Who authorizes the authorizers?

A blog post by Arianna Prothero in Education Week looks at the continuing debate, and differing schools of thought, around charter authorization. Authorizers and how they make decisions have gotten more attention lately, especially in Ohio and Michigan, where state- and press-led investigations have turned up academic and financial failures at charters. Some have subsequently argued that weak authorizing practices lead to weak…

Want to retain teachers?

The combination of poor student performance and limited teacher experience makes it especially difficult for majority low-income schools across the country to fulfill strict guidelines under NCLB, writes educator Paul Barnwell in The Atlantic. Barnwell himself was a novice teacher in 2004 in the Teach Kentucky program, which put him in a classroom with minimal training. He quit his assignment by Christmas. Although some educators hit…

What we expect, what we believe, makes a difference. Our mindset matters. We do not have the right to pigeonhole children by not believing in their ability to learn better tomorrow than today. We do not have the right to stop trying to figure out how to engage more students and help them be more successful.  We do not have the right to determine, as Buchanan is willing to do, that "there were trade jobs and blue collar jobs and construction jobs" out there and…

Option 3: Actually USE the smartphones…

Asking students to work in complete isolation…

Don’t Argue For Your Limitations…

Well-designed professional development solves problems…

Leaders Don't Boss…

Hollywood, HBO, and School Reform (Part 2)…

Virtual Field Trips and Education (Technology) Inequalities…

From Superhero Teacher to Bad Teacher: Hollywood Films Then and Now (Part 1)…

What is leadership....really? Who wants a leader....really? Is leadership always just a moment in time when all things come together? Could we believe that the Florida Superintendent of the Year for 2015 was a leader? Who would believe how soon after receiving that honor the superintendent would be terminated with a buyout of over a million dollars? And, who would believe that this resilient woman would become the Commissioner of Education in New York State within months after the…

There are many education critics or analysts who think they see a convergence at the very top of the society: rich capitalists somehow on the same page with far-left ideologues. Does that make sense?

 But what exactly is a Bill Gates? He gave $1 billion, give or take, to force Common Core on the country. Many people think this will make the country dumber, despite all the rosy claims. But what's in it for Bill…

Succeeding In Organizations

Jonathan T. Jefferson

“If I knew back then, what I know now

If I understood the what, when, why and how

Now it’s clear to me what I should have done…”

George Benson 20/20 lyrics

 …

The crucial matter of hiring, firing, and retention

Few schools get turnarounds right, least of all high schools, writes Sara Neufeld for The Hechinger Report. In 2012 and 2013, the federal Institute of Education Sciences (IES) asked 49 states and the District of Columbia about their capacity to support failing schools that had received federal turnaround money. This money disproportionately went to high schools, and states reported significant problems. To…

What ESEA reauthorization must not ignore

A new brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education argues that reauthorization of the ESEA must ensure states and districts target resources and reforms toward high schools repeatedly failing to graduate a third or more of students, or consistently demonstrating low graduation rates among student subgroups. Twenty-nine percent of African American students and 25 percent of Hispanic students do not graduate from high…

The proficiency disconnect

A new brief from Achieve details discrepancies -- or the "honesty gap" -- between student proficiencies as reported by states to students, parents, and educators, and as reported by NAEP, the standard for student assessment comparisons across state lines. Over the past two years, many states report proficiency rates that are more than 30 percentage points higher than their 2013 NAEP rates, leading parents and educators to believe…