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"This paper is the answer to a question: What would the education policies and practices of the United States be if they were based on the policies and practices of the countries that now lead the world in student performance? It is adapted from the last two chapters of a book to be published in September 2011 by Harvard education Press. Other chapters in that book describe the specific strategies pursued by Canada (focusing on Ontario), China (focusing on Shanghai), Finland, Japan and Singapore, all of which are far ahead of the United States. The research on these countries was performed by a team assembled by the National Center on education and the Economy, at the request of the OECD."

"The education reform debate that has developed during the Barack Obama administration has entered an Ouroboros stage-public debate about the public debate. While the symbolism of the snake eating its own tail can have positive implications, I fear that this self-consuming debate about education reform is likely to keep everyone entertained by words-as-sideshow while our education system and the children that it serves remain ignored and outside the tent with the teachers."

"In our education system we have nothing nearly so clear as prices to help piece together the various bits of knowledge and experience, desires and frustrations that comprise the system as a whole. Our education system is not a market and, even if Milton Friedman's vision of universal school choice were someday realized, would still not be a market, really, because there is nothing for sale and nothing produced save well-educated young minds."

This paper notes how the theory of disruptive innovation, which arose at Harvard Business School in the late 1990s, and the Tools of Cooperation and Change, a supporting theory that arrived in 2006, together represent the epitome of neoliberal dispossession-based marketization paradigms. The language they bring to debates on policy reform is concise and revealing, the tools practical and effective. Yet in the dozen or so years since their arrival they too have become, to use their own vocabulary, an entrenched interest that serves to perpetuate the status quo of male-dominated capitalism. Education policy makers who understand that "public Education is central to the construction of a cosmopolitan moral democracy" (Reid, 2007:292) can at the very least benefit from understanding the language and recognizing the tools. Perhaps they can even turn them to a socially responsible purpose, employing them to help "move the public/private debate past its current impasse" (ibid, 293).

Stanford University Education Professor Linda Darling-Hammond helped Barack Obama draft his Educational plan when he was a presidential candidate, and advised him on Education issues during the transition between Obama's 2008 election and 2009 inauguration. Since then, she has opposed the standardized test-based school reform policies of the Obama administration. Her speech at last Saturday's Save Our Schools March in Washington D.C. explains the extent of the trouble public Education is in. Here it is.

The ability to measure cost effectiveness in education, and convince parents and educators that it's in their best interest, will determine the future of online education, according to a paper authored by the American Enterprise Institute's Frederick M. Hess.

Once again, as the country faces severe economic distress and uncertainty, students are seemingly assuming economic significance for long-term growth and stability. Similar to previous economic downturns, schools are being targeted to be transformed from financial liabilities to laboratories of excellence representing the hope for our nation's economic future. Of course, educational reformers who are looking for structural changes during a cyclical downturn argue that schools are not adequately preparing the nation's future workforce. In an effort to develop a highly skilled workforce for the future, educational reformers claim that the push to eliminate tenure, evaluate teachers based on standardized test scores and favor charter schools over traditional pubic schools will in the end produce better students. However, educational reformers have made a significant mistake in targeting public school resources and teachers' incentives and punishments over teaching and learning processes. As a result, these efforts have failed to take into account the political economy of public schools.

The U.S. Department of Education today announced the award of more than $5 million in grants to operate 19 special Education Parent Training and Information (PTI) Centers in 13 states and Puerto Rico.

Politicians are so deeply entrenched in public education, that it's time for educators to reciprocate. My name is Marie Corfield. I'm an art teacher from Flemington, NJ, and I'm running as a Democrat for State Assembly in LD16. Here's why...

Education reform at primary, secondary, and university levels in Chile is a longstanding social and political issue that has now forced President Sebastián Piñera to reassess the country's antiquated and class-ridden Education system to meet the expectations of students. In a collective effort aimed at widespread reform, protesters have demanded greater transparency and state control, and above all, have insisted upon quality Education without high university tuition costs. While the Piñera administration's attempts to pacify protesters have led to further social unrest, the nation and its students await an acceptable agreement to be reached.

PERHAPS THE VERY best thing about Steven Brill's new book is its title. The phrase "class warfare" has a double meaning, of course, and the book paints very clearly the deep economic cleavages that underlie the fierce education debates within the Democratic Party over such policy issues as charter schools, merit pay for teachers, and the role of poverty in achievement outcomes. In Brill's telling, the education class war pits a heroic group of entrepreneurial philanthropists, highly successful hedge fund billionaires, and idealistic Ivy Leaguers who join Teach for America against somewhat grubby and grasping rank-and-file public school teachers and their union leaders, who often put their own selfish interests above those of the children. In looking out for what is best for low-income and minority students, Brill contends, Wall Street hedge fund managers are a much more reliable ally than the middle-class teachers who educate schoolchildren every day. Brill's worldview is important to understand because it is typical of the outlook of the education "reform" community, including leaders of the Obama administration, and the president himself.

V. Darleen Opfer has six months under her belt as head of RAND Corp.'s education division, and she's pushing to make sure the education research giant's studies actually make a difference in the field. Opfer, who replaced former director Susan J. Bodilly, said RAND is moving its focus from "pure research" to collaborating with districts and state education agencies. The group has expanded its research reviewers to beyond other researchers to gauge whether a study's methodology is sound, but also to include policymakers and practitioners to weigh in on whether and how a study's results could be relevant.

If you read media reports about education, a lot of the stories you see make extraordinary claims about remarkable, heart-warming turnarounds in student achievement, which are often debunked some time later. This cycle of enthusiasm-debunking-disappointment gets us nowhere in improving outcomes for kids. Genuine miracles--dramatic turnarounds in formerly low-achieving schools--are just as likely in education as they are in any other field. That is, not very likely at all. In fact, most miracles in education turn out on inspection to be due to a change in the students served (as when a new charter or magnet school attracts higher performing students) or changes in demographics (as when school catchment areas are gentrifying). Apparent miracles may be due to changes in tests (as when an entire state gains in one year due to a change to an easier test), or due to other redefinitions of outcomes (as when districts reduce their standards for high school graduation and graduation rates increase). All too often "miracles" never happened at all, as when "turned around" schools deliver poor scores or graduation rates, or when large changes occur for one year but reverse in the following year, or when schools improve on one measure but all other indicators are poor.

With NBC airing a second "Education Nation" special that resembles an infomercial for charter schools and online learning, the media watchdog group FAIR held an event Tuesday to clear the air. The panelists at the MisEducation Nation forum in New York City said the coverage offered by NBC was, at best, misguided-a noble but seriously uninformed effort, said Leonie Haimson, a New York City public school parent and leader of Class Size Matters, which advocates for reducing the number of students per teacher. At worst, "Education Nation" is a sounding board for the corporate Education "reform" movement driven by the billionaires' agenda, said Brian Jones, a Brooklyn teacher.

With NBC airing a second "Education Nation" special that resembles an infomercial for charter schools and online learning, the media watchdog group FAIR(Fairness & Accuracy in reporting) held an event on Sept. 27, 2011 to clear the air. The goal according to FAIR was to offer a more reasonable conversation about public Education than the corporate-interest perspective featured in "Education Nation." The panelists at the MisEducation Nation forum in New York City said the coverage offered by NBC was, at best, misguided-a noble but seriously uninformed effort, said Leonie Haimson, a New York City public school parent and leader of Class Size Matters, which advocates for reducing the number of students per teacher.

In this article, Kristen L. Buras examines educational policy formation in New Orleans and the racial, economic, and spatial dynamics shaping the city's reconstruction since 2005. More specifically, Buras draws on the critical theories of whiteness as property, accumulation by dispossession, and urban space economy to describe the strategic assault on black communities by education entrepreneurs. Based on data collected from an array of stakeholders on the ground, she argues that policy actors at the federal, state, and local levels have contributed to a process of privatization and an inequitable racial-spatial redistribution of resources while acting under the banner of "conscious capitalism." She challenges the market-based reforms currently offered as a panacea for education in New Orleans, particularly charter schools, and instead offers principles of educational reform rooted in a more democratic and critically conscious tradition.

Amazing that, in the midst of getting ready for school, I had enough time to get in an important policy panel today. Before it started, there was already lots of controversy, primarily with the preliminary list lacking teachers of any variety. Eventually, rumor had it that education professor Diane Ravitch declined her invitation to the panel because of the lack of teacher voice. After including Leo Casey and Stephen Lazar, there was further discussion about Educators for Excellence's Sydney Morris' presence, drawing attention to what many of us feel is a right-of-center lean for Gotham Schools. Others saw the panel as a way for City Hall News to put themselves at the center of the debate for NYC education. As for me, I came in hoping not to say a word, as I've probably said far too much this summer and didn't get to listen enough.

Fewer topics in education arouse more controversy than value-added measures. There are disagreements about how value-added scores should be calculated. There are arguments about what value-added scores tell us about schools or teachers. There are differences of opinion about how value-added data should be used. The polemic received full public attention in August, 2010 when the LA Times published district teacher rankings based on individual teachers' value-added scores, custom-calculated for the newspaper by statisticians at the Rand Corporation. Union representatives were aghast, teachers were appalled, parents were intrigued, students were amused, and academic scholars were either supportive or critical. The problem was that Doug Harris's book Value-Added Measures in education: What Every Educator Needs to Know had yet to be published, so the definitive resource for how best to assess the LA Times data was not available.

Education economist Roland G. Fryer, Jr., known for his work in tracing the potential causes and Educational results of the achievement gaps for minority students, has been named one of 22 new fellows of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. As founder and director of Harvard University's Education Innovation Laboratory and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Fryer has been at the forefront of research on the achievement gap.

New York State Education Commissioner John B. King has posted a Back to School message for educators, with a transcript included. The message for educators is that all adults in schools should constantly be asking, "Who is proficient? How do I know and how do I increase those levels of proficiency?" From the district superintendent, to the superintendent, to the principal, to the teacher, to the office staff, everyone has to be continuously asking, "Where are we? Where are we in terms of our goals and where are we in terms of our students' college and career readiness and how do we get there?"