render the notion of proficiency meaningless
How to Get the Teachers We Want
Specialization would lead to better teaching and higher salaries
The Accreditation Game
The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (known broadly as NCATE, pronounced “en kate”) was launched in 1954 by a coalition of professional organizations from across the education community. Previously, teacher-training programs had been accredited by states, regional accrediting bodies, or an association of teacher colleges, each equipped with its own benchmarks and methods [...]
Crash Course
NCLB is driven by education politics
What Innovators Can, and Cannot, Do
Squeezing into local markets and cutting deals
The Work Ahead
Does school choice push public schools to improve?
Lifting the Barrier
Eliminating the state-mandated licensure of principles and superintendents is the first step in recruiting and training a generation of leaders capable of transforming America’s schools
Technical Difficulties
Information technology could help schools do more with less. If only educators knew how to use it
Johnny Can Read…in Some States
Johnny can’t read … in South Carolina. But if his folks move to Texas, he’ll be reading up a storm. What’s going on? It turns out that in complying with the requirements of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), some states have decided to be a whole lot more generous than others in determining whether students [...]
Strike Phobia
School boards need to drive a harder bargain
Keeping an Eye on State Standards
A race to the bottom?
Blog Posts/Multimedia
‘More Professional Development’: The Easy (But Ineffectual) Answer
We spend a lot on professional development, yet hardly any of it actually appears to make teachers better.
Putting the Poli Sci Back in the Politics of Ed … & Three New Books That Continue a Heartening Trend
Spurred by the experiences of No Child Left Behind and all that followed, there’s been a resurgence of political scientists studying education
Straight Up Conversation: Common Core Guru Jason Zimba
My interview with Jason Zimba, Jazon Zimba, founding principal of Student Achievement Partners (SAP) and lead writer on the Common Core mathematics standards
2013 RHSU Edu-Scholar Bonus Round
Three new tools make it possible to tinker with the Edu-Scholar rankings in cool new ways.
2013 RHSU Edu-Scholar Top 10 Lists
Which professors topped the charts in different disciplines?
The 2013 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings
Which university-based academics are contributing most substantially to public debates about K-12 and higher education?
The 2013 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Presence Scoring Rubric
The metric described here is used to rank 168 university-based edu-scholars who are widely regarded as having some public presence.
The Five-Tool Policy Scholar
Scholars who do policy-relevant research contribute most fully when they put a broad array of relevant skills to use.
Straight Up Conversation: New Florida Commissioner Tony Bennett
Indiana’s loss turned out to be Florida’s gain, as the State Board voted unanimously last Wednesday to select Bennett as Florida’s new education commissioner.
Technology as ‘Hamburger Helper’
In most sectors, technology has indeed yielded huge savings and delivered massive increases in productivity. In education, though, it’s been a different story.
Making Civics Count
This new book features an all-star lineup of experts shining a spotlight on civic education to help policymakers, educators, parents, and voters better understand the state of civic ed.
Obama the Education Spending Hawk
It’s a safe bet that an Obama victory will mean more federal funding for education than would a Romney victory. But, either way, federal edu-spending is going to be on a lean diet for a good, long while.
What Would a President Romney Do on K-12?
Romney would keep much of the same substantive agenda as Obama, but would do so with a lighter touch, less spending, and more emphasis on choice.
Obama Administration and K-12: The Good and the Bad
We’re rolling into the final sprint to the election; this makes it a good time to look back at what the Obama administration has done with its time in office.
Checking Out ClassDojo
Currently boasting more than four million teacher and student users, ClassDojo enables teachers to easily monitor and track student behaviors in real time.
Daily News Twists Evaluation Into Cheap Shot at School of One
The New York Daily News did an awful job of conveying what we know about School of One thus far.
Parent Power and Education Advocacy
Despite conventional assumptions that “choice” parents would be easier to mobilize, choice doesn’t necessarily equal activism.
BASIS and DC: Achievement Gap Mania Strikes Again
Arguing that DC should only welcome charters that have the mission of boosting proficiency in reading and math seems a surefire way of shortchanging kids who are capable of much more.
Thinking Policy: Four Tips for Educators
If you explain how you can solve a problem by making smart use of existing tools, talent, and resources, you’ll be surprised at how helpful policymakers can be
Edu-Leaders: Get Over Your Policy Allergies
If you’re wondering why people who aren’t experts on schooling get to make policy, it’s simple: they’re elected to do that.
Straight Up Conversation: New National Charter Alliance Chief Nina Rees
The new head of the national organization for the country’s charter schools talks about her goals for the group and for charter schools.
The ‘Successful’ Failure of ED in ’08?
Examining an effort that is generally recalled as a major Gates-Broad partnership that flopped, Alexander Russo argues that the whole exercise was more impactful, significant, and instructive than is widely recognized.
Straight Up Conversation: Common Core Architect and New College Board President David Coleman
Given the news and heated debate around the Common Core, it seemed a good time to chat with David about the new job.
Gov. Walker’s Recall Win Is Good News for Schooling
Walker is about to skyrocket to prominence in the conservative firmament, and several Republican governors are about to discover a new appetite for challenging public employee unions.
RTT for Districts: Four Things I Don’t Love
No matter how distracting and misguided the exercise, no matter how much energy is wasted on grant-writing and meetings, and no matter how trivial the actual dollar amounts, we’re going to see scores or hundreds of applicants spending hundreds of hours leaping through the requisite hoops.
The Big Philanthropic Shift: Now What?
New philanthropists are much more receptive to the notion that the problem is the inhospitable cultures, systems, and policy environments in which scale-ups were being attempted.
The Fate of the Common Core: The View from 2022
The Core is still with us, of course, but it remains a shadow of what its more optimistic proponents envisioned a decade ago.
Educational Leadership for a New Era
The basic premise of Rice University’s Education Entrepreneurship Program is that key leadership and management skills are universal, regardless of one’s field of endeavor, and that aspiring K-12 leaders can actually become more adept at these skills by learning with and from peers and faculty who have diverse expertise and experiences.
Straight Up Conversation: TFA Research Chief Heather Harding
Recently, Education Week’s “Living in Dialogue” blog featured a number of provocative posts on Teach For America. Phil Kovacs penned a guest post that offered a sharp critique of TFA and the research supporting its efforts.
The Problem with One-Size-Fits-All Approaches to Teacher Quality
The world is a complex place and adopting mechanistic, one-size-fits-all solutions, like so many of the statewide teacher evaluation and pay systems being championed today, make it likely that thousands of schools and millions of teachers and students will be snared by systems that are a poor match for their needs.
Cage-Busting Leadership
Leaders have far more freedom to transform, reimagine, and invigorate teaching, learning, and schooling than is widely believed.
Straight Up Conversation: Douglas County Supe Liz Fagen
We pay a lot of attention to urban school districts, but much less to high-performing suburbs–where there’s typically less interest in much of the current “reform” agenda. All of that makes Liz and Douglas County kind of unique. I thought it worth chatting with Liz a bit about what they’re up to.
ARPA-ED: A Qualified Thumbs-Up
Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) has proposed an “Education-ARPA,” modeled on the famed Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The Obama administration has included a similar proposal, carving the dollars out of i3.
Straight Up Conversation: New Louisiana Schools Chief John White
In January, 36-year-old John White took the reins as the state superintendent of education in Louisiana. He was appointed by the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on a 9-1 vote, inheriting the ambitious reform legacy of his predecessor, Paul Pastorek. White had moved to Louisiana in 2011 to take over as head of [...]
A Shameless Display on Waivers
The Obama administration made its big NCLB “waiver” announcement last week , getting the predictable, fawning edu-coverage. Here are six things about this latest spin of the waiver saga that seemed particularly disconcerting.
Carrots, Sticks, & the Bully Pulpit
This new book examines what we’ve learned about what Uncle Sam does and doesn’t do well when it comes to education innovation, accountability, equity, and research.
Straight Up Conversation: Departing Kasich Edu-Advisor Bob Sommers on Reform in Ohio
For the past year, Bob Sommers served as newly elected Ohio Governor John Kasich’s education advisor and helped to spearhead the Governor’s reform efforts.
The 2012 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings
Here are the 2012 Edu-Scholar Public Presence rankings, which are designed to recognize those university-based academics who are contributing most substantially to public debates about schools and schooling.
The Five-Tool Policy Scholar
Tomorrow I’ll be publishing the 2012 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings. Today, just like last year, I want to take a few moments to explain what those ratings are about and how they were generated.
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