Feed: eduwonkette - AggScore: 65.8

eduwonkette hangs up her cape

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Today, dear readers, I'm hanging up my cape. I'm joining the Sociology department at NYU this fall, and have a dissertation to wrap up that needs my undivided attention.Last night, I peeked back at my initial post in September 2007:Rather...

Wish #1: Taking Kids' Out of School Time Seriously

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Sexy sound bite solutions dominate education policy airtime – paying kids for test scores, paying teachers for test scores, and eliminating teacher certification are some of the latest examples.My final wish for the next four years is much more banal....

Wish #2: The End of Proficiency Only Accountability Systems

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The No Child Left Behind Act may represent the largest threshold-based government accountability system in the country. Schools are evaluated not by how much progress students make, but by their success in pushing students over the proficiency bar. By now,...

Wish #3: Asking More "Why?" Questions

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Earlier this month, a team of researchers at MIT and Harvard released a report contrasting the impact of charter schools, “pilot” schools, and traditional public schools on student achievement. The finding of charter school effects on achievement, using a...

Wish #4: Better Alignment of Accountability Systems to School Outcomes

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Here’s a little thought experiment: Suppose that, in addition to adequate yearly progress in literacy and mathematics, high schools had to demonstrate progress in students’ ethical behavior. Would the graduates of Far Rockaway High School in Queens in New...

Wish #5: Education Policy Based on Averages, Not Outliers

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To celebrate this week’s historic inauguration, skoolboy and I are going to take a step back and make some big wishes – or at least predictions - for education policy in the next four years.And I want to start this...

The State of "State of the City" Speeches

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While we await President-Elect Obama's Inauguration speech, here's a look at the rhetoric in ten mayors' "State of the City" speeches over the past year. Can you match the mayor with the quote? 1. We're going to demonstrate how a...

Lies, Damned Lies, and Bush Administration Accomplishments

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Yesterday, President George W. Bush, as part of his swan song, released a compendium entitled “Policies of the Bush Administration 2001-2009.” Not surprisingly, No Child Left Behind is the centerpiece of administration’s accomplishments in K-12 education, and the fact...

Professor Bonuses Based on Course Evaluations?

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Forget a PhD - profs might do better with improv training and Botox (seriously, attractive professors - especially attractive men - get better evaluations!). Reported this morning in the Chronicle:The chancellor of the Texas A&M University system wants to give...

The Skillful Publicist

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When a school district makes a big to-do about the use of "evidence to make decisions about how to help students learn, where to put our resources and how to manage our staff," is it fair to criticize it...

The Boston Pilot/Charter School Study: Some Good News, and Some Cautions

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When Robert Pondiscio pages, I answer. Yesterday, the Boston Foundation released a study on the efficacy of charter and pilot schools, which had the advantage of including both observational estimates of these schools effectiveness (comparing the performance of students in...

LDH, IES and the Reign of Frogs

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Okay, barring the bad karma that seems to hang over the state of Illinois, Arne Duncan is now firmly ensconced as President Barack Obama’s nominee as Secretary of Education, thereby forestalling the Apocalypse predicted by the detractors of Linda...

Cool Teachers You Should Know: Remembering Bob Kiessling

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This blog has a history of profiling "cool teachers you should know," and I wanted to start off 2009 by celebrating the life and work of Bob Kiessling, a legendary New Jersey math teacher and cross country/track coach who passed...

Survivor: The TFA Edition, II

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Yesterday, I wrote about Morgaen Donaldson’s research on the survival rates of three cohorts of Teach for America teachers in their initial placement schools and in teaching overall. Today, I’ll describe one of her analyses of why TFA teachers...