Education Links

"...The wide gap between the regular graduation rate and the college-ready graduation rate, which was published for the first time this year, complicates Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's effort to show steady improvement in city schools..."

According to the new Recovery School District (RSD) superintendent, John White, "Five years ago, there were 62 percent of the youngsters attending failing schools. There are now only 18 percent of those youngsters who attend failing schools …so what exists, works."1 What a stupendous claim! If true, it would signify extraordinary student progress that the RSD has made since Katrina. Conversely, considering that the RSD and its proponents are so adept at manipulating data and misleading the public to support their cause, Research on Reforms (ROR) decided to investigate these claims more closely. The data for this commentary were all obtained from the 2009 and 2010 School Performance Scores (SPS) and student enrollment data from the website of the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE).2"

"For the last year, Central Falls High School in Rhode Island has been under a microscope. Long considered one of the poorest-performing high schools in the state, administrators abandoned a proposal to fire all the teachers as long as they agreed to a so-called "transformation" plan. Now, as the school year winds down, that plan is in shambles. "

"The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is at the center of the debate over charter schools and the future of American public education-but what does it mean to the students who define its mission? A Patch Special Report. "

"Did Education Department officials leak market-sensitive info to stock traders?" That's the provocative headline from Project on Government Oversight reporting on a probe by the agency's inspector general into controversial claims that may implicate Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "

"There is nothing new about opposition to public-sector unionism. It has been a feature of American life for over one hundred years. But in some ways, the current wave of anti-unionism is a departure. Three different eras of opposition to public-sector unionism, including the current one, have been distinguished by distinct core arguments against collective bargaining for public employees."

"It is a staple of American politics that elected officials routinely frame their appeals to the "middle class." The idea is simple: Since the vast majority of Americans consider themselves members of the middle class, it makes sense to use this label as shorthand for "people like you." The practice of people locating themselves within a class structure - rather than being "assigned" to classes based on particular characteristics, such as income or occupation - is often called "subjective class identification.""

"A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning. Analysts screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used a rigorous research design, and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size. As a result of this screening, 50 independent effects were identified that could be subjected to meta-analysis. The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. The difference between student outcomes for online and face-to-face classes-measured as the difference between treatment and control means, divided by the pooled standard deviation-was larger in those studies contrasting conditions that blended elements of online and face-to-face instruction with conditions taught entirely face-to-face. Analysts noted that these blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in control conditions. This finding suggests that the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media, per se. An unexpected finding was the small number of rigorous published studies contrasting online and face-to-face learning conditions for K-12 students. In light of this small corpus, caution is required in generalizing to the K-12 population because the results are derived for the most part from studies in other settings (e.g., medical training, higher education)."

"While several states have recently limited the ability for teacher unions to collectively bargain for their members, teachers will continue to flex their political muscle in a way scholars of policymaking have overlooked: through their pocketbooks, says a Baylor University political scientist."

"The hot issue in New York--and everywhere--is how to fairly evaluate teachers' effectiveness in the classroom."

"The education reform debate that has developed during the Barack Obama administration has entered an Ouroboros stage-public debate about the public debate. While the symbolism of the snake eating its own tail can have positive implications, I fear that this self-consuming debate about education reform is likely to keep everyone entertained by words-as-sideshow while our education system and the children that it serves remain ignored and outside the tent with the teachers."

"The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have filed a complaint that accuses the state of Wisconsin and some private schools that accept vouchers of creating a system of segregated public schools."

"Mayor Rahm Emanuel has made it clear that one of the first educational priorities of his administration is to stop shortchanging kids, and to provide them with the quality instruction they deserve. The only way to do this is to lengthen what is currently one of the shortest school days and years in this nation."

"...there seems to be little alternative thinking in the approach to school reform itself. And both elite and mainstream media have pretty much fallen in line with the reigning policy talk about the problems with our schools and how to fix them. As well, no one in power is asking the more fundamental questions like: What is the purpose of education in a democracy, and are our reforms enhancing-or possibly restricting-that purpose?"

"For all the efforts to improve education that are made in classrooms, school board meetings, research institutions, congressional chambers and elsewhere, one factor has in many ways eclipsed them all: an intense focus on standardized testing. High-stakes tests-flaws and all-seem to be driving everything from what subjects are taught, to how they are taught, to whether schools are closed, to how teachers are evaluated and compensated. Schools have even experimented with paying kids for higher test scores. Sadly, the pressure to measure has even diverted schools from implementing strategies known to improve student outcomes. "