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A newly-created state school district, the Educational Achievement System (EAS), will begin in Fall 2012 as part of Gov. Rick Snyder's Education reform. At that point, it begins receiving state and federal per-pupil funding. Until then, the new system will operate as the only public district in the nation supported entirely by private donations. A newly-formed business entity, the Michigan Education Excellence Foundation, is collecting private monies for the operation of the Education Achievement Authority (EAA), the board that will oversee and implement the EAS, a statewide district for "low-performing" public schools.

School reforms abound today, yet even the boldest and most imaginative among them have produced-at best-marginal gains in student achievement. What America needs in the twenty-first century is a far more profound version of education reform. Instead of shoveling yet more policies, programs, and practices into our current system, we must deepen our understanding of the obstacles to reform that are posed by existing structures, governance arrangements, and power relationships. Yet few education reformers-or public officials-have been willing to delve into this touchy territory. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Center for American Progress have teamed up to tackle these tough issues and ask how our mostly nineteenth-century system of K-12 governance might be modernized and made more receptive to the innumerable changes that have occurred-and need to occur-in the education realm. We have commissioned fifteen first-rate analysts to probe the structural impediments to school reform and to offer provocative alternatives.

The list of initiatives reads like a grand plan to dismantle public education as we know it: Slash education spending. Outsource public teachers. Curb collective bargaining rights. Kneecap teachers' unions. Open the floodgates to charter and "cyber" schools. Welcome to education reform in the state of Michigan, where a Republican-dominated legislature and a GOP governor are pushing one of the broadest anti-union, pro-privatization agendas in the country.

I think it is safe to say that most educated people understand that student achievement scores have been, and continue to be, manipulated for political ends. I suspect the truth lies somewhere between genuine concern for improving public education and an insidious desire to destroy public education. On that issue, I will leave you to decide. I would, however, like to give you an insider's view of a state supported scheme to shift our tax dollars to private companies at the expense of our students.

NYC Parents Union, a public-education advocacy organization strongly, condemned Governor Andrew Cuomo's education remarks that invoked Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s memory. "Yesterday, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo violated the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by exploiting and manipulating Dr. King's legacy of empowerment to promote a cynical political agenda that victimizes public school students, their parents and the teachers who are the foundation of public education," the Parents Union's statement began, calling on the Governor immediately change course on the issue.

Data can tell educators and students where they have been successful and where they need help, but too much data can make those same educators lose focus of what they are supposed to be doing, which is educating students and creating a safe and nurturing environment.

The phrase "education reform" has been co-opted to mean a narrow party program advocated by the reform establishment (mainly billionaires and their designees) that includes a barrage of testing, charter schools, and taking experienced educators out of the classroom. None of these measures have a track record of success, but the actual facts get obscured by Hollywood films and connected charter groups. It's hard to get into the conversation when the corporate side of education reform uses the term as a bludgeon against anyone who questions its agenda -- even when the concerns are supported by research.

As someone who escaped extreme poverty through education, I would be the first to object to any suggestion that poverty is intractable. But I would also BE the first to object to any suggestion that it does not matter. And neither Ripley nor Ravitch appears to be that extreme. In fact, on the surface, they seem to be in complete agreement: Poverty matters but the purpose of education is to help overcome poverty.

One of the things I've discovered in recent years is that when it comes to education policy, the last people asked for input are America's teachers. We have a President who holds an" education summit" that includes the nation's top business leaders and foundation heads, but no teachers; we have billionaires lobbying to privatize education and break teachers unions; we have an organization that purports to work for educational equity that encourages it's recruits to leave teaching after two years because they can influence policy more by moving into other, more prestigious careers, rather than spending a lifetime as a "mere teacher."

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).

A broad coalition of 38 civil rights, education reform and business groups sent House education chairman John Kline a scathing letter Wednesday, describing his No Child Left Behind legislation as potentially racist. "It undermines the core American value of equal opportunity in education embodied in Brown v. Board of education," the groups wrote.

Like Henry Ford, Bill Gates has ushered in a new era in U.S. public education, shifting the already robust accountability era that began in the early 1980s and accelerated in 2001 with the passing of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) from focusing on student accountability for standards and test scores to demanding that teachers be held accountable for student test scores addressing those standards. Gates has been assisted by Michelle Rhee and Secretary of education Arne Duncan as the "No Excuses" Reformers have perpetuated narratives conjuring the myth of the "bad" teacher, which Adam Bessie has confronted by suggesting we hire hologram teachers in order to remove the greatest problem facing education: Humans. Just as the assembly line rendered all workers interchangeable, and thus, easy to hire, and easy to fire, the current education reforms focusing on teacher accountability, value-added methods (VAM) of evaluating teachers, and the growing fascination with Teach for America (TFA) are seeking the same fact for teachers: A de-professionalized workforce of teaching as a service industry, easy to hire, and easy to fire.

My hard-working, middle-class parents, like millions of American families, depended on their neighborhood public schools to provide quality education for their children, and rightfully so. Certainly, all parents in the U.S. should be able to choose the educational option that works best for them and their children. Most important, in this nation, every family in every community should have access to good schools. The only difference among schools should be perhaps each having a different focus. No parent anywhere in these United States should have to move or risk arrest in order to secure quality education for her/his child(ren).   How is it then, that millions of American children live in neighborhoods with schools chronically neglected by the same political/educational system that now wants to condemn them as "failing"?  In such settings, it is hypocritical and cruel to use the illusion of "choice" and "free-market competition" to justify closing or taking even more resources from those same schools; sending parents scurrying for scarce or non-existent schooling options. 

Today, hundreds of state legislators from across the nation will head out to an "island" resort on the coast of Florida to a unique "education academy" sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). There will be no students or teachers. Instead, legislators, representatives from right-wing think tanks and for-profit education corporations will meet behind closed doors to channel their inner Milton Friedman and promote the radical transformation of the American education system into a private, for-profit enterprise.

Noam Chomsky discusses the purpose of education, indoctrination, conformity, and imagination. What do you think of the current educational system? What practical things can be transformed in today's systems?

South Side High School Principal Dr. Carol Burris has co-authored a letter, signed by two thirds of Long Island's public school principals and a growing number of educators from across New York state, asking state education Commissioner John B. King Jr. and the Board of Regents to delay and change a new teacher evaluation plan that links educator ratings to student test scores. The letter, co-authored with Sean Feeney of The Wheatley School and sent on Nov. 2, urges the state to use school-wide achievement results in evaluating teachers and principals, pilot and adjust the system before implementing it on a large scale and use performance "bands" - not numbers - to rate education professionals.

If you wanted to reform the legal system, you would probably want to speak to attorneys. If you wanted to reform the way that sports leagues address the problem of concussions, you would want to speak to coaches and players. If you were interested in reforming medicine, you'd probably want to speak to doctors and nurses. But those who want to change the education system want nothing to do with teachers. Pretend-reform governors such as Chris Christie (NJ), Scott Walker (WI) and Rick Scott (FL), entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, and politicians including President Obama all believe that they know more about how to improve the public education system in the United States than professional educators who are working with students on a day-to-day basis to educate them and provide them with life skills.

There is a growing assumption that education reformers are anti-teacher and teachers are anti-reform. Disagreements between these groups have become so heated and so public recently that this seems like a reasonable conclusion. The real story is more complicated. Over the past year, I've had the chance to speak with many people in the education reform world. I have come to believe that most reformers became reformers for the same reasons that most teachers became teachers: a hope that we can provide a higher quality education to a greater number of children in a fairer and more equal way. As a teacher, though, I share my colleagues' frustrations with some of reformers' catchiest feel-good phrases. Teachers are not so much against education reforms as we are downstream from them. We see the way well-meaning changes play out in our schools and classrooms, and often hear troubling subtexts in talking points that sound great on TV. Here are a few examples, along with tips on how to engage teachers in the real conversations that we should be having about these issues.

Last week, I asked a question that had been on my mind: How can you tell the difference between good and bad education research? Colleagues in the Teacher Leaders Network and I have previously written about the importance of having a certain amount of healthy skepticism about research in the field, and I've written about the importance of being data-informed instead of being data-driven. Even then, though, we need to be careful about which data is informing us, and how it is being interpreted. In addition, I've compiled additional resources at The Best Resources For Understanding How To Interpret education Research. Today, two experienced education researchers have provided guest responses -- Matthew Di Carlo. from the Albert Shanker Institute and P. L. Thomas from Furman University. I'm also publishing comments from two readers.

I recently attended the New NY Education Commission (Who came up with that name?) meeting in Buffalo. For those of you outside of the Empire State, this commission pretty much summarizes the current state of Education reform across the country: the real stakeholders,students, parents and teachers, have little voice in the dialogue. This commission was started by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo because of his misleading and false statement that New York is 38th in Educational results.  The Commission is stacked with corporate and charter school types, with a few university leaders.  No teachers, no students.   Randi Weingarten, AFT President, is a member of this commission, but was not in attendance at the Buffalo meeting.