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This report carefully reviews high-quality empirical evidence from the last several years on the test score effects of three approaches to modifying the organization of schools: (1) starting schools later in the morning, (2) favoring K-8 grade configuration instead of junior high or middle school configurations, and (3) increasing teacher specialization by grade and subject. It estimates the earnings benefits of each intervention and, for interventions (1) and (2), compares monetary benefits to costs. The report concludes that benefits outweigh costs, although the rough cost estimates suggest that better data are required to draw definite conclusions. The report's main conclusion is that organizational reforms deserve a more prominent place in education debates, and that individual school districts should carefully consider them alongside more popular reform options. The review points to a few shortcomings but concludes that the report's analyses are solid and helpful and that the results are presented carefully and cautiously.

As a bill that would lift the cap on Michigan's charter schools is back up for debate in the state House this week, one lawmaker is trying to ensure that for-profit schools are not included in that expansion. Senate Bill 618 narrowly passed the Senate 20 to 18 in October, with some Republicans siding with Democrats to oppose it. Critics say it includes too few quality controls and opens the state up to more underperforming charter school operators, some of which are just out to make a quick buck.

Stand for Children's claim, that they are a grassroots organization that stands for access to quality education for all students, is appealing to many parents and educators. A closer inspection, however, reveals a very different agenda, one that is driven by vast amounts of corporate money and dangerous, ideology-driven notions of education reform. In this program we take a close look at Stand for Children and their controversial activities.

We frequently present quick analyses of data on this blog (and look at those done by others). As a close follower of the education debate, I often get the sense that people are hungry for high-quality information on a variety of different topics, but searching for these data can be daunting, which probably deters many people from trying. So, while I'm sure that many others have compiled lists of data resources relevant to education, I figured I would do the same, with a focus on more user-friendly sources. But first, I would be remiss if I didn't caution you to use these data carefully. Almost all of the resources below have instructions or FAQ's, most non-technical. Read them. Remember that improper or misleading presentation of data is one of the most counterproductive features of today's education debates, and it occurs to the detriment of all. That said, here are a few key resources for education and other related quantitative data. It is far from exhaustive, so feel free to leave comments and suggestions if you think I missed anything important.

The Center For American Progress has published another report justifying the firing of teachers today, based on statistical models that may some day become valid. "Designing High Quality Evaluation Systems," by John Tyler, recounts the standard reasons why of educators do not trust high-stakes test-driven algorithms, and even contributes a couple of new insights into problems that are unique to high school test scores. An urban teacher reading Tyler's evidence would likely conclude that he has written an ironclad indictment of value-added models for high-stakes purposes. But, as is usually true of CAP's researchers, he concludes that the work of economists in improving value-added models is so impressive that education will benefit from their experiments if educators don't blow it.

A Virginia company leading a national movement to replace classrooms with computers - in which children as young as 5 can learn at home at taxpayer expense - is facing a backlash from critics who are questioning its funding, quality and oversight.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg faced tough questions for a second day Friday on comments he made about two of the most sensitive issues in New York City education: teacher quality and class sizes.

The Center For American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank, has largely bought the educational agenda of "the billionaires' boys club." It seeks a balance, with just enough union-baiting to appease corporate powers. The CAP does its share of teacher-bashing, apparently in order to parrot the word "accountability" over and over, but it does not want to spark a stampede of teaching talent from inner city schools. Two new reports, "Designing High Quality Evaluations for High School Teachers," and "Teaching Children Well," embody the tension inherent in the CAP's "Sister Souljah" tactic of demonstrating its independence from Democratic constituencies by beating up on educators. Both document the potential of improved professional development, informed by data and enhanced by video technology, to improve student performance. One also asserts that test score growth must be used to evaluate teachers, but the other is largely silent on that issue.

I've heard it over and over again from reform pundits. Funding equity? Been there done that. It doesn't make a damn bit of difference. It's all about teacher quality! The bottom line is that equitable and adequate financing of schools is a NECESSARY UNDERLYING CONDITION FOR EVERYTHING ELSE!

It's generally true that the more that parents are involved in their children's education, the more academically successful their children will be and the more effective the teachers will (at least appear to) be. I largely agree with Thomas Friedman's take on this.

The conventional wisdom among many education commentators is that U.S. public school teachers "come from the bottom third" of their classes. Most recently, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took this talking point a step further, and asserted at a press conference last week that teachers are drawn from the bottom 20 percent of graduates. All of this is supposed to imply that the U.S. has a serious problem with the "quality" of applicants to the profession. Despite the ubiquity of the "bottom third" and similar arguments (which are sometimes phrased as massive generalizations, with no reference to actual proportions), it's unclear how many of those who offer them know what specifically they refer to (e.g., GPA, SAT/ACT, college rank, etc.). This is especially important since so many of these measurable characteristics are not associated with future test-based effectiveness in the classroom, while those that are are only modestly so. Still, given how often it is used, as well as the fact that it is always useful to understand and examine the characteristics of the teacher labor supply, it's worth taking a quick look at where the "bottom third" claim comes from and what it might or might not mean.

How to improve our schools? Let's start with what we know: Teachers are the most important factor in a child's schooling, and many of our teachers are not very good. But wait a moment. How do we know that? Given the current fascination with education policies that focus on teachers - typically market-oriented policies such as pink slips for bad teachers and bonuses for good ones - it would be wise to make certain that teachers are the problem we think they are.

Video of panel discussion and links to resources. This briefing was sponsored by the Office of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), in partnership with the Coalition for Teaching Quality.

The public debate about the success and expansion of charter schools often seems to gravitate toward a tiny handful of empirical studies, when there is, in fact, a relatively well-developed literature focused on whether these schools generate larger testing gains among their students relative to their counterparts in comparable regular public schools. This brief reviews this body of evidence, with a focus on high-quality state- and district-level analyses that address, directly or indirectly, three questions: Do charter schools produce larger testing gains overall? What policies and practices seem to be associated with better performance? Can charter schools expand successfully within the same location?

There was a time when working at the Bronx High School of Science seemed like the pinnacle of a teaching career in the New York public schools. Along with Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science is one of the city's most storied high schools and among its most celebrated public institutions of any kind-part of a select fraternity that promises a free education of the highest quality to anyone with the intelligence to qualify. Together, the three schools reflect some of the city's most prized values: achievement, brains, democracy. Founded in 1938, Bronx Science counts E. L. Doctorow and Stokely Carmichael among its alumni, as well as seven Nobel laureates and six Pulitzer Prize winners. It has spawned 135 Intel science-competition finalists-more than any other high school in America. Virtually every senior last year gained acceptance to one of the country's top colleges. The faculty has long been known as among the best, most beloved anywhere. Teachers have traditionally held on to their jobs for decades; some have come to teach the children of their former students. This spring and summer, however, more than a third of the school's social-studies department-eight of the twenty teachers-announced they wouldn't be returning for the 2011 school year. Their departure came after similar exoduses in other departments. In 2009, it was math; before that, English. In 2010, nearly a quarter of the teachers at Bronx Science had less than three years of experience; the corresponding numbers at Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech were 6 percent and 1 percent, respectively. The reason for the seismic upheaval, virtually everyone agrees, is Valerie Reidy.

Whether you consider today's New York Times article on K12.com a "hit piece" (Tom Vander Ark) or a "blockbuster" (Dana Goldstein), there's little doubt that it will have a long-term impact on the debate around digital learning. Polls show that the public and parents are leery of cyber schools, and this kind of media attention (sure to be mimicked in local papers) will only make them more so. But just as these criticisms aren't going away, neither is online learning itself. The genie is out of the bottle. So how can we go about drafting policies that will push digital learning in the direction of quality?

On a Tuesday afternoon in mid-October, between 40 and 50 Cedarburg School District educators sat in a small auditorium to hear about plans that could change the way they earn an income. Instead of pay raises awarded on the basis of education credits and years of experience-long a hallmark of teachers union salary structures-Superintendent Daryl Herrick said the district wanted to distribute annual bonuses to teachers based on the quality of their work. Educators' ranking on Cedarburg's 6-year-old, multipronged performance evaluation system would determine the size of their bonuses.

Education is a long way from the perfect pure market of rational consumers that we all learned about in Econ 101. When it comes to choice in education, there are issues of information asymmetries, principal-agent problems, and high transaction costs that make this something other than a perfectly competitive market. Not to mention that education, like health care, carries a deep emotional weight that leads consumers (even super-smart ones) to make decisions based on emotions as well as reason. Not to mention that parents in historically underserved communities have been given only very poor options for so long that they may not even fully grasp what a truly high-quality educational experience for their children can and should look like.

Here's the point: parents have the right to select any school they believe best meets the interests and needs of their children. But the devil is always in the details. If truth-in-advertising laws were applied to school choice, I think more parents would be reluctant to expend the time, energy and money in the hope of getting a quality education for their children. Instead, parents might be willing to push for improving existing traditional schools in their neighborhoods. But don't try telling that to reformers.

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.