Edu Commentary

Here’s a courageous story.

Tom Toch writes in The Baltimore Sun today, plus these from yesterday. Wash Post ed board here. Big kiss for Achieve and the HS Summit, gulag time for NCSL.

Per this, reader DW writes to say:

…you left out Bill Clune. He was part of the original crew that made the school funding arguments in the 1970s. Gotta give props to Wisconsin profs.

Right. No slight intended!

Very important Chronicle of Higher Ed article on the new randomized trials issue. Note the back and forth between Ed’s Petrilli and AERA’s Sroufe, that’s the nub of the issue. This link is only active for five days so read fast. See also this piece by Rick Hess, who sits on the relevant board.

More action on NCLB in Utah. Is this the fig leaf/teacher quality for accountability strategy (or stategery as the case may be) or the beginning of the big walk back? You can bet these guys are watching very closely…

By the way, can we pause for a minute to enjoy the irony of all the self-proclaimed progressives cheering on Utah for this? Marty Peretz is right…

Here’s an informed guess: There will be a lot of op-eds and editorials on high school reform in the next 72-96 hours…

For now, David Broder weighs in here, NYT ed board here.

And, Bob Thompson’s back in the game in Motown! But will the teachers’ union call foul?

New ETS analysis on the dropout problem…prepare to be depressed (though there are some hopeful models, too).

National Council of State Legislatures has released a new report on NCLB. Nothing unpredictable in there, they don’t like any of it (except the goals, everyone supports the goals!) and want it basically gone. But don’t miss this response from the Ed Trust…hot.

Per the below item, a reader writes:

Dear Edu Commentary -As you know, I share Ted Sizer’s passion for school choice and applaud his attempt at reclaiming that banner for Progressives, where it began.

Sizer teaches at Brandeis, as does one Robert Reich. Reich once wrote an influential “supersized and means-tested” pro-voucher WSJ op-ed in 1990s. When he ran for MA governor in 2002, however, he not only disavowed it, he went whole hog teachers-union – i.e., use code words to signal that charters were a no-go for him, too.

It was a Howard Dean preview: pragmatic, often moderate but innovative and super-bright Dem tilts left to grab the low-hanging fruit of educated NPR listening activists and the accompanying early surge, but loses the moderates – and the nomination – in the process.

I’d be intrigued to sound out Reich about this issue today.

Edu Commentary would, too, though he disagreed with the op-ed and, if memory serves, it was basically a rip-off of Jack Coons and Stephen Sugarman with no credit to either of them.