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Debunking a miracle school can be tedious work.  Debunking an entire district is, generally, even worse. But when I heard about the recent 'miracle' in Denver, I was pleasantly surprised when I got the opportunity to explore Colorado's excellent data system called SchoolView

Four city high schools have been under investigation since as far back as January 2010 for alleged Regents tampering or scoring inflation that could have fraudulently boosted their graduation rates, The Post has learned.

Variation and Change in State Standards for Reading and Mathematics, 2005-2009

Despite fewer delegates than previous years-just about 9,000, down from 10,000-the National Education Association's annual convention is still the largest delegated decision-making body in the world.

A handful of states have increased the rigor of their state assessments since 2007, an analysis released today by the statistical wing of the U.S. Department of Education concludes.

Graphical displays of disaggregated data

Scores for the 2010-11 NYSTP 3-8 ELA and mathematics assessments will be available to schools and districts in the Verification Reports in the Level 2 Reporting (L2RPT) environment (see http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/level2reports/home.html) and on nySTART (www.nySTART.gov) on August 4, 2011. Data on these assessments will be released publicly by the Commissioner on August 8, 2011. School and district aggregated results are embargoed until the Commissioner's public release. Data under embargo cannot be discussed at public meetings or released to the public or the media.

In recent years there seems to have been a surge in academic dishonesty across many high schools (a lot of it has been showing up in the last few weeks). No doubt this can be explained in part by 1) increased vigilance and reporting, 2) greater pressure on students to succeed, and 3) the communicable nature of dishonest behavior (when people see others do something, whether it's tweaking a resume or parking illegally, they're more likely to do the same). But, I also think that a fourth, and significant, cause in this worrisome trend has to do with the way we measure and reward teachers.

Never before have so many had so much reason to cheat. Students' scores are now used to determine whether teachers and principals are good or bad, whether teachers should get a bonus or be fired, whether a school is a success or failure.

National organization Parents Across America rejects Duncan's "waiver" proposal and calls for complete overhaul of No Child Left Behind

Scandal is the news, but it's not always the story. I know, because the Atlanta public schools, which I ran for 12 years until I retired in June, are embroiled in cheating allegations that rightly are the focus of extraordinary media coverage. Yet there is a growing danger that this disgraceful situation will set back national educational reform, when it could ironically advance it.

Since 1968, the black middle class in America has quadrupled, Henry Louis (Skip) Gates told a packed house at the Edgartown Whaling Church on Thursday evening. But that was the only positive news in an otherwise bleak survey of the state of black education by a panel of experts convened by Professor Gates and the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

Los Angeles Unified teachers are participating in an evaluation project that gives more feedback on their methods.

Diane Ravitch, the former assistant U.S. secretary of education, tells Miller-McCune what she thinks about No Child Left Behind now.

Now, the implication that "anything is better than the status quo" is a rather massive fallacy in public policy, as it assumes that the costs of alternatives will outweigh benefits, and that there is no chance the replacement policy will have a negative impact (almost always an unsafe assumption). But, in the case of teacher evaluations, the "status quo" is no longer what people seem to think.

Why won't Michelle Rhee talk to USA Today?

Diane Ravitch responds to Steve Brill.

At the meetings of the National Conference of State Legislatures in San Antonio this week, lawmakers from around the country heard a learned presentation from  education-finance professor James Guthrie of the Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University, purporting to show how the state is not getting its money's worth from  Texas public schools. Defining productivity in terms of the ratio of dollars invested to points scored by Texas students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Guthrie painted a dismal picture of public financial folly-a pattern of  growing investments for little gain that no private business would tolerate. Guthrie dismissed as inefficient state policies and attendant expenditures to reduce class size, provide certified teachers, and retain experienced teachers.

At a time of persistent unemployment, especially among the less skilled, many wonder whether our schools are adequately preparing students for the 21st-century global economy. This is the second study of student achievement in global perspective prepared under the auspices of Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG). In the 2010 PEPG report, "U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective," the focus was on the percentage of U.S. public and private school students performing at the advanced level in mathematics. The current study continues this work by reporting the percentage of public and private school students identified as at or above the proficient level (a considerably lower standard of performance than the advanced level) in mathematics and reading for the most recent cohort for which data are available, the high-school graduating Class of 2011.