Education Next

Charters as Role Models

The charter school movement turns 14

this year, and its behavior, some might say, is “developmentally

appropriate.”

Disappearing Ink

What happens when the education reporter goes away?

Linky Love, Snark Attacks, and Fierce Debates about Teacher Quality?

A peek inside the education blogosphere

Arrested Development

Online training is the norm in other professions. Why not in K–12 education?

Opinion Leaders or Laggards?

Newspaper editorialists support charter schools, split on NCLB

Wikipedia or Wickedpedia?

Assessing the online encyclopedia’s impact on K–12 education

Let’s Talk About It

Talk radio’s take on K–12 education

Teacher’s Little Helper

New technologies target teacher performance

Testing the Limits of NCLB

Implementation is not the problem

The Key to Research Influence

Quality data and sound analysis matter, after all

No Business Like Show Business

Hollywood and Hip-Hop Discover Charter Schools

Misdirected Energy

Schools get an A in resisting reform.

The Cure

Will NCLB’s restructuring wonder drug prove meaningless?

A New New Federalism

The case for national standards and tests

The Gates Conspiracy

A perceptive reader pointed this out to me. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation originally provided 15 states with $250,000 planning grants to help them prepare their Race to the Top applications. After a firestorm of controversy, Gates made similar grants available to the other states. But note this:
Original Gates States:
Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, [...]

Sweet Sixteen?

The news that 15 states plus the District of Columbia qualified as finalists in the first round of the “Race to the Top” is sure to anger many reformers, and for good reason.

The Future of Education Journalism

Video: Linda Perlstein talks with Education Next about what the decline of newspapers means for coverage of education.

“Public” Schools in Name Only

A new report from Fordham today identifies some 2,800 “private public schools” nationwide—public schools that serve virtually no poor students. More students attend these schools than attend charter schools. And in some metro areas, like New York’s, almost 30 percent of white students attend these exclusive schools.

Rick Hess in the House

Watch out edusphere, here comes Hess. Our good friend (and fellow executive editor at Ed Next) Rick Hess has launched a new blog, Rick Hess Straight Up on the coveted real estate of edweek.org. In his first post (992 words; Rick, it’s a blog, not a book!), Hess manages to skewer the NEA, the school [...]

Boys and School

Video: Richard Whitmire talks with Education Next about how K-12 schools shortchange boys and what can be done to help boys do better in school.

“The Research on [Insert Preferred Policy Choice Here] Is As Clear As Anything in the Field of Education.”

Here’s a general rule: when you see sentences like the one above, know to be very, very skeptical.

To track or not to track? That’s not the question

With 2010 fast approaching, I’ve been hearing from several reporters asking about the best or worst education ideas of this decade. Here’s a sleeper issue that might deserve that moniker: the trend, seen in middle and high schools nationwide, to collapse the number of “tracks” offered to students in order to push more kids into challenging courses.

The Perpetual Stimulus

The Administration is foreshadowing a second stimulus package, this one likely to focus on bailing out local and state governments, including and especially public school systems. Last year a serious argument could be made that our economy was at risk of entering a deflationary cycle, and laying off a bunch of teachers didn’t make smart economic sense. But nobody can make the case today that giving the pink slip to thousands of teachers is going to wreck our economy and usher in the second Great Depression.

A “Race to the Top” Flip-Flop

The Wall Street Journal editorial page has already taken the Administration to task for backing away from some of its tougher “Race to the Top” provisions, but check out this morsel, thanks to Education Daily…

Book Alert: Leading for Equity

This self­-described “celebration” of the Montgomery County Public Schools, a 140,000-­student behemoth in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, is no doubt meant to add the district to the list of superstar systems worthy of national attention.

The One Winner in Today’s NAEP Release: Michelle Rhee

There’s not much good news in today’s National Assessment of Educational Progress results for mathematics. But there is a silver lining for DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee: her schools, and those in just four states, were the only ones to post gains in both fourth and eighth grades over the past two years.

La crème de la crème

It’s true that charter opponents can’t look at the recent Hoxby study and claim that it unfairly compares one type of student to another. But it doesn’t prove at all that charter schools aren’t creaming. Of course they are creaming. And good for them for doing it.

High Achieving Kids Need Options, Too

On Friday, Tom Loveless and I published an op-ed in the New York Times that argued that our nation’s highest-achieving students are only making minimal gains in the era of NCLB, while low-achieving students have made huge strides since 2000.

The coming crash in school revenue?

Everyone knows that school spending has been rising at a steady clip for just about forever. But is the Era of Big Spending coming to an end?

Helping African American Boys Succeed

Video: Kaleem Caire tells Education Next: “I was one of those young men who you would not think was ready for a rigorous education, but it was a rigorous environment that helped propel me to where I am.”