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"Insider here reviews the report on charter schools by the NYC Independent Budget Office. The report covered only the early grades, not the middle grades or high school years."

"Public school children have become lab rats of policymakers who are eager to see change faster than we can study what works. Experimental reforms are often founded on the lackluster research of ideological think tanks, who have filled the expertise vacuum left by academics unwilling to conduct policy-related research. "I've reviewed some just God awful stuff," cringes Rutgers Professor Bruce Baker, whose influential data-driven education, blog, schoolfinance101 has helped him become a go-to reviewer for policy reports."

"Class Size: What Research Says and What It Means for State Policy argues that increasing average class size by one student will save about 2% of total education spending with negligible impact on academic achievement. It justifies this conclusion on the basis that Class-Size Reduction (CSR) is not particularly effective and is not as cost-effective as other reforms. However, this conclusion is based on a misleading review of the CSR research literature. The report puts too much emphasis on studies that are of poor quality or that do not focus on settings that are particularly relevant to the debate on class-size policy in the United States. It argues that class-size reduction is less cost-effective than other reform policies, but it bases this contention on an incomplete accounting of the benefits of smaller classes and an uncritical, unexamined list of alternative policies. The report's estimates of the potential cost savings are flawed as, in reality, schools cannot structurally reduce class size by only one student. Well-documented and long-term non-academic gains from CSR are not addressed. Likewise, the recommendation for releasing the ―least effective‖ teachers assumes a valid way of making such determinations is available. "

New York State education officials announced Monday that they had begun to review the way they detect and prevent cheating on standardized tests, taking a step to avoid the cheating scandals that have engulfed school systems in other states.

Citing possible conflicts of interest on the part of volunteer reviewers who helped select new charter schools, a New Jersey state senator filed a legal challenge to force the state Department of Education to turn over the reviewers' names.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the Foundation for Excellence in Education have embarked on a well-funded campaign to spread selected Florida education reforms to other states. These reforms include assigning letter grades to schools, high-stakes testing, promotion and graduation requirements, bonus pay, a wide variety of alternative teacher credentialing policies, and various types of school choice mechanisms. This policy potpourri was recently presented by Gov. Bush in Michigan, and the documents used allow for a concrete consideration and review. Regrettably, Bush's Michigan speech relies on a selective misrepresentation of test score data. Further, he offers no evidence that the purported test score gains were caused by the recommended reforms. Other viable explanations, such as a major investment in class-size reduction and a statewide reading program, receive no or little attention. Moreover, the presentation ignores less favorable findings, while evidence showing limited or negative effects of the proposed strategies is omitted. Considering the overwhelming evidence that retention is ineffective (if not harmful), it is troubling to see Mr. Bush endorse such an approach. Finally, Florida's real problems of inequitable and inadequate education remain unaddressed.

"Several recent reports, including one from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, have found that charter schools generally under-enroll special education students when compared to conventional public schools. A new report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, however, asserts that charter schools' special education rates are much closer to those of district public schools than is described by these other recent reports. A review of that new report concludes that, even though it was touted as reaching different conclusions - more favorable to charter schools - than past research, in fact the results are very much consistent. It confirms that charter schools are systematically under-enrolling students with special needs."

Reviewers Guarino and Stacy question the emphasis placed on validating classroom observations with test score gains. Observation scores may pick up different aspects of teacher quality than do test-based measures. It is possible that neither type of measure used in isolation captures a teacher's contribution to all the useful skills that students learn in schools. From this standpoint, the authors' conclusion that multiple measures of teacher effectiveness are needed is justifiable. The omission of relevant information is a shortcoming of the report. Key details regarding the study design and methodological approach are lacking.

The growing debate over the effectiveness and feasibility of online learning is too complicated to break simply into "for" and "against" camps. Proponents of online learning concede questions linger regarding how best to fund online programs, identify students that best fit the model, and yield the best academic results. Critics, meanwhile, often stress the difference between demanding research to prove effectiveness of online models and asserting that no such models exist. Yet it's hard to interpret a recent review from the National Education Policy Center as anything less than a line drawn in the sand between itself and the Fordham Institute over the issue, and perhaps more broadly across the nation's political landscape, after the NEPC not only challenged the findings of a report from the institute, but also the motivation behind it.

Diane Ravitch reviews: US Education Reform and National Security by Joel I. Klein, Condoleezza Rice, and others

A few weeks ago, the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) issued a review of the research on virtual learning. Several proponents of online education issued responses that didn't offer much substance beyond pointing out NEPC's funding sources. A similar reaction ensued after the release last year of the Gates Foundation's preliminary report on the Measures of Effective Teaching Project. There were plenty of substantive critiques, but many of the reactions amounted to knee-jerk dismissals of the report based on pre-existing attitudes toward the foundation's agenda.

A meta-analysis of charter school studies revealed that about 75 percent of them do not meet rigorous research standards because they don't account for the differences in academic background and academic histories of students attending charters, when comparing them with those attending traditional public schools, according to the review, published in the renowned journal Science. Those studies typically fail to "disentangle school quality from the preexisting achievement level," or student self-selection of schools, the article says.

The large-scale education reforms towards greater accountability and measurement in schools worldwide have evoked much debate concerning issues of teacher effectiveness and quality and their role in raising student achievement. Strong's book is a welcome contribution to this debate as it provides a review of the research and issues related to teacher quality and describes the author's own project to develop a new measure for evaluating teachers through observation.

Federal school "turnaround" strategies that call for firing teachers, replacing managers, or closing troubled public schools or converting them into charter schools often meet with understandable skepticism, resistance and even anger among the parents whose children attend those schools. How should policymakers react? According to a recent study from the think tank Public Agenda, the answer is to treat the harsh realities caused by turnarounds as a public relations problem. That's the conclusion of a review released today of What's Trust Got to Do With It? A Communications and Engagement Guide for School Leaders Tackling the Problem of Persistently Failing Schools.

Diane Ravitch reviews Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? by Pasi Sahlberg and A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn't in Providing an Excellent Education for All by Wendy Kopp with Steven Farr 

Steven Brill is a graduate of Yale Law School and the founder of Court TV, and in his new book, "Class Warfare," he brings a sharp legal mind to the world of education reform. Like a dogged prosecutor, he mounts a zealous case against America's teachers' unions. From more than 200 interviews, he collects the testimony of idealistic educators, charter school founders, policy gurus, crusading school superintendents and billionaire philanthropists. Through their vivid vignettes, which he pieces together in short chapters with titles like " 'Colorado Says Half of You Won't Graduate' " and "A Shriek on Park Avenue," Brill conveys the epiphanies, setbacks and triumphs of a national reform movement.

A passionate believer in education reform, Bill reviews Steven Brill's book, Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools, a well-written account of the people, politics, and policies involved in the effort to improve teaching and learning.

"New York City has just released the new round of results from its school rating system (they're called "progress reports"). It relies considerably more on student growth (60 out of 100 points) than absolute performance (25 points), and there are efforts to partially adjust most of the measures via peer group comparisons.* All of this indicates that the city's system is more focused on school rather than student test-based performance, compared with many other systems around the U.S. The ratings are high-stakes. Schools receiving low grades - a D or F in any given year, or a C for three consecutive years - enter a review process by which they might be closed. The number of schools meeting these criteria jumped considerably this year. There is plenty of controversy to go around about the NYC ratings, much of it pertaining to two important features of the system. They're worth discussing briefly, as they are also applicable to systems in other states."

"The rescue of public education must come from the grassroots, from a coalition led by parents and teachers. Such a movement has been taking shape gradually and gained visibility during the 2012 election cycle. The number of education-related campaigns has increased as ed reformers try to entrench their policies in law. In addition to the familiar battles over school funding, there are votes on charter schools, the content of teacher contracts, vouchers, and union rights (the four largest unions in the United States represent teachers and other public sector workers). Disregarded in the past, elections for school boards and superintendents have become major battles. This year's education votes were high-profile within individual states, fiercely fought, and outlandishly expensive; some attracted national attention. Public education supporters won some impressive victories and suffered several bitter disappointments. Here is a review of some pivotal votes, who supported what, and why"

"This brief reviews the history and current status of Parent Trigger legislation, presents a critique of the legislation, and suggests alternative ways to meet the stated goals of a Parent Trigger."