No one can deny the pitiful state of America’s education system. A college degree once signaled true academic achievement and set the recipient apart. Now it has become as banal as attaining a drivers license. The average high school diploma only qualifies the holder to work at Wal-Mart. Many colleges offer remedial classes in response to the ever-growing crop of ill-prepared high school grads. Plato surely would not approve of the lowering of standards and expectations at the Academy. Reforms enacted to remedy the situation, though noble in their intent, fail to address the real problem. Bipartisan legislation such as No Child Left Behind and Head Start accomplished nothing. Pouring money into underperforming school districts makes little to no difference. Charter schools, vouchers, and merit pay for teachers can only achieve negligible-to-marginal success. (more)
What if all the desperate problems in American education had already been solved? (more)
(Via Ricochet.com) The American Federation of Teachers is very, very pleased with three stories appearing in liberal publications that purport to debunk aspects of the excellent documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” a movie by “An Inconvenient Truth” Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim that exposes the sorry state of many public schools, particularly in poor urban districts, and pleads for more charter schools. This week the AFT sent out a press release happily including links to a would-be Diane Ravitch takedown of the film in The New York Review of Books as well as pieces in the Columbia Journalism Review and on a New York Times blog.The Times blog posting is a particularly substance-free attack on the film and an implicit defense of the status quo; it says that an impoverished Bronx mom who visited a dynamic Harlem charter school with her child then returned to the school with Guggenheim’s cameras in tow to recreate the experience of her first visit. Quel scandale! The Ravitch piece makes only the mildest murmurs of protest about teacher tenure, which as the film demonstrates is essentially awarded to any pedagogue who can remain breathing. Ravitch says tenure amounts merely to giving teachers “due process.” Well. It’s a process that leads to three out of 55,000 tenured New York City teachers getting the sack. Maybe all the others are doing a fine job. (more)
In an election season marked by debates over the virtues of the public sector, and amidst claims by teachers’ unions and their allies that private schooling is inimical to good democratic citizenship, a new national study reports that private school teachers are at least as committed to promoting traditional notions of citizenship as their public school counterparts. (more)
In a huge boost for the charter-school movement, President Obama is set to meet today in the Oval Office with the five kids featured in the documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman’ ” which trumpets the need to reform the country’s education system. (more)
“Waiting for Superman” (2010). Davis Guggenheim, director. Paramount/Vantage, 102 minutes. Documentary. (more)
I have been fighting to improve America’s schools for almost my entire adult life. I say this not to brag, but because it’s true. I chose a career in education reform, and as a result, I’ve learned a lot of lessons over the last 20 years. (more)
Suppose that a conservative Republican administration, in the middle of high unemployment and an economic slowdown, proposed new regulations that would most hurt lower income people and minority groups and the for-profit colleges and universities that serve them? Can you imagine the cries of outrage from liberal critics, condemning “hard-hearted” Republicans targeting the most vulnerable young people in our society? (more)
Michiganders are welcoming a first-in-the-nation — a public charter school that trains high-schoolers for careers in the aviation industry. (more)
Over the next several weeks, 54.4 million children will go back to school. For many children, the start of school marks the ceremonial end of summer, and a return to the excitement of a new school year. (more)
With the Obama administration pouring billions into its nationwide campaign to overhaul failing schools, dozens of companies with little or no experience are portraying themselves as school turnaround experts as they compete for the money. (more)
Laura Drews has converted a corner of her San Jose dining room into a public school. Every weekday, she guides her first-, fifth- and eighth-grade children through their class assignments, delivered through textbooks and desktop computers. (more)
DENVER — Democrats backed by the state’s largest teachers’ union nicknamed legislation overhauling Colorado’s tenure and evaluation rules the “teacher scapegoat” bill, and several lawmakers wept in public sessions during their monthlong battle to stop it. (more)
A recent lengthy New York Times article on charter schools, which are deregulated publicly funded schools of choice, came to the conclusion that the record of these schools was mixed, with some charters doing better than regular public schools, while others perform about the same or worse. That’s no surprise since even supporters acknowledge that there are good and bad charters. The real story that the Times overlooked is the ability of charter schools to use their freedom in order to transform themselves if they are not performing well. (more)
In the world of education, it was the equivalent of the cool kids’ table in the cafeteria. (more)
Ever heard of a union that doesn’t want to give its members the opportunity to earn more money? (more)
It’s been a week since the Education Department announced the winners of Race to the Top’s first round. And in that week, there’s been much speculation over why these two states, Delaware and Tennessee, overcame the competition. This federal competitive grant program was part of the stimulus package, and bestowed upon the ED $4.3 billion to award to states for exemplary school reform initiatives. Delaware came away with $100 million and Tennessee, $500 million. States were graded on a 500-point scale. (more)
ALBANY — Accountability is a mantra of the charter school movement. Students sign pledges at some schools to do their homework, and teachers owe their jobs to students’ gains on tests. (more)
With CPAC attendees descending on Washington this week, with a new conservative manifesto being penned to protect the Constitution, and with Tea Parties being planned for the spring, I find myself hoping and praying that such small-government fervor infiltrates the ranks of education reformers. (more)
