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The Pennsylvania legislature is working on a "school choice" bill-meaning school vouchers and expanded charter schools. Rachel Tabachnik has detailed the network of Betsy DeVos-funded think tanks and PACs that are pushing privatization. But no move to undermine public education that works for all kids would be complete without Michelle Rhee, and Karoli at Crooks and Liars details how Rhee's StudentsFirst has been involved. After a string of Rhee appearances with voucher supporters and at DeVos-funded events, StudentsFirst has hired a lobbyist with some hardcore Republican credentials

A national think tank's latest study of post-Hurricane Katrina public education in New Orleans says parents of students at independently run charter public schools are more satisfied with the quality of education, safety and discipline at those schools than parents of students at more traditional schools, even though the two types of schools operate similarly in many ways.

"Well, this is exactly what Chris Christie wants to do to teachers. His draft bill eliminates the "masters bump", unless the Education Commissioner says the degree is one he likes, like in math (no matter that you may have studied math education in an elementary ed program). There is no grandfather clause: if Chris Cerf thinks your degree is useless, out goes your raise - even if your district had approved your program years ago."

New York City has plans to close 22 "failing" schools, taking the view that if those schools can't do right by their students, they shouldn't continue to exist. Because students deserve better, and if you don't agree with what Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his assorted education chancellors think is best, then you don't care about kids.

Class size is one of a long list of education-related issues about which arguments rage. Generally speaking, educators want small classes because they allow more individual attention. Those averse to taxes want large classes because they're cheaper. Many think class size makes no important difference. Bill Gates speaks approvingly of one master teacher, alone in a television studio, lecturing millions of kids.

The report, released January 4, details the observations of investigators from the Office of Charter Schools on six of the city's charter schools, and its recommendations to the Regents (all of which were followed). The report shows that most of the schools are neglecting basic elements of decent education, yet in no case were they punished for this, or pressured to change their ways. One thing is clear from this document: the Office of Charter Schools knows what good education looks like, but just doesn't think poor, black kids need to have it.

Every time I hear about a school where there are allegations or proof of cheating on standardized testing, I reflexively think about roaches, or, rather, the adage that if you see one or two of the pests running across the floor, there are probably an army of others having a party in the kitchen.

There will be no courses at the Relay Graduate School of Education, the first standalone college of teacher preparation to open in New York State for nearly 100 years. Instead, there will be some 60 modules, each focused on a different teaching technique. There will be no campus, because it is old-think to believe a building makes a school. Instead, the graduate students will be mentored primarily at the schools where they teach. And there will be no lectures. Direct instruction, as such experiences will be called, should not take place for more than 15 or 20 minutes at a time. After that, students should discuss ideas with one another or reflect on their own.

"...This thinking relies on a set of fallacies that show a stunning ignorance of why people teach and how people learn. These fallacies are perpetuated by people who have never taught, but because they happen to have tons of money behind their opinions, have accumulated an inordinate amount of power over how schools are run."

"We think public schools should go away,'' says Teri Adams, the head of the Independence Hall Tea Party and a leading advocate - both in New Jersey and Pennsylvania - of passage of school voucher bills. The tea party operates in those two states and Delaware.

"I think teacher evaluation is an extremely important issue, and I certainly have no problem with companies like LSI helping states and districts do it well. Marzano's research is a terrific foundation for teacher evaluation, because it has the potential to guide professional growth in areas identified for improvement."

There are much more subtle ways to fraudulently raise test scores than tampering with student test papers.  One that I've been thinking about a lot lately is the practice by many charter schools of improving their test scores through attrition.  Up until recently, these charters have not been very upfront about this factor contributing to their success.  With everything that these charters have at stake in preserving their reputations and their rich funders, I can understand why they might try to conceal what they're doing.  Of course they have the right to portray their business in the most favorable light possible.  That's what most businesses do.  The reason that I've become so involved in uncovering the truth behind these successes is that these ruses have tricked politicians into believing that one of the big solutions in fixing education is to expand the influence of charter schools.  Only states that agree to lift caps on charters were even eligible to apply to Obama's Race To The Top initiative.

Basically, almost everything that market-based reformers think needs to happen has been the reality in DCPS for the past 2-3 years. And the staff  has been transformed too. The majority of principals, and a huge proportion of teachers, were hired during the tenure of either Michelle Rhee or her successor, Kaya Henderson. The district should be in overdrive right about now. Is it?

When the Thomas B. Fordham Institute talks, people in the education policy community listen. The right-of-center think tank's staff includes some of the most well-known names in the education community, including Checker Finn, who has authored more than 40 books on education reform over the past two decades. A few weeks ago, Fordham released a report that claimed that the nation's efforts to close achievement gaps might be coming at the expense of our "talented tenth." Those are students who score in the top 10 percent on standardized tests. And again folks listened.

I'm frequently frustrated by our inability to talk sensibly about the role of for-profits in schooling. Most discussion amounts to reflexive demonization, occasionally interspersed with hired-gun salesmanship or protestations of good intentions. Nearly absent is thinking about the role for-profits can play in promoting quality and cost-effectiveness at scale, or what it'll take to make that happen.

I want to take a closer look at the corporate school reform movement because I think it can help expose where that movement is vulnerable to the most hopeful development of the past year, and that's the steady growth of a deep, broad and at times quite militant pushback against corporate reform.

Last week the media gave some space to a report from the Illinois Policy Institute, a right-wing corporate think tank, that claimed that 48 percent of teachers in the state have their pension contributions paid for by their local board. What misleading nonsense.

There was a time, not very long ago, when I was an active volunteer alumni recruiter for TFA. And, as you might expect, I was great at it. One year, I think it was 1998, I did a recruitment session at Colorado College, a very small school, which brought the house down. A year later when TFA published the list of the most popular schools for TFA, Colorado College was listed alongside The University Of Michigan and all the other common TFA schools as one of the top twenty schools for that year.

If you thought you knew everything about the remarkable transformation of Finland's schools from mediocre to one of the top performing school systems in the world, think again.  Native Finn Pasi Sahlberg (educator, researcher, advisor on global education reform,  and Director General of CIMO in Helsinki, Finland),  who has lived and closely studied this remarkable reformation, tells the full story in his newly released book, Finnish Lessons  - What can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?  Sahlberg shows how the Finnish ways of improving schools differ from the global educational reform movement and from the North American educational policies and reform strategies.  It's a wake-up call for all countries around the world who aspire to achieve excellence.

"Most of our educational traditions have something to offer, even if they include extremes against which we must be on guard. The latest batch of enthusiasms can all be placed within the context of an old conversation about what and how to teach. Though we need not reject them out of hand, we must at least question the thinking of our current gurus and of the most influential among those who would presume to shape the way we teach here in the States. Indeed, it is our duty to ask how well they advance the chief end of education-at least public education, which is to prepare our youth to take on the responsibilities of citizenship. Everything else is secondary."