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On the one hand you've got billionaire philanthropists like Bill Gates, pouring money into reshaping public education into whatever model they think best-and because they're billionaires, they must know best about everything, right? On the other hand you've got the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), spreading toxic, corporate-authored model legislation around the states to push for anti-immigrant laws, voter disenfranchisement laws, anti-sick leave laws and more. Except, wait. This isn't an on the one hand, on the other hand situation-they're the same hand, spreading the influence of the very wealthy not just in what politicians get elected, but what laws get passed. And Bill Gates' foundation is honoring that shared goal with a $376,635 grant to ALEC

When the National Research Council published the results of a decade-long study on the effects of standardized testing on student learning this summer, critics who have long opposed the use of exams as a teaching incentive rejoiced. But Eric Hanushek, a Stanford University economist who is influential in education research, now says the "told you so" knee-jerk reaction was unwarranted: In an article released Monday by Harvard University's journal Education Next, Hanushek argues that the report misrepresents its own findings, unjustifiably amplifying the perspective of those who don't believe in testing. His article has even caused some authors of the NRC report to express concerns with its conclusions.

Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg and Chancellor Stephen Spahn of the Dwight School in Manhattan have big dreams for education. Sahlberg, the celebrated global reformer and author of newly released (and already in reprint) Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?, spent the day at Spahn's school in Manhattan. Sahlberg discussed with faculty and students not just how and why Finland built their phenomenal, world-class education systems, but even more importantly, what needs to be done to maintain its educational excellence as this century progresses.

Pasi Sahlberg, a Finnish educator and author, had a simple question for the high school seniors he was speaking to one morning last week in Manhattan: "Who here wants to be a teacher?" Out of a class of 15, two hands went up - one a little reluctantly. "In my country, that would be 25 percent of people," Dr. Sahlberg said. "And," he added, thrusting his hand in the air with enthusiasm, "it would be more like this."

The No Child Left Behind Act is taking quite a public beating from critics on all sides these days, but a new paper argues that the law contributed to a substantial increase in students' math skills in the years after it took hold. The problem: After the initial shock of the law's "accountability" mechanisms wore off, there was a leveling-off of student gains-which suggests that bold new education policies are needed to unleash a fresh wave of academic progress, author Mark Schneider contends.

The charter school movement is gaining in popularity and maturity two decades after the passage of the state law authorizing the schools. Charter backers had hoped the creation of publicly financed, privately managed schools would reinvent and transform public education. Charters clearly have fostered change within the system. But education experts and even some of those in on the ground floor of the charter movement say the broader goal has not been achieved.

Perhaps you've seen the wonderful film, Precious Knowledge, about the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson. One of the teachers featured is Curtis Acosta, along with his remarkable students. In the letter below, which Acosta allowed Rethinking Schools to reprint here, he offers a perspective on the curricular repression that teachers and students are confronting in Tucson. For a flavor of what knowledge is outlawed by the new law, take a look at the essay assignment Acosta gave students about Ana Castillo's novel So Far From God, excerpted below, and the changes that school district authorities demanded.

The mainstream media has contributed heavily to the rampant public confusion over the teacher evaluation debate in recent weeks.  Most recently, on Sunday the NY Times featured two superficial accounts of this issue.    The first, by Nick Kristof, told a familiar if touching story about an Arkansas school librarian named Mildred Grady, who bought  some books by a favored author and slipped them onto the shelves to appeal to one particular at-risk student who later became a judge--to prove the  notion that good teachers can change lives.  This story was apparently first told in a Story Corps 2009 piece on NPR radio. Kristof concludes that this example reveals how "we need rigorous teacher evaluations, more pay for good teachers and more training and weeding-out of poor teachers."    Not so fast.  The so-called "rigorous" system currently being promoted by the state and the mayor would base  teacher evaluation largely on unreliable test scores, combined with the opinion of a principal only, without any assurances that the sort of librarian described in this story would ever be recognized as "effective" and indeed could be "weeded-out" herself - as many librarians have already, due to recent budget cuts.

New Jersey education officials had a dilemma last summer: Following the approval of a record number of charter schools, questions were flying about how closely the applications had been screened. With more prospective charters lining up, acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf, a former charter executive, bought in help - a move that proved controversial. The National Association of Charter School Authorizers, a Chicago nonprofit, had offered to fly in 14 consultants to lead Department of Education staff in the next approval round, looking toward overhauling the entire process. What was particularly enticing was that the association could arrange funding through the Newark Charter School Fund, a nonprofit backed by the same philanthropies that support the association, including the Walton Family Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Many of us have had extensive ongoing conversation about the Big Study (CFR) that caught media attention last week. That conversation has included much thoughtful feedback from the authors of the study.  That's how it should be. A good, ongoing discussion delving into technical details and considering alternative policy implications.

A persistent -- and, I think, powerful -- theme in conservatism is the emphasis upon limits and doubt about the wisdom of centralized actors.  One of the strongest pragmatic defenses of the free market is that centralized authority is not efficient enough and wise enough to direct the economic energies of the nation; hence, a diversity of economic actors should make their own, personal economic decisions.  Moreover, a mainstream of conservative philosophy from Burke onwards suggests that the richness of a given human society and culture goes beyond mere statistics -- something about the weave of human life resists quantification. However, a great many "conservatives" ignore these teachings when the topic of education "reform" comes up.

Forget Santa Claus and saunas, the biggest export from Finland these days is its educational system. During a two-day conference this week at Stanford University, Finnish educators discussed how they improved so dramatically and what the United States can learn from the Nordic country. Finnish education reform can be summed up in ten points, according to Pasi Sahlberg, a director at the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and author of Finnish Lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland? The first nine are instructive, but it's number ten that sums it up neatly and harshly.

Most of the coverage about the Department of Education's role as a charter authorizer in recent weeks has focused on the management scandals at the Believe Network and the decision to close Peninsula Prep after three years of C's (although interestingly enough, the role of for-profit charter manager Victory Schools has mostly been left out of the Peninsula Prep story, despite quotes from current Victory executive and past DOE Charter Office head Michael Duffy in the Times coverage of the school's closing). Equally important, however, was the DOE's decision to grant a two-year renewal to the third school it had placed on the closure list this year - Opportunity Charter School, a charter founded to serve students with special education needs. The DOE's threat to close Opportunity had inspired a passionate response from the school's community, including powerful presentations of evidence from the district's own progress reports showing its success in helping students with intense special education needs achieve academically and graduate from high school at rates well above other schools in the city.

Among the topics are expanding the New Orleans voucher program statewide to funnel state tax dollars to private schools, revising teacher tenure and granting school superintendents and principals hiring and firing authority that now is held by school boards. The plan also alters teacher tenure, making it easier to dismiss teachers not performing well in classrooms

Ten years ago, George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, the law that has dominated U.S. education-and the education policy debate-for the entire decade. While lawmakers are struggling to update that measure, experts across the political spectrum are struggling to make sense of its impact and legacy. Did NCLB, and the consequential accountability movement it embodied, succeed? And with near-stagnant national test scores of late, is there reason to think that this approach to school reform is exhausted? If not "consequential accountability," what could take the U.S. to the next level of student achievement? Join three leading experts at the Fordham Institute at 8:30 a.m. EST on January 5 as they wrestle with these questions. Panelists include Hoover Institute economist Eric Hanushek, DFER's Charles Barone, and former NCES commissioner Mark Schneider, author of a forthcoming Fordham analysis of the effects of consequential accountability.

Drawing on a statewide study of Florida middle-school reading coaches, this article examines what constitutes, contributes to, and is associated with high-quality coaches and coaching. Authors find that coaches generally held many of the qualifications recommended by state and national experts and principals and teachers rated their coaches highly on many indicators of quality. However, several common concerns about recruiting, retaining, and supporting high-quality coaches emerged. Estimates from models indicate that a few indicators of coach experience, knowledge, and skills had significant associations with perceived improvements in teaching and higher student achievement, although the magnitude of the latter relationship was quite small. Findings suggest that although possessing strong reading knowledge and instructional expertise may be important for coaching, it may not be sufficient.

Looking back on 2011, we saw in K-12 education some continuation of the misguided obsession with teachers unions, as Republican governors sought to cripple public employee unions in Wisconsin and Ohio. To add to the drumbeat, authors Terry Moe and Steven Brill published high-profile anti-teacher union books. But if some politicians and pundits got it wrong, there was good news from voters, as Ohio residents in November repealed the wrongheaded attack on teachers and other public employees, and North Carolina voters backed a return to school integration in Wake County public schools, the state's largest district. 

The actor Matt Damon and his mother, a professor of education, on Wednesday turned down an award from the country's largest teachers union after reading an opinion article that the union's president had co-authored with the founder of Teach for America. Writing that she was "confused by your collaboration" with Teach for America, Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige said she and her son, Mr. Damon, no longer desired to be nominated for the National Education Association's Friend of Education Award.

The decision by Dennis Van Roekel to co-author a column with Teach For America director Wendy Kopp continues to generate negative reaction among educators, the latest being the decision by Nancy Carlsson-Paige and her son Matt Damon to reject the union's Friend of Education award. The response by the union has been defensive.

Arizona's ban on ethnic studies proscribes Mexican-American history, local authors, even Shakespeare