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"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." Albert Einstein I have a few essential questions before going further any further in the name of standards-based reform. 1) Are standards expectations? 2) Are standards limitations? 3) Should the practice of standardizing performance and quality in the business world be translated into assessing children in the world of education? 4) Is standards-based reform what is best for kids?

Recent studies have examined the relationship between principals and student outcomes, and attempted to identify what characteristics and qualifications are needed to be an effective principal, whether that's providing staff with the resources and support they need, hiring and retaining the best talent, setting expectations for instruction, or simply gaining more experience. So what has the research found out? Let's take a look.

Over the objections of teachers' unions and many Democrats, Louisiana's Republican governor and GOP-controlled legislature have crafted one of the most exhaustive education overhauls of any state in the country, through measures that will dramatically expand families' access to public money to cover the costs of both private school tuition and individual courses offered by a menu of providers. A pair of bills championed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, which he is expected to sign into law, will expand a state-run private-school-voucher program beyond New Orleans to other academically struggling schools around the state, give superintendents and principals direct control over personnel decisions, and set much higher standards for awarding teachers tenure.

he race for City Hall starts in the classrooms Mayor Michael Bloomberg may not be running for reelection next year, but he will undoubtedly be playing a starring role in the race to replace him. The six Democrats expected to run next year are all supportive of the mayor's efforts to take control of the school system, but differ with Bloomberg on most everything else-whether it's school closures, co-locations with charter schools, relations with the teachers union or standardized test scores. So if next year's race is for the right to be the next education mayor, how do the candidates stack up? What are their qualifications, their accomplishments and their thoughts on some of the more controversial policies of the Bloomberg administration? David Bloomfield, a professor of education at CUNY and an expert on education policy in New York, was kind enough to offer his analysis of each candidate's qualifications.

Two state education officials, expected to play a key role in the future of the city's school system, share a common background with MBAs and ties to a Los Angeles-based foundation. One more similarity: Camden's school board has rebuffed initial requests from their reform programs. Bing Howell and Rochelle Sinclair are assigned to state Department of Education programs - Hope Act Schools and Regional Achievement Centers - that are intended to upgrade the performance of Camden's school system. Both are fellows of the Broad (rhymes with road) Foundation, a nonprofit that seeks to improve urban schools through "better governance, management, labor relations and competition."

The office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo is touting some unflattering figures about New York's educational system today-"73 percent of New York's students graduate from high school and 37 percent are college ready." The stat is contained in the official press release announcing the creation of the New York Education Reform Commission, a group that will meet across the state to gather input on education and then make recommendations to the governor by Dec. 1 2012, or, "such other date as the Governor shall advise the Commission." So you know expect recommendations on their time. Here is the full release from Cuomo's office

If you're an educator, a parent, a student or anyone who cares about public education, you should know that ALEC, the radical conservative lobbying group, is eyeing your throat. The American Legislative Exchange Council has been drawing drams of lifeblood from the public school system for decades, but now that it has disbanded its controversial Public Safety and Elections Task Force (read "More Guns and Fewer Democratic Voters Committee") it is expected to redouble its efforts to decrease local control of schools by parents and elected school boards, privatize public school jobs, funnel public dollars to private entities, and limit or destroy the collective bargaining rights educators rely on to advocate for students.

Sixteen years ago, Charlotte Danielson, an Oxford-trained economist, developed a description of good teaching that became the foundation for attempts by federal and state officials and school districts to quantify teacher performance. The Danielson method - articulated in her book, "Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching" (ASCD, 1996) - describes good teaching using numerous criteria within four broad areas of performance: the quality of questions and discussion techniques; a knowledge of students' special needs; the expectations set for learning and achievement; and the teacher's involvement in professional development activities. "If all you do is judge teachers by test results," Ms. Danielson told Ginia Bellafante in an interview for a Big City column in the Metropolitan section of The New York Times last month, "it doesn't tell you what you should do differently."

Education reformers place great emphasis on the importance of parental choice. But they recently revealed their hypocrisy in a way that is infuriating to all those who support the strategy. Despite protests from thousands of parents, the Panel for Education Policy voted to close 18 schools in the New York City system and shrink five more ("Thousands Gather in Brooklyn to Fight School Closures," In These Times, Feb. 10). The justification was that the schools were not providing a quality education. Presumably, the evidence used for making this determination were standardized test scores. Another 33 schools are on the list, with a decision expected by March or April.

Teachers can expected unannounced observations to factor into their annual ratings under the terms of the evaluations agreement that Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced today. The unannounced observations are one of several ways that the State Education Department and state teachers union, NYSUT, agreed to flesh out the state's 2010 evaluation law, seen as so open-ended as to stymie implementation. The agreement, which Cuomo is set to turn into law through the state budget amendment process, resolves some major points of contention while continuing to leave many elements of districts' evaluation system subject to local collective bargaining. Districts and their unions have until the end of 2012 to turn the framework into a local evaluation system, or risk losing state aid.

Clarkstown North High School Principal Harry Leonardatos said his colleagues across the state are working together to show their opposition to the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR), which is already in place in some school districts.  He expects about 100 New York State Principals, maybe more, to attend this afternoon's photo shoot, which kicks off their publicity campaign to inform state legislators and the public about the shortcomings of the APPR evaluation program.

Sometime soon we can expect a report from the Council on Foreign Relations' Independent Task Force on U.S. Education Reform and National Security, chaired by Joel Klein and Condoleezza Rice. The panel started its work in April 2011 and was charged, according to the council's Web site, with "evaluating the U.S. public education system within the context of national security." Can you guess what the report - which may be released next week - will say? In fact, knowing who headed the commission means that we can do better than just guess.

In a recent blog post, Larry Cuban muses about the enthusiasm of some superintendents, school board members, parents, and pundits for expensive, new technologies, such as "iPads, tablets, and 1:1 laptops." Without any clear evidence, they spend massively on the newest technology, expecting that "these devices will motivate students to work harder, gain more knowledge and skills, and be engaged in schooling." They believe such devices can help students develop the skills they will need in a 21st century labor market-and hope they will somehow help to narrow the achievement gap that has been widening between rich and poor. But, argues Cuban, for those school leaders "who want to provide credible answers to the inevitable question that decision-makers ask about the effectiveness of new devices, they might consider a prior question. What is the pressing or important problem to which an iPad is the solution?" Good question. Now, good enough? I am not so sure. It still implicitly assumes an iPad must be a solution to some-thing in education.

In the years since the publication of "Silenced Dialogue" and the 1995 book it inspired, Other People's Children, the standards-and-accountability school reform movement rose to prominence. Its focus on closing the achievement gap through skills building echoed many of Delpit's commitments, but she found herself troubled by the movement's discontents. Many low-income schools canceled field trips and classes in the arts, sciences and social studies, for example, in order to focus on raising math and reading standardized test scores. Now Delpit is responding in a new book, "Multiplication is for White People": Raising Expectations for Other People's Children. (The title quote comes from an African-American boy who, bored and discouraged by the difficulty of his math assignment, proclaimed the subject out-of-reach for kids like himself.) "I am angry that the conversation about educating our children has become so restricted," Delpit writes in the introduction. "What has happened to the societal desire to instill character? To develop creativity? To cultivate courage and kindness?" Here, in an interview with The Nation, Delpit discusses the intelligence of poor children, how she would reform Teach for America, and why college professors should be as focused on closing the achievement gap as K-12 educators are. The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

The National Study of CMO Effectiveness is a four-year study designed to assess the impact of CMOs on student achievement and to identify CMO structures and practices that are most effective in raising achievement. Earlier reports from the study documented substantial variation in CMOs' student achievement impacts and in CMOs' use of particular educational strategies and practices. The last report from the study found that the most effective CMOs tend to emphasize two practices in particular: high expectations for student behavior and intensive teacher coaching and monitoring. This report provides a more in-depth description of these two promising CMO practices, drawing on surveys and interviews with staff in high-performing CMOs that emphasize one or both practices.

One of New York City's wealthiest charter school operators is expected to be approved for a 50% increase in per-pupil management fees

Delegates to the National Education Association's Representative Assembly knew the news about their union's loss of membership would be bad, but it isn't clear that they knew it would be this bad. NEA officials said the union has lost more than 100,000 teachers and education support personnel since 2010, and it projects that it will lose even more in the future. By the end of its 2013-14 budget, NEA expects it will have lost 308,000 members and experienced a decline in revenue projected at some $65 million in all since 2010. (The figures are expressed in full-time equivalents, which means that the actual number of people affected is probably higher.)

"D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) recently announced a few significant changes to its teacher evaluation system (called IMPACT), including the alteration of its test-based components, the creation of a new performance category ("developing"), and a few tweaks to the observational component (discussed below). These changes will be effective starting this year. As with any new evaluation system, a period of adjustment and revision should be expected and encouraged (though it might be preferable if the first round of changes occurs during a phase-in period, prior to stakes becoming attached). Yet, despite all the attention given to the IMPACT system over the past few years, these new changes have not been discussed much beyond a few quick news articles. I think that's unfortunate: DCPS is an early adopter of the "new breed" of teacher evaluation policies being rolled out across the nation, and any adjustments to IMPACT's design - presumably based on results and feedback - could provide valuable lessons for states and districts in earlier phases of the process. Accordingly, I thought I would take a quick look at three of these changes."

"From my experience, education reporters are smart, knowledgeable, and attentive to detail. That said, the bulk of the stories about testing data - in big cities and suburbs, in this year and in previous years - could be better. Listen, I know it's unreasonable to expect every reporter and editor to address every little detail when they try to write accessible copy about complicated issues, such as test data interpretation. Moreover, I fully acknowledge that some of the errors to which I object - such as calling proficiency rates "scores" - are well within tolerable limits, and that news stories need not interpret data in the same way as researchers. Nevertheless, no matter what you think about the role of test scores in our public discourse, it is in everyone's interest that the coverage of them be reliable. And there are a few mostly easy suggestions that I think would help a great deal. Below are five such recommendations. They are of course not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather a quick compilation of points, all of which I've discussed in previous posts, and all of which might also be useful to non-journalists."

Opponents of Success Academy Cobble Hill recently created perhaps the most apropos hashtag in the brief history of Twitter: "#nosuccess." Some might find it rather odd that, in a city suffering from so much educational failure, those claiming to speak for children would promote "no success." While the intended meaning of the hashtag was obvious, let's be clear: While our opponents don't want our schools to exist, they also block much-needed reforms that could bring about far-reaching success. But what else would we expect from the United Federation of Teachers, which has stopped at nothing to prevent great new public charters from opening and to shut down high-performing charters? (It sued to do just that this spring; thankfully, it lost.)