More on the new deal in Newark and a key player behind it. But don’t call it merit pay! It’s bonuses! Yes, it may look like a duck, quack like a duck, but it is NOT a duck! Or so I hear on Twitter where we’re furiously being told this is some bonus structure rewarding excellence but not merit pay! We sure do spend a lot of time arguing semantics…
Dual enrollment on steroids in New York. Smart and brave Huffie commentary from Sujata G. Bhatt. If you want a primer on what’s happening on the innovation side of higher education last week’s TIME article by Amanda Ripley and Kevin Carey’s take on start-ups are where to start.
TNTP’s Tim Daly with an Edu Commentary guest post on the Chicago strike fallout. And Ezekiel Emanuel with a proposal sure to cinch numerous student body elections across the country. Don’t tell anyone but charter schools are working pretty well in NYC. That’s not by happenstance and there are some lessons for policy elsewhere.
As a parent of identical twins this Times op-ed caught my attention. But it went in a different direction than I expected. The score similarity is interesting and amusing (and happens a lot) but there are a bunch of possible reasons for the score drop the author discusses (changes to the test, actual decline in performance relative to the standards, or just a flukey result). What’s more interesting to me is that despite being genetically matched and quite similar my kids nonetheless have different experiences with school. It’s a daily reminder of how much we still have to learn about learning and how many different things can affect how we learn.
Speaking of reminders, the long Times look at the different experiences of students at New York private schools by race and income is a good caution. Our education debate gets fought out with schools as the unit of analysis (average scores within schools, demographic composition of schools, school characteristics etc…) but different students can have very different experiences within the same school. And, more generally, those differences can result from formal or informal practices and policies within a school. That’s obviously even more of a problem in large schools, especially the huge factories we tolerate in some cities and suburban communities, but as the article shows it can be an issue anywhere.
Charter schools in Mass:
http://edushyster.com/?p=931#more-931
Good stuff on why Michael Bloomberg et al are blowing cash (faster than Johnny Depp blew coke) into Louisiana’s Board of Education.
Why Do Some of America’s Wealthiest Individuals Have Fingers in Louisiana’s Education System?
Seven pro-education “reform” candidates for the BESE outraised eight candidates endorsed by the teacher’s unions by $2,386,768 to $199,878, a ratio of nearly twelve to one. In just one of these races, the executive director of Teach for America Greater New Orleans-Louisiana Delta, Kira Orange Jones, outspent attorney Louella Givens, who was endorsed by the state’s main teacher’s unions, by more than thirty-four to one: $472,382 to $13,815.
Phillip, that link doesn’t work but we want to know! Actually, some of us do know what is going down, by the bayou. Not pretty. Katrina was very, how shall we say, convenient. Ahem. We all know that.
You Louisiana reformers have your chance to make it seem like reform via choice and conservative principles is the way to reform. Go for it.
You will still fail. The real lesson from Katrina is that real people die from the racism and prejudice of the powerful. Enjoy your brief moment in the sun.
Sorry, Jeff
http://www.thenation.com/article/170649/why-do-some-americas-wealthiest-individuals-have-fingers-louisianas-education-system#
For higher education there are some great learning and teaching tools available online. One such tool is called virtual classroom and you can have a look at the tool at http://www.wiziq.com/virtual_classroom.aspx. Over 150,000 teachers and 2 million learners are already using it for online teaching and learning & they also offer 30-day free trial.