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I'm currently deep into Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation, a highly recommended read for those committed to learning about struggles for social justice in public education. An excerpt captured from the book's introduction serves as a catalyst for thought and questioning. In the foreword teacher activist Adam Sanchez interviews Bill Bigelow, the curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools.

When the Michigan legislature returns from recess next week, and votes funds for higher education (far more meager than they used to be, but never mind), it will vote on Section 273a, passed by the House Appropriations Subcommittee, which, according to the Lansing State Journal, reads: It is the intent of the legislature that a public university that receives funds in section 236 shall not collaborate in any manner with a nonprofit worker center whose documented activities include coercion through protest, demonstration, or organization against a Michigan business.

Schools are failing.  At least that's the consensus if you've read any school reporting or heard any politicians promising much needed school reform since, well, approximately the beginning of American public education. But … is it true?  Washington Post reporter and columnist for the American Journalism Review Paul Farhi explains to Bob why the story doesn't add up.   

Evidence (and evidence-based reform) are entirely neutral on the nature of teaching. Whatever works is what is valued. The distinction between teaching driven by accountability and teaching informed by evidence is crucial. Using test scores to evaluate teachers and schools, at least as defined by NCLB, runs the risk of focusing teachers on a narrow band of reading and math skills, and school and district leaders often try to improve performance by "alignment," trying to get teachers to spend more time on the skills and knowledge likely to be assessed. In contrast, evidence-based policies have no such limitations.

A reading passage included this week in one of New York's standardized English tests has become the talk of the eighth grade, with students walking around saying, "Pineapples don't have sleeves," as if it were the code for admission to a secret society.

Students across the state are still scratching their heads over an absurd state test question about a talking pineapple. The puzzler on the eighth-grade reading exam stumped even educators and has critics saying the tests, which are becoming more high stakes, are flawed. "I think it's weird that they put such a silly question on a state test. What were they thinking?" said Bruce Turley, 14, an eighth-grader at Lower Manhattan Community Middle School. "I thought it was a little strange, but I just answered it as best as I could," said his classmate Tyree Furman, 14. "You just have to give it your best answer. These are important tests."

Like many other gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhoods, Bedford-Stuyvesant has an influx of new residents who have a complex relationship with the public schools. On the whole, the newcomers are a progressive group, committed, at least in principle, to the idea of public education for their children. But many are also dismayed by the quality of their options, which include elementary schools where half of the students - in some cases, fewer - passed the state's reading and math exams last year. At the home of Chris Antista, a graphic designer and wine distributor, they gathered in late March to express their concerns and hear about an alternative from three teachers at the Community Roots Charter School. The three are planning to open a new charter school in Brooklyn in September 2014. Eric Grannis, a lawyer in private practice and the husband of Eva Moskowitz, founder and C.E.O. of a chain of schools, the Success Academy Charter Schools, organized the meeting.

This is an open letter that a group of New York principals sent this week to the New York State Board of Regents about school reform and the standardized testing regime. More than 1,400 New York State principals have signed a petition asking state education officials to rethink their reform agenda. You can read about that effort at www.newyorkprincipals.org and @nyprincipals on Twitter.

Over more than 20 years in the field of education-including two with Teach For America-I have helped promote state standards, the Common Core, the hiring of teachers with strong content knowledge, longer class periods for math and reading, and extra support for struggling students, to name a few. I have recently discovered, however, that what I believe as an education policy wonk is not always what I believe as a father. I am incredibly fortunate that my two young daughters are ready learners who attend a high-functioning school. That said, I make the following confessions

The recent Pineapple and the Hare fiasco does more than identify a daft reading passage on New York State's 8th grade English Language Arts test. Education Commissioner John King scrapped the selection and its six multiple-choice items, admitting they were "ambiguous," when the questions became public last week. The episode opens the door to discussing how the 2012 exams were put together. The State Education Department signed a five-year, $32 million agreement with NCS Pearson to develop English Language Arts and math assessments in grades three to eight. In fact, math testing was administered over three days this week for 1.2 million students. Pearson has grown immensely over the last decade, securing contracts with many states required to test students under the No Child Left Behind Act. This year it succeeded CTB/McGraw-Hill as New York's test vendor.

At its annual meeting held in Saratoga Springs the weekend of March 23-25, the New York State Council for the Social Studies passed five resolutions condemning the national and state common core standards for marginalizing social studies. The resolutions charged that attention to math and reading left little time or money in K-12 classrooms for effective instruction in social studies, citizenship, and history. The Council demanded that the state develop a new set of core standards that emphasize the teaching of social studies, citizenship, and history. This action by the NYSCSS is one of a number of reasons to question whether the much ballyhooed national common core standards will deliver promised improvements in education.

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.

We examine the effects of charter schools on reading and mathematics achievement for students who attend charter schools in the School District of Philadelphia. The report also examines several other important questions about charter schools, including: What are the effects of years of operation, grades served, mission, and demographics of charter schools on student achievement?  What types of students do charter schools attract?  Do charter schools have higher student turnover rates than traditional public schools?  Does the existence of charter schools have an impact on student achievement in traditional public schools?

Expanding on the 2009 CREDO National Charter School Study  Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States, this report examines the performance of Pennsylvania charter schools for the period 2007 - 2010.  Compared to the educational gains the charter students would have had in their traditional public schools, the analysis shows that students in Pennsylvania charter schools on average make smaller learning gains.  More than one quarter of the charter schools have significantly more positive learning gains than their traditional public school counterparts in reading, but their performance is eclipsed by the nearly half of charter schools that have significantly lower learning gains.  In math, again nearly half of the charter schools studied perform worse than their traditional public school peers and one quarter outperform them.

Section 1002.33(23), Florida Statutes, requires the Florida Department of Education to prepare an annual statewide analysis of student achievement in charter schools versus the achievement of comparable students in traditional public schools. This report of charter school student performance fulfills the statutory requirement for the 2010-11 school year. The analysis examines the average performance of charter school students and traditional public school students using eight years of Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) reading and math scores, as well as the FCAT science test scores that were added to the school grading calculation in 2007-08. Only students who were enrolled in a charter school or a traditional public school for an entire school year are included in the analysis. Limiting the analysis to include only full-year students is consistent with the state's school accountability system for awarding school grades under the A+ Plan. In addition, the report compares charter and traditional public schools in terms of achievement gaps and student learning gains.

Is educational innovation the way to close the achievement gap? A lot of smart people are hoping it will solve the problem. In the past few months I've been around a lot of innovations. I have watched the Khan Academy (and Sal Khan himself) in action, dug into 'blended learning,' Rocketship and KIPP, and looked at some Early College High School programs. I've been reading about new iPad applications and commercial ventures like Learning.com, and teachers have been writing me about how they are using blogs to encourage kids to write, and Twitter for professional development. In many schools kids are working in team to build robots, while other schools are using Skype to connect with students across the state or nation. I've even watched two jazz groups - one in Rhode Island, the other in Connecticut - practice together on Skype! 'Innovation' per se is not sufficient, of course. We need innovations that level the playing field and give all kids - regardless of their parents' income - the opportunity to excel.

The success of school-choice initiatives is commonly measured in reading and math scores. But how does being admitted to a preferred school affect other parts of a student's life? In an article in Education Next, Harvard University's David J. Deming argues for looking beyond school-based outcomes, suggesting that that kind of growth can be achieved in ways that do not necessarily lead to long-term success. Instead, he analyzes the impact of winning a school choice lottery on the criminal activity of students in North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district over a period of seven years.

From what I can tell, the part of the deal that was struck between the city and the UFT seems to be a good one: an external arbiter for the subjective teacher ratings by principals, which is necessary considering the number of unfair "U" ratings we have seen from abusive principals in recent years. The rest of the deal statewide is very disappointing.  If I am reading the agreement correctly, it founders on four main points

I do believe we are in that portion of the Roman Empire in which horses were considered "persons." Or was that just a mad movie I once saw about the fall of the Roman Empire? Some of the madness is being conducted by very sane people with a very bad agenda. Yes, I do believe that, especially after reading your account about Cleveland, Diane. Some are under a belief, genuinely held, that only when everything is private will human beings live as they should-in a libertarian dream world. They are risking our collective futures on their idealistic theory, much as radical leftists once did on a totalitarian dream that they hoped would lead to human liberation. We can't afford to let America try it out.

Yesterday the Huffington Post ran an op/ed piece by Wendy Kopp, the founder of TFA. The title was In Defense of Optimism.  I read it, tweeted it, and moved on, but it has been rattling in my head for 24 hours now, so here are some thoughts in response.