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"The pressure's on city students Tuesday as they begin taking a round of high-stakes standardized tests."

"Let's refuse to be defined by people who are happy to lecture us about the state of public education - but wouldn't last 10 minutes in a classroom"

I want to shift my focus for this entry and talk about something not directly related to macroeconomics (although I will pull it back in later): the US education system. It is a very hot topic at the moment as states everywhere are reducing expenditures in the face of fiscal crises. This is a recipe for disaster. Not only is their justification questionable, but it will only serve to make economic recovery more difficult. People believe that the budget choices we are making today are saving our children's future. It is, in fact, ruining it.

Fred Klonsky blog readers: After watching the fourteen minute excerpt and then viewing the whole video of the hour-long session, I want to very sincerely apologize.

The Republican presidential field is beginning to take shape, and candidates and maybe-candidates are figuring out where they stand and what to say. Sooner or later, they will need to say something about education. May we suggest a few talking points?

This was written by Carol Corbett Burris, the principal of South Side High School in New York.  She was named the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State.

Gov. John Kasich signed a two-year budget that imposes a performance-based salary schedule on school districts that receive Race to the Top money, raising questions about the impact on individual union agreements that were negotiated to win the $400 million federal grant-and also on the state's eligibility for the money.

Law officers and lawmakers in some states want schools to help spot illegal immigrants. Federal authorities remind school officials that every child is entitled to an education. National education groups echo that but recommend that schools avoid getting involved when it comes to students' citizenship issues.

Yesterday, Gov. Nathan Deal (R-GA) released a comprehensive report on a massive cheating scandal that took place in Atlanta's Public Schools system (APS). The report uncovered the participation of nearly 180 APS employees in altering test scores and facilitating cheating.

As Lisa Guisbond said, "this is an amazing video from the Aspen Ideas Festival in which Stand For Children's Jonah Edelman explains how he, with the support of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Arne Duncan's senior advisor Jo Anderson (former Executive Director of the IEA) out foxed the CTU, the IFT and the IEA's Ken Swanson and Audrey Soglin into agreeing to Senate Bill 7."

It's not often that we hear education reformers bragging in public about how they got the better of a teacher's union. But in the following remarkable video, Jonah Edelman, co-founder and chief executive officer of the Oregon-based nonprofit education reform organization Stand for Children, talks about how he and his organization maneuvered to get education reform legislation passed in Illinois this year, snookering union officials along the way.

Principals tend to prefer working in schools with higher-achieving students from more advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. Principals often use schools with many poor or low-achieving students as stepping stones to what they view as more desirable assignments. District leadership can also exacerbate principal turnover by implementing policies aimed at improving low-performing schools such as rotating school leaders. Using longitudinal data from one large urban school district we find principal turnover is detrimental to school performance. Frequent turnover results in lower teacher retention and lower student achievement gains, which are particularly detrimental to students in high-poverty and failing school

If there is any silver lining to the APS cheating scandal, it may be the greater scrutiny of testing and its increasing role in American education.

School Reform is the American Elite's preferred response to poverty and inequality, a strategy that requires no sacrifice, no redistribution nor any self-organization by America's disfranchised groups. Every day, it is proving itself a dismal failure.