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Contrary to the canned rhetoric flying around public discourse on education finance, high-quality research like that discussed in Baker's review does not lend itself to broad, sweeping conclusions. Some things work and others don't, and so the strength and consistency of the money/results relationship varies by how it's spent, the students on whom it spent, and other factors. Sometimes effects are small, and sometimes they're larger. Nevertheless, on the whole, Baker's review shows that there is a consistently positive effect of higher spending on achievement. Moreover, interventions that cost money, such as higher teacher salaries, have a proven track record of getting results, while state-level policies to increase the adequacy and equitability of school finance have also been shown to improve the level and distribution of student performance. Finally, and most relevant to the current budget context, the common argument that we can reduce education funding without any harm to (and, some argue, actual improvement of) achievement outcomes has no basis in empirical evidence.

Earlier today on Twitter, Annie Lowrey and I had a brief exchange (or an exchange of tweets) about the column inches she used for the Hanushek-like extrapolation in Friday's New York Time story on the Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff value-added measure paper.1 Of 1142 words for the story as a whole, about 15% of the story was spent on the following passages

Shortly after the Hess list was published, I was contacted by someone in the education press and asked if I "could assemble a similar list of some not-so-conservative folks." But in truth I had no interest in doing so. Instead, I thought it might be helpful to compile a list of researchers who are comfortable speaking with media and policymakers. To be blunt, and to risk offending some of my friends in the education press, I thought it would be useful to offer assistance in overcoming another "disconcerting habit" of the media coverage of education policy: the elevation of pundits over experts (and, for that matter, over practitioners).

The teaching profession is crucial to America's society and economy, but public-school teachers should receive compensation that is neither higher nor lower than market rates. Do teachers currently receive the proper level of compensation? Standard analytical approaches to this question compare teacher salaries to the salaries of similarly educated and experienced private-sector workers, and then add the value of employer contributions toward fringe benefits. These simple comparisons would indicate that public-school teachers are undercompensated. However, comparing teachers to non-teachers presents special challenges not accounted for in the existing literature.

This is what privatization looks like. Our public institutions, starved of funds, are desperately kissing up to corporate America. Worse, our expectations are privatized. We're thinking of education as a prize-won by fierce competition or dumb luck-rather than a right. The private money is everywhere. Our neighborhoods continue to be bombarded with charter schools that could not exist without the financial and corporate elites.

Our research revealed a pattern of school choice results that range from neutral (no significant differences between Choice and MPS) to positive (clear benefit to Choice).  Although we have examined virtually every possible way that school choice could systematically affect people, schools, and neighborhoods in Milwaukee, we have found no evidence of any harmful effects of choice.

In Washington, D.C., one of the first places in the country to use value-added teacher ratings to fire teachers, teacher-union president Nathan Saunders likes to point to the following statistic as proof that the ratings are flawed: Ward 8, one of the poorest areas of the city, has only 5 percent of the teachers defined as effective under the new evaluation system known as IMPACT, but more than a quarter of the ineffective ones. Ward 3, encompassing some of the city's more affluent neighborhoods, has nearly a quarter of the best teachers, but only 8 percent of the worst. The discrepancy highlights an ongoing debate about the value-added test scores that an increasing number of states-soon to include Florida-are using to evaluate teachers. Are the best, most experienced D.C. teachers concentrated in the wealthiest schools, while the worst are concentrated in the poorest schools? Or does the statistical model ignore the possibility that it's more difficult to teach a room full of impoverished children?

The deliberate pepper-spraying by campus police of nonviolent protesters at UC Davis on Friday has provoked national outrage. But the horrific incident must not cloud the real question: What led comfortable, bright, middle-class students to join the Occupy protest movement against income inequality and big-money politics in the first place?

For the second time, the Los Angeles Times published results of statistical testing examining the variation in teacher and school performance in the LA Unified School District. The resulting ranking system was found to be inaccurate due to the unreliable methodology.

With so many charter school teachers moving on each year, concerns arise about retaining quality educators and how stability affects student performance.

The school voucher debate is shifting, in part, a new study released today concludes, because participating students' test scores are not.

As public school students and educators throughout Florida prepared to return to schools that have fewer teachers, larger classes and smaller budgets, a for-profit charter school company, Charter Schools USA, paid for 2,000 employees to attend a pep rally. The rally included controversial charter schools proponent Michelle Rhee and Gov. Rick Scott - the man who pushed for $1.35 billion in cuts for public schools and increased funding for charter and virtual schools.

School-choice advocates might quarrel with me on this, but you could make a pretty strong argument that as far as legislative policymaking goes, 2011 has been the year of the teacher-as in the year when governors and lawmakers made major, far-reaching changes to how teachers in this country are evaluated, how they advance, and how they are paid.

The Recovery School District (RSD) based its 2009-10 alleged success on School Performance Scores.  However, the RSD failed to indicate that 30% of its schools did not even have School Performance Scores.  The RSD's alleged success omitted 30% of its schools.  

As charter schools play an increasingly central role in education reform agendas across the United States, it becomes more important to have current and comprehensible analysis about how well they do educating their students. Thanks to progress in student data systemsand regular student achievement testing, it is possible to examine student learning in charter schools and compare it to the experience the students would have had in the traditional public schools (TPS) they would otherwise have attended. This report presents a longitudinalstudent-level analysis of charter school impacts on more than 70 percent of the students in charter schools in the United States. The scope of the study makes it the first national assessment of charter school impacts.

The DCPS school year is under way and many students are adjusting to an unfamiliar environment. They're not alone. A surprising number of both teachers and principals are also completing their first month at their new digs. What impact DCPS's high teacher and principal turnover has on students is less than clear, like most things with the school system. Mary Levy is a DCPS budget expert. Her work sheds light on some very dark places. In an extended interview, directly following her Sept. 7 testimony at a D.C. Council hearing on middle schools, Levy discussed DCPS's increasing de facto segregation, Teach for America, charter schools and more. She began by talking about the lack of transparency in the budget, which she says has gotten worse over the years, despite the internet.

I've written so many posts about the misinterpretation of testing data in news stories that I'm starting to annoy myself. For example, I've shown that year-to-year changes in testing results might be attributable to the fact that, each year, a different set of students takes the test. I've discussed the fact that proficiency rates are not test scores - they only tell you the proportion of students above a given line - and that the rates and actual scores can move in opposite directions (see this simple illustration). And I've pleaded with journalists, most of whom I like and respect, to write with care about these issues (and, I should note, many of them do so).

For decades, research has confirmed that the big factor in determining how much students learn is not class size or the extent of standardized testing but the quality of their teachers. Policymakers have pushed mostly carrot-and-stick remedies: firing underperforming teachers, giving merit pay to high performers, penalizing schools with poor student test scores. People like Jim Knight think we should push coaching.

DOE is not in compliance with the SED's Physical Education Regulations for elementary-level students and middle-level students in elementary schools. DOE does not have an overall written physical education plan nor does it monitor schools' compliance with the regulations. Therefore, DOE has no assurance that the students in elementary schools are receiving the minimum required physical education. In fact, our review of a sample of 31 elementary schools found limited evidence that any of the sampled schools were in compliance with the SED physical education requirements for all of its students.