Edu Commentary

Progress, but was Mark Twain right?

This site used to be a good resource for information about charter schools…but no more. Charter supporters, with friends like these…

These guys cannot renew a website agreement on-time, you’re going to trust them to run a war?

Edu Commentary’s just back from a house party. Feelin’ good, feelin’ mobilized! Yeah! Go team! Spend!

Las Vegas Review-Journal likes the new charter study of NYC and outs PPI as a bastion of serious lefty thought!

This is not a call to return to the lifeboats but here is more information on the ELC situation:

First, multiple confirmations from very informed sources that numerous resignations have taken place within the last week including chief of staff, office manager, and other senior types. Fiscal viability of the organization? Extremely uncertain according to multiple sources.

Second, multiple reporters (real reporters, with notebooks, tape recorders and everything!) working on stories about all this and not only trade press.

Third, this person cannot be pleased. Is all this just about beating the clock and keeping the heat off for 41 days? Nah, that would be too out of character for anything involving the Bush Administration right now…

Also, from an Ed Daily story:

[ELC Policy Director Gary] Huggins took issue with an item on Edu Commentary, an education Web site, which wondered whether the cancellation signaled that the ELC “was going under,” but later posted an update, pointing to the December rescheduling. “I was extremely bothered by that,” said Huggins. “Maybe that’s the way Web blogs work, but it was just pure rumor.”

First, Edu Commentary readers can rest easy, “pure rumors” are not published here if for no other reason than I’d have no time for anything else (a lot of you have a lot of axes to grind…). So fear not, you are not reading Ratherwonk. Our rumors are high-grade and checked-out. Second, time will tell…seems like big changes coming. Edu Commentary calling Vegas books for odds now.

Stay tuned…and remember, no heavy drinking!

Also II: One emailer wants to know what, if any, useful things have come out of ELC to date. For Edu Commentary’s money two things: ABCTE, which is sorely needed, and NCTQ, which is as well. ELC helped launch both, and both encourage pluralism in education policy and diminish group-think, badly needed. Beyond that, it’s unclear what Follow The Leaders has produced (despite $20-plus million in federal money) and although Edu Commentary surely didn’t agree with ELC on everything, he was glad to see another voice in the debate. Unclear they’re filling that role now though…

The Baltimore Sun’s Alec MacGillis takes an in-depth look at educational technology at NCLB. More money for low-income schools because of the law, hard questions about what it’s being spent on.

Papers from the NCES summer conference on school finance available here. Timely topics.

Wash. Post’s prolific Mathews looks at fledging efforts to measure collegiate value-added. And, he also looks at public boarding schools.

NYT’s Winter has more on the student loan issue. Bob Shireman on the issue for PPI here. NYT’s Freedman looks at budget issues at one high school in NY.

California Charter School Association head Caprice Young writes about charters in the San Diego Tribune.

LA Times on Broad Prize winner Garden Grove.

Jacobs on bullying. Jacobs on the Time article that has everyone chattering. And, Hip Teacher writes about her theatrical teaching. Good stuff. The Eduwife gets into full costume to make Macbeth come alive (thankfully at school only…). Da Blog! Education writer Alexander Russo now has a Chicago-based blog you should check out, link heavy.

Two new analyses of charter schooling out from PPI. In Fast Break In Indianapolis, analyst Bryan Hassel takes a look at the charter experience in Indianapolis where the mayor, Democrat Bart Peterson, is chartering schools. In Seeds of Change In The Big Apple, analyst Robin Lake takes a look at the charter experience in New York City. Both reports are preliminary but offer plenty of insights, cautions, and recommendations.

Previous analyses of state and urban charter experiences include CA (Catching the Wave), MN (Ripples of Innovation), and AZ (Rugged Frontier). Look for Ohio and Texas late this year.

Local press on Indy here, and AP on “Seeds” here.

Garden Grove Unified School District is the winner of the 2004 Broad Prize for Urban Education.

The other finalists were Aldine Independent School District in Houston, Texas; Boston Public Schools, Boston, Massachusetts; Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Charlotte, North Carolina; Norfolk Public Schools, Norfolk, Virginia. $500,000 goes to the winner and $125K to the other finalists for scholarships for the district’s graduates.

Eli Broad endowed the prize in 2002.

Again, from Penn. Amy Guttman, formerly very sympathetic to unions, now less so as President of an institution that has to deal with them.

One student (cum future department chair…) rushes to her aid:

Simi Wilhelm, chairwoman of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly and a student in Penn’s Graduate School of Education, said she believes GET-UP leaders misinterpreted Gutmann’s academic works.

“What was talked about in [her writings on labor unions] and what [was] pursued at Penn are not the same thing,” Wilhelm said.

She added that Gutmann’s “support of a union in one context doesn’t translate to another.”



Of course not.

For background, Edu Commentary flashback here.

Stay tuned here.

Update: Consult Edu Commentary for all your travel needs! Postponement email notice from ELC just out, new dates, first weekend of December. After the election, convenient! At least for now, abandon lifeboats, back to cabins?

Update II: Even if the conference does happen, it won’t be so much fun because you’ll have to drink in moderation…