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As 2011 draws to a close, we can confidently declare that one of the biggest debates over education is - mercifully - resolved. We may not have addressed all the huge challenges facing our schools, but we finally have empirical data ruling out apocryphal theories and exposing the fundamental problem.

A proponent of evidence-based policymaking, Ladd shows that our current school reform policies are not based on evidence. She cites research demonstrating that the gaps between the most affluent and the least affluent children more than doubled in the past half-century, and that the income-based achievement gap is now much larger than the racial achievement gap. She points out that the racial achievement gap narrowed from the 1970s to the 1980s and has remained stagnant since then.

On Alexander Russo's This Week in Education blog, I read a really interesting e-mail written by Whitney Tilson who is a founder or president or something or other of DFER. You should read it and then read the comments. The two main points he makes can be encapsulated in the following quotes

Demographic imbalances between charter schools and traditional public schools have led experts to ask if charter schools are open to all students.

With the publication of Pasi Sahlberg's Finnish Lessons, the education reform debate in the U.S. is moving into a second round of Finnish envy-the first being the corporate reformers' distorted claims about international comparisons and the new being calls to examine the full and complex picture of why Finland has achieved both social and education reform that has pushed them to the forefront of education quality. This second round, however, appears to be exposing a nonpartisan failure among all concerned with public education moreso than the needed turn away from corporate education agendas and toward democratic ideals seeking social justice and human agency. Education Week recently reprinted Erin Richards' piece (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) addressing Finland's education system, titled, "Better Teachers, Common Curriculum Are Hallmarks of Finnish Schools." While such coverage should signal the shift needed in discourse about international comparisons and what the U.S. should gain from Finland's social and educational commitments, the headline alone shows that we persist in seeing not what the evidence shows, but what we already assume about schools and reform.

Michelle Rhee on improving mobility, the gap between the U.S. and other developed countries, and why she's optimistic.

Last week saw the announcement of an important initiative.  Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, Senators Manchin and Rockefeller, Randi Weingarten and the AFT and over 40 partners from business, foundations, non-profits and labor announced that they will lead an effort to bring educational improvement and brighter economic prospects to McDowell County, WV, one of the poorest areas in Appalachia.

Darling-Hammond zeroes in on how new federal programs - the proposed Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Race to the Top guidelines - deal with schools in the bottom 5%. Federal policy now formally redlines these schools, she concludes, just as banks have used a red line on a map to exclude some poor and minority communities from any kind of investment, mortgage or commercial loan.

An update to my post about two schools in Newark whose students and staff were misrepresented by a child advocacy group, the press, and the Newark superintendent

Everyone working in a schools knows the hardest job is teaching special education - especially to the most challenging children. Like all elementary music teachers, I work with special education teachers every day, and I have to tell you that they constantly amaze me with their sympathy, intelligence, insight, and patience. As far as I am concerned, anyone who devotes their career to teaching these deserving but demanding children is an angel on earth. And people who casually dismiss their work ought to be ashamed of themselves. Which is why this next story bugs the hell out of me

Last night I testified before the Rhode Island Board of Regents in opposition to Achievement First's application to open two charter schools in Providence and its plan to draw students from the communities of Cranston, North Providence and Warwick.  As you may know, these elementary schools would take the form of mayoral academies and would not be subject to any oversight by the school committee of Providence.  My objections centered around the impact these schools will have on the most vulnerable populations of students throughout the four communities affected by the application.

Who stands to gain from mayoral academies? The short answer is that the most vulnerable among us surely stand to lose.

The phrase "education reform" has been co-opted to mean a narrow party program advocated by the reform establishment (mainly billionaires and their designees) that includes a barrage of testing, charter schools, and taking experienced educators out of the classroom. None of these measures have a track record of success, but the actual facts get obscured by Hollywood films and connected charter groups. It's hard to get into the conversation when the corporate side of education reform uses the term as a bludgeon against anyone who questions its agenda -- even when the concerns are supported by research.

This is the first post in a five-part series by Rachel Levy commenting on Virginia Governor McDonnell's 2012 education agenda, as announced last week.

A scholar who studies and blogs about education finance says improving the state's urban schools will take more money - and that merit pay is not likely to help. Bruce Baker, an associate professor at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education, spoke with The Associated Press for an occasional series of interviews on public education reform in New Jersey.

The application by this out-of-state management organization has sparked more opposition than Rhode Island's previous charter schools

Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education at New York University and non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, addressed teachers at the National Council for the Social Studies national conference on December 2, 2011.  She agreed to be interviewed for HNN the following week.

One of the things I've discovered in recent years is that when it comes to education policy, the last people asked for input are America's teachers. We have a President who holds an" education summit" that includes the nation's top business leaders and foundation heads, but no teachers; we have billionaires lobbying to privatize education and break teachers unions; we have an organization that purports to work for educational equity that encourages it's recruits to leave teaching after two years because they can influence policy more by moving into other, more prestigious careers, rather than spending a lifetime as a "mere teacher."

As we once again begin discussing & debating the appropriate role for Charter schools in New Jersey's education reform "mix," here's a round-up on the New Jersey charter school numbers, in terms of demographic comparisons to all other public and charter schools in the same 'city' and proficiency rates (across all grades) compared to all others in the same 'city.'

The Education Law Center has complained to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan about elements of the Christie administration's proposal for tracking schools' progress. In a letter to Duncan made public Tuesday, the center protested that the Christie plan could tap some federal money intended for disadvantaged students and use it instead to reward gains in schools with few at-risk children.