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Unless you live under a rock (or if you don't track education policy matters through social media - same thing), you know about the "big" study about teacher effects that was conducted by Chetty, Friedman and Rockoff, disseminated through NBER and reported in multiple outlets, most notably the New York Times. This is an important study for at least a couple of reasons. First, methodologically, the study is massive and novel in some important ways. Second, from a policy perspective, even if the authors overreach in their interpretation, the study adds to the growing body of literature on teacher effectiveness and value-added measures. The more empirical evidence we have, the better; that's the nature of scientific research.

Did the New York Times sensationalize its account of an analysis of value-added measures of teacher performance it recently featured on its front page, misleading its readers about its policy implications? Have commentators such as the Times' own Nicholas Kristof and bloggers such as Ed Sector's Kevin Carey seized upon the Times' misleading narrative to confirm pre-existing policy biases, rather than do their own careful reading of what is universally acknowledged to be a rather complex study? Was Mayor Bloomberg's cynical use of the analysis and Kristof's column in his State of the City address to teacher bash and union bash, as he cited them to justify his mass closure of PLA schools and his refusal to negotiate meaningful appeals of ineffective ratings, not the logical conclusion of this misrepresentation of educational research? An email exchange I had with one of the co-authors of the study, Raj Chetty of Harvard, provides interesting evidence that the answer to all of these questions is yes.

Our culture of immediate gratification is changing our children. Diana Senechal, teacher and author, explains what we're losing.

...they both ignore the facts and push unproven experiments on our children.

Kristof buries the fact that the study is based on value-added methodology and conflates student performance on test scores with good teaching. He alludes to value-added in the 11th paragraph, but never actually addresses the fact that test scores and value added analysis aren't infallible. The study authors (and this piece shouldn't detract from the worth and value of the study, which merits a read) are clear on this, even though Kristof is not.

A series of studies from Roland Fryer and colleagues have explored the effectiveness of specific charter school models and strategies, including Harlem Childrens' Zone (Dobbie & Fryer, 2009), "no excuses" charter schools in New York City (Dobbie & Fryer, 2011), schools within the Houston public school district (Apollo 20) mimicking no excuses charter strategies (Fryer, 2011, Fryer, 2012), and an intensive urban residential schooling model in Baltimore, MD (Curto & Fryer, 2011).  In each case, the models in question involve resource intensive strategies, including substantially lengthening school days and years, providing small group (2 or 3 on 1) intensive tutoring, providing extensive community based wrap around services (Harlem Childrens' Zone) or providing student housing and residential support services (Baltimore). The broad conclusion across these studies is that charter schools or traditional public schools can produce dramatic improvements to student outcomes by implementing no excuses strategies and perhaps wrap around services, and that these strategies come at relatively modest marginal cost. Regarding the benefits of the most expensive alternative explored - residential schooling in Baltimore (at a reported $39,000 per pupil) - the authors conclude that no excuses strategies of extended day and year, and intensive tutoring are likely more cost effective. But, each of these studies suffers from poorly documented and often ill-conceived comparisons of costs and/or marginal expenditures.

Columnist Alan Chartock ("Cuomo the students' lobbyist? Not really," Jan. 15) rightly points out Gov. Cuomo's surplus confidence in claiming to be the lobbyist for the state's students.  He correctly observes the "terrible situation" that Chancellor Merryl Tisch and the Board of Regents will be in if Cuomo sets up another education commission, stripping them of much or perhaps all of their authority. He affirms that the Regents offer protection from a political takeover of public schools, saying, "the whole idea was to get the traditional grubby politicians out of the game." However, he fails to point out that both Tisch and the Regents have not done a good job representing the best in public education lately.

The percentage of charter schools that are being closed when they are up for renewal has fallen for two straight years, a new report finds, though it's unclear whether the decline is a result of improved quality, or lax oversight and persistent political pressure to keep low-performers open. In the 2010-11 year, 6.2 percent of charters reviewed for renewal were shut down, a decrease from 8.8 percent the previous year and 12.6 percent the year before that, according to a report released today by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. NACSA officials acknowledge that they don't have clear explanations for why closure rates fell.

An Indianapolis-based nonprofit organization has crafted a sweeping plan for reworking the 33,000-student Indianapolis school system that would place the district under the control of the city's mayor, pare down the money spent in central administration, and give principals broad authority to hire and fire teachers. The reform plan created by the Mind Trust organization would transform the district's schools into what the report calls "Opportunity Schools," which would be given "unprecedented freedom over staffing, budgets, curriculum, and culture," as long as they continued to meet high standards. Those schools would compete for students who live within the district's boundaries.

As state after state rewrites their education laws in line with the mandates from Race to the Top and the NCLB waiver process, the teaching profession is being redefined. Teachers will now pay the price - be declared successes or failures, depending on the rise or fall of their students' test scores. Under NCLB it was schools that were declared failures. In states being granted waivers to NCLB, it is teachers who will be subjected to this ignominy. Of course we will still be required to label the bottom 5% of our schools as failures, but if the Department of Education has its way, soon every single teacher in the profession will be at risk for the label. This revelation came to me as I read the Score Card on Education prepared by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), authored by Dr. Matthew Ladner and Dan Lips. This is a remarkable document. It provides their report on where each of the states stands on the education "reform" that has become the hallmark of corporate philanthropies, the Obama administration and governors across the nation.

The education debate in New Jersey is increasingly becoming a debate about local control of schools. Governor Christie and ACTING Education Commissioner Cerf's emphasis on standardized testing, charter schools, and tenure reform are top-down policy edicts that take more and more authority away from local districts and put it into the hands of Trenton. What's emerged over the last year in response is a true grassroots resistance to the imposition of corporate "reform." Boards of education, parents, teachers, and concerned citizens are coming together in an effort to stop the destruction of New Jersey's outstanding public school system through state-wide fiat.

Plenty of school reformers say that if 5 to 10 percent of teachers in the United States are fired each year, then U.S. standardized test scores would compete with the top-achieving nations. It's not true, but that doesn't stop them from saying it. Well, now we learn that teachers are no longer the only professionals who are being targeted for wholesale firing. Here's the lead "story" from the new spring edition of a satirical Onion-esque publication designed for those of us who religiously follow education policy and choose to laugh rather than cry about it. The publication is called Education Tweak and it's anonymously authored and published. The latest issue is the 20th; this and all the back issues are available at edtweak.com.

Pedro Noguera, a trustee of the State University of New York, resigned late last month, citing concerns that SUNY and its Charter Schools Institute, which authorizes charters in New York, has a political agenda to increase the number of charters, rather than a mission to develop experimental schools. SchoolBook invited Mr. Noguera to explain his decision. Here is his open letter.

American teachers unions are increasingly the target of measures, authored by friends and foes alike, intended to limit their power, or even eviscerate them. Looking at this scene, one would never guess that the countries that are among the top 10 in student performance have some of the strongest teachers unions in the world. Are those unions in some way different from American teachers unions? Do unions elsewhere behave differently from American teachers unions when challenged to do what is necessary to improve student performance? To explore these questions, I compare teachers and their unions in Ontario, Canada and Finland with their U.S. counterparts.

Last week, the Education Week Teacher online site reported on a new study that used federal wage, benefit, and job-security data, along with measures of cognitive ability, to argue that teachers are overpaid compared to what they would earn in the private sector. The study, authored by Andrew G. Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Jason Richwine, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, challenged the refrain that teachers are, in the words of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, "desperately underpaid." I suppose it's because Biggs is a colleague of mine at AEI, but many have wondered about my thoughts on the study.

Principal Skinner may cower in the face of authority, but his counterparts on Long Island have not hesitated to take a stand against policymakers pushing a wrongheaded agenda. Head over to www.longislandprincipals.org and see what I mean. And read the front-page article in Newsday. When confronted with New York's new system that uses students' test scores to evaluate teachers and principals, they responded with a clear statement that the policy will hurt students and should be opposed.

Thanks to good ol' Mike Petrilli, much of this week's education policy debate has centered on the relevance of local school boards and the age old tug-of-war between state and local authority over the operation and financing of local public school districts. Much of the debate has been framed in terms of "democracy," and much of it has been rather fun and interesting to watch.  That is, until Mike and the crew at Fordham decided to let Bob Bowdon (of Cartel fame) join in the conversation, and inject his usual bizarre understanding of the world as we know it. This time, jumping in where Petrilli had left off, Bowdon opined about how teachers unions and their advocates repeatedly cry for respecting democracy while consistently thwarting democratic efforts through legal action. The layers of absurdity in Bowdon's  logic are truly astounding, and perhaps best illustrated by walking through one of the examples he chooses.

Many of the so-called "reformers" and many of their allies among Republican governors and legislators seem to - after all, that is why they have been pushing this particular approach for a number years. If you have any interest in this topic, I am going to strongly urge you to read a just-released policy brief from the National Education Policy Center.  Titled Understanding and Improving Full-Time Virtual Schools, and has a subtitle which reads "A Study of Student Characteristics, School Finance, and School Performance in Schools Operated by K12 Inc.: The authors are Gary Miron, a professor at Western Michigan University, and Jessica L. Urschel, a doctoral student at the University.  K12 Inc. is the nation's largest operator of online charter schools, and is controversial enough that New Jersey, whose governor Chris Christie has been actively involved in undermining public education in that state, just postponed acting on a request from K12 to open a charter in that state.

A new report released today by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of Colorado shows that students at K12 Inc., the nation's largest virtual school company, are falling further behind in reading and math scores than students in brick-and-mortar schools. These virtual schools students are also less likely to remain at their schools for the full year, and the schools have low graduation rates. "Our in-depth look into K12 Inc. raises enormous red flags," said NEPC Director Kevin Welner. The report's findings will be presented in Washington today to a national meeting of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), where the report's lead author, Dr. Gary Miron, is scheduled to debate Dr. Susan Patrick, president and CEO of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning. The report is titled, Understanding and Improving Full-Time Virtual Schools.

Just when you thought we'd reached a consensus on the need to dramatically improve America's schools, a chorus is emerging to suggest all is well. First, a new book out from Harvard University Press, Is American Science In Decline? notes that "American high school students are … performing better in mathematics and science than in the past," helping explain why the authors' answer to the title question is "no." This comes on the heels of a USA Today op-ed last month urging us to "Quit Fretting: U.S. is Fine in Science Education." And why can the fretting end? Because, the pundits tell us, last year 65% of students had a "basic" grasp of science on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), up from 63% in 2009. Their conclusion: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."