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It all started a few days ago when Edison scoundrel and Broadyte Chris Cerf published a fact-free diatribe extolling the charter school solution to a non-existent problem. To say that Cerf plays fast and loose with facts would be the understatement of the summer, but his most mendacious statements (and a grievous factual error) occur in regards to the venerable Albert Shanker. The incorrigible Cerf isn't the first corporate snake oil salesman to try and misrepresent the late President of the American Federation of Teachers' views, or for that matter, spin the original purpose of charters to be a gateway drug to vouchers. The latter argument is usual spun as "charter schools were created to be schools of choice." Anyone familiar with actual history knows that Shanker intended charters to supplement public schools by serving the most difficult to educate students (the ones current charters avoid like the plague), he never supported the core segregationist tenet of "school choice." In fact, most high profile corporate education privatizers have perpetuated these outrageous lies at one time or another.

"Can a teachers' union successfully be both a hardball-playing defender of its rights and a collaborative force for the common good? It is both a question of philosophy and, increasingly, one of policy direction for the American Federation of Teachers, whose biennial convention here showed delegates grappling with the tension between the two approaches to unionism."

"Yesterday, a variety of edu-Tweeps engaged in a lengthy debate over due process in instances when a teacher is investigated for inappropriate sexual misconduct with students. At issue is a New York legislative proposal that would give administrators the final word in firing teachers in such instances. (The current process depends heavily on arbitrators jointly selected by the teachers' union and the district.) Of course, as this was a Twitter debate, it's only right that we should share some of that thread as it unfolded. So here I present a Storify of the debate, which was primarily between American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and former CNN personality Campbell Brown."

"In the maelstrom of criticism surrounding America's unionized public teachers, the woman running the second-largest educator union says time has come to collaborate on public school reform rather than resist. Randi Weingarten, re-elected this week for a third term as president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) with 98 percent of the vote, wants her 1.5 million members to be open to changes that might improve public schools."

"President Obama and countless reports all say that improving science and engineering literacy and ensuring a next generation of U.S. scientists and engineers are vital to our future. With the notable exceptions of creationists and climate change deniers, there is little opposition to making this an educational priority. However, current education policies at the state and federal levels contradict the core values of science and engineering, and are therefore likely to inhibit rather than catalyze progress."

School choice has again blipped onto the Vermont political screen. The federal government is bringing pressure on the states to adopt choice schemes, primarily in the form of charter schools. Vested interest think tanks, heavily supported by the deep pockets of the Gates, Broad and Friedman foundations, have been the strong but less visible pushers. Vermont's historical choice system was founded on very different principles than today's ideological agenda.

The tests also matter because students who score seventy-five or better on the New York State English Regents are exempt from remedial reading and writing classes in the City University of New York. But that is only part of the story. Three-quarters of the 17,500 freshmen at the community colleges this year have needed remedial instruction in reading, writing or math, and nearly a quarter of the freshmen have required such instruction in all three subjects. Thanks to a recent article by Michael Winerip in the New York Times we now know why students score much better on the English Regents. The exam is much easier than the others. In fact it is so easy that it does not even measure basic student literacy. It also calls into question the reliability of standardized tests to measure anything about schools, let alone teacher performance, and the whole federal Race to the Top program.

When Barack Obama ascended to the Presidency, he was fired up with a desire to improve America's schools, which he felt were falling behind those of other advanced countries. He decided to bring "the best minds in the country" in to help them with this task- CEO's of successful businesses, heads of major foundations, young executives from management consulting firms- to figure out a strategy to transform America's schools, especially those in low performing districts. He promised them full support of his Administration when they finally came up with effective strategies including the use of federal funding to persuade, and if necessary, compel local districts to implement them Notably missing in this brain trust were representatives of America's teachers and school administrators, but their absence was not accidental.

In the days leading up to the release of ratings for thousands of New York City public-school teachers on Friday, hundreds of e-mails poured into the in-box of Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers.

Guided by the assumptions that charter schools will be part of our public educational system for the foreseeable future; that charter schools are neither inherently good, nor inherently bad; and that charter schools should be employed to further goals of equal educational opportunity, including racial diversity and school success, this policy brief addresses the challenge of using charter school policy to enhance equal opportunity.  Part I of the brief provides an overview of equal educational opportunity and its legal foundations and offers a review of prior research documenting issues concerning charter schools and their impact on equity and diversity. Part II presents detailed recommendations for charter school authorizers, as well as state and federal policymakers, for using charter schools to advance equal educational opportunity. The accompanying legal brief offers model language designed to augment existing charter school laws by adding language particularly aimed at ensuring that charter schools serve as a vehicle of reform consistent with the value of equal educational opportunity. 

I am a teacher.   You know, one of those about whom you and your Secretary of Education say are so important to our young people.  If only I - and thousands, perhaps millions of other teachers - could believe those words.   There are things your administration has done that we respect, at least most of us.  The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act meant large numbers of teachers and other public employees did not lose their jobs.  Under ARRA, for the first time ever the Federal government for two years just about met its commitment to provide 40% of the average additional costs imposed by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.  There was also the $10 billion in funds to support local government employment that also save some jobs.    We acknowledge these things. If only the policies your administration advocates were similarly supportive of teachers and what we see as the best interest of our students.

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner) Over on the Shanker Blog of the American Federation for Teachers, Matthew DiCarlo writes a thoughtful but ultimately misguided post A Dark Day for Education Measurement in the Sunshine State.

New York City voters trust the teachers union more than Mayor Michael Bloomberg to protect the interests of public-school students, according to a new poll that gives the union a jolt of credibility as it negotiates over a new teacher-evaluation system. The poll, released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University, found that 56% of city voters said they trust United Federation of Teachers while 31% trust the mayor. Parents of public-school students preferred the union by an even wider margin, with 69% telling pollsters that the UFT can be better trusted to do what's best for their children. By a margin of 47% to 39%, voters said they believe the teachers union is playing a positive role in improving the city's education system.

New York City voters strongly disapprove of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's handling of the public schools, and are much more likely to trust the teachers' union than the mayor to advocate for students, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday morning. But voters also support many of Mr. Bloomberg's most recent education proposals, even though they have been opposed or questioned by the United Federation of Teachers. The poll found, for example, that voters support the mayor's desire to use teacher performance, not seniority, as the key factor when layoffs are required. They also favor his proposals to increase salaries for the highest-performing teachers and to make it easier to remove teachers who are chronically underperforming.

The key element in the agreement reached between the New York City teachers' union and the city's Education Department last Thursday was given a closer look, as The New York Times and Gotham Schools examined the role to be played by so-called "independent validators" in rating teacher effectiveness. As part of the deal reached between the city Education Department and the United Federation of Teachers, independent observers will be brought into New York City's classrooms "to monitor the weakest teachers and provide a second opinion to supplement observations by the school principal," writes Winnie Hu in The Times.

It's crunch time on school vouchers for disabled kids in Wisconsin. Last summer, I wrote about how Republicans and school choice groups are targeting kids in special ed. A particularly noxious piece of "school reform" legislation, drafted by ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council) and pushed by Republicans in statehouses around the country, would get unsophisticated parents to swap their kids' federally protected right to a free, appropriate public education for school vouchers of highly dubious value to the kids.

While the heightened attention paid to education policy, exemplified by federal policies such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, is a positive signal that the public and policymakers are eager to address the problems at hand, many of the "reforms" miss the mark. Yes, education is a way out of poverty -- but poverty is also a hindrance to education. As such, addressing in-school factors in a vacuum -- with no consideration of the problems facing the wider community -- cannot do enough to improve educational outcomes or to narrow the achievement gap between low-income students and their wealthier peers.

Speaking on a panel at a gathering for the Economic Club of Chicago, Brizard said he supported public dollars being invested in scholarships for students at private and parochial schools. Brizard spoke on the panel with Michael Milkie, CEO of the Noble Network of Charter Schools, and Sister Mary Paul McCaughey, superintendent of the Archdiocese of Chicago Catholic Schools.

As student learning is the primary goal of teaching, it seems like common sense to evaluate teachers based on how much their students gain on state standardized tests. Indeed, many states have adopted this idea in response to federal incentives tied to much-needed funding. However, previous experience is not promising. Recently evaluated experiments in Tennessee and New York did not improve achievement when teachers were evaluated and rewarded based on student test scores. In the District of Columbia, contrary to expectations, reading scores on national tests dropped and achievement gaps grew after a new test-based teacher-evaluation system was installed. In Portugal, a study of test-based merit pay attributed score declines to the negative effects of teacher competition, leading to less collaboration and sharing of knowledge. I was once bullish on the idea of using "value-added methods" for assessing teacher effectiveness. I have since realized that these measures, while valuable for large-scale studies, are seriously flawed for evaluating individual teachers, and that rigorous, ongoing assessment by teaching experts serves everyone better. Indeed, reviews by the National Research Council, the RAND Corp., and the Educational Testing Service have all concluded that value-added estimates of teacher effectiveness should not be used to make high-stakes decisions about teachers. Why?

Special education has become the new wedge for advocates of school choice-private school vouchers, charter schools, and other options for public school students. Some school-choice proponents told me that students with disabilities inspire sympathy, and state lawmakers wouldn't stand in the way of their getting these additional opportunities. The big risk for parents who choose vouchers is that they'll lose their federal rights to be involved in their child's education as provided by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.