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In "It's Poverty, Not Stupid" I proved that we should seek to raise the achievement of all students, but that our national focus should be on our poorest, under-resourced schools and students, who are the reason for our "average" international ranking. The following post includes excerpts from an article by Marcus Pohlman in the Washington Post and by my personal experiences leading two high-poverty schools

The party line for advocates of online learning is that virtual and brick-and-mortar schools should work collaboratively to find the best learning solutions for every student, which may or may not look like a traditional classroom experience. But in many places, the fiscal realities of state policy in a down economy can pit potential collaborators against each other.

I have been wary of Geoffrey Canada as a social commentator ever since he published a book called "Fist,Knife, Stick Gun" whose first section describes the Morrisania section of the South Bronx in the 1950's and 1960's as a hell hole, a place plagued with violence and negativity. Violence and negativity there certainly was, but there were also great neighborhood sports programs, vibrant churches, great music and arts programs in the public schools, and many mentors and "old heads" who helped guide young people away from trouble. Canada's grim vision of this predominantly Black section of the Bronx, contradicted by liiterally scores of interviews I did with people who lived in the same community, was a disturbing example of literary "tunnel vision"- an author's propensity to make his personal experience universal.

"We need to take stock of the growing evidence of significant problems with states' charter experiments. Data show most charter schools perform the same or worse than host district schools, and many charters rank among states' persistently lowest performing schools. Studies also show that charter schools are not serving students comparable to those enrolled in district schools, particularly very low income students, students with disabilities and those learning English."

The student-teaching experience offered by many traditional schools of education couples poor supervision with a lack of rigorous selection of effective mentor-teachers, a controversial report issued today concludes.

Three months after his surprise ascension to head the nation's largest school system amid its worst leadership crisis in recent memory, Mr. Walcott, 59, has worked hard to improve the administration's relationships with key constituencies through frequent, sometimes unannounced, school visits and constant contact with the teachers' union. But even after a tumultuous year in which parents, educators and advocates were shocked by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's appointment of a publishing executive with no education experience - and her subsequent implosion and ouster - Mr. Walcott still sees his role as building support for, and tweaking - not changing - policies.

Some Utah teachers worry that the Ogden School District is setting a precedent for other districts by skipping negotiations with its teachers union and phasing out pay based on experience.

There will be no courses at the Relay Graduate School of Education, the first standalone college of teacher preparation to open in New York State for nearly 100 years. Instead, there will be some 60 modules, each focused on a different teaching technique. There will be no campus, because it is old-think to believe a building makes a school. Instead, the graduate students will be mentored primarily at the schools where they teach. And there will be no lectures. Direct instruction, as such experiences will be called, should not take place for more than 15 or 20 minutes at a time. After that, students should discuss ideas with one another or reflect on their own.

The way we provide professional learning experiences and support our nation's teachers is a running source of debate and, unfortunately, disappointment. Policymakers grumble at the costs. Teachers complain they don't get what they need while parents and the public wait for our schools to get it right for our students.

This was written by Randy Ross, who was a principal and teacher for over 43 years both in New York City and Great Neck, LI, as well as an assistant superintendent, professor at CCNY's School of Education and director of instruction and curriculum at the North Shore Hebrew Academy in Great Neck. Half of his career was in urban schools, half in suburban, and the last three years have been in private schools and higher education.

Charter schools are largely viewed as a major innovation in the public school landscape, as they receive more independence from state laws and regulations than do traditional public schools, and are therefore more able to experiment with alternative curricula, pedagogical methods, and different ways of hiring and training teachers. Unlike traditional public schools, charters may be shut down by their authorizers for poor performance. But how is charter school performance measured? What are the effects of charter schools on student achievement?

The Louisiana Department Of Education just released the 2011 School Performance Data. As New Orleans has been hailed as a 'miracle' district, I was eager to see the results. As you might know, after Katrina the lowest performing schools were assembled into a district known as 'The Recovery District' (RSD) which has become a grand experiment in what would happen if an entire city was taken over by charter schools with a high number of Teach For America teachers. When I downloaded the data I learned that 87% of the 68 schools in the RSD got either a D or an F on their State Report Card. This did not seem very impressive.

In 1998, Ohio opened its first 15 charter schools. There are now more than 300, and they're enrolling more than 100,000 primary and secondary students.  Ohio is paying upwards of $500,000,000 to support those schools. But as charter schools have grown, so have divisions between them and traditional public schools.

New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author Daniel Pink discusses motivation and how it relates to student education experiences. Pink, hosted by The Patterson Foundation, presented this topic to an audience of more than 200 in Sarasota, FL.

"In a 1988 address, Mr. Shanker outlined an idea for a new kind of public school where teachers could experiment with fresh and innovative ways of reaching students. Mr. Shanker estimated that only one-fifth of American students were well served by traditional classrooms. In charter schools, teachers would be given the opportunity to draw upon their expertise to create high-performing educational laboratories from which the traditional public schools could learn."

"In the most simplistic portrayal of the education policy landscape, one of the "sides" is a group of people who are referred to as "reformers." Though far from monolithic, these people tend to advocate for test-based accountability, charters/choice, overhauling teacher personnel rules, and other related policies, with a particular focus on high expectations, competition and measurement. They also frequently see themselves as in opposition to teachers' unions. Most of the "reformers" I have met and spoken with are not quite so easy to categorize. They are also thoughtful and open to dialogue, even when we disagree. And, at least in my experience, there is far more common ground than one might expect. Nevertheless, I believe that this "movement" (to whatever degree you can characterize it in those terms) may be doomed to stall out in the long run, not because their ideas are all bad, and certainly not because they lack the political skills and resources to get their policies enacted. Rather, they risk failure for a simple reason: They too often make promises that they cannot keep."

"It's a plan reviled by teachers, loathed by parents, and decried by local politicians, but against huge opposition, York may become the third city in America to privatize the entirety of one of its public school districts. How did a public school system in the midstate rise to the forefront of a national experiment in education reform? And how did an entire community lose control of its own decision-making ability? The answer to both those questions, education researchers and public watchdogs say, lies in large part on a concerted, multi-million dollar campaign over the past decade by for-profit schools to alter Pennsylvania law. Those changes, and the industry lobbying that continues behind-the-scenes, have implications for teachers and students across the entire state. It's a subject we have tackled in a series entitled "The Rise of Charter Schools in Pa.""

"When charter schools first emerged twenty years ago, they represented a revolution, ushering in a new era that put educational choice, innovation, and autonomy front and center in the effort to improve our schools. While charters have always been very diverse in characteristics and outcomes, it wasn't long before a particular kind of gap-closing, "No Excuses" charter grabbed the lion's share of public attention. But in this rush to crown and invest in a few "winners," have we turned our back on the push for innovation that was meant to be at the core of the charter experiment?"

A state House Committee agreed to lift the cap of charter schools, a move backers said will offer more choices to families in failing schools. But Democrats, who sought to make 17 amendments to SB 618, said it's a mistake to allow schools to rapidly expand without a better system of accountability and making sure charter school students are achieving academically.