An Invitation: More Grownups On The Blogosphere

Much as some would want it thought of as a fully-formed and sufficient world, it's no big secret that much of the current universe of education blogs --policy oriented ones in particular -- sorely lack key ingredients like deep experience, reflectiveness, and -- how to put this delicately? -- modesty. It's all Fox News and the Daily Show, not much NPR or PBS.

Now imagine a world in which some good number of the most knowledgeable and experienced folks in education are present in the blogosphere to comment directly on the issues of the day or week, rather than the current array of ideologues, know-nothings, and self-promoters?

Well, it's coming. Little by little, bit by bit, the "grownups" are coming to the blogosphere. A little birdie tells me that, starting Monday, the indefatigable Diane Ravitch and the inestimable Deborah Meier are going to be starting their online adventure at EdWeek.org.

With any luck, more will soon follow. Anyone else out there who wants to join in -- occasionally or regularly -- just let me know. It's as easy as sending an email, only a lot more fun. Plus which, we really, really need you.

The Monitor Vs. The Daily: Different Takes On Reading First

"In its most recent investigation into Reading First - the fifth of six planned reports questioning the program's management - the department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) also alleges that federal officials knowingly stacked panels at a series of training academies with members who favored two commercial reading programs," according to a Title I Monitor story. "In doing so, the OIG says the Education Department (ED) created the impression that the two programs, Direct Instruction and Open Court, topped an agency "approved list" of Reading First programs." To read the OIG report, go here.

Meantime, Ed Daily has a broader -- and seemingly much kinder -- look at the Reading First era, including comments from former RF deputy Sandi Jacobs. It opens: "Reading First, the No Child Left Behind Act's K-3 reading initiative, has, for all its troubles, managed to quietly shepherd an evolution in reading instruction that has most researchers, educators and policymakers agreeing on at least one thing: Science can tell us much about the way children become readers." From the piece, it seems like local educators aren't as outraged -- or surprised -- as some of the national folks.

This Is Not Your Father's Origami

Looking for some good reading this weekend? Then check out Susan Orleans' fascinating article in the New Yorker about -- of all things -- origami (The Origami Lab). It chronicles the story of how one American physicist named Robert Lang "dropped everything for paper folding" -- and how origami has evolved as a pastime (ie, laser-cutting hundreds of folds) and as a scientific application (for surgical implants).

Help The Ed Sector Get Rid Of The BiWeekly Update (And Win $35)

Join the campaign to get rid of biweekly emails (so 90's) and maybe even win $35 by entering the Ed Sector's online survey about, among other things, what to do with the their "digest" (Education Sector Needs Your Feedback!). The Sectorans are also contemplating event webcasts (a good idea) and webchats like on EdWeek (sure, why not). Of course, what I really want from the Sector in its second year is to have its abundant commentary and analysis better balanced with its relatively slender list of research and reports.But that's probably just me.

What Is "Adequate"?

Last week, I was complaining (as usual), and the topic was the lack of "big" ideas in education, along the lines of a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing everyone an decent education (see here). This week, I read about a new book (School Money Trials) on how adequacy lawsuits based on state constitutions have fared. Check it out.

A Short, Slow Week

Even with the NAEP scores out, it doesn't seem like it's been much of a week. Maybe it was the holiday-shortened week, or the fact that many folks seem to be heading off on vacation (or wishing it were so). Still, there's always the PEN NewsBlast, including topics like high stakes testing, the relevance of progressive education, new ideas for education reform, and more. And the Fordham Gadfly, which includes bits on whole language, the podcast, private schools for the poor, and something from Checker I couldn't quite follow.

Morning Round-up February 23, 2007

Grades Rise, but Reading Skills Do Not NYT, WaPo, LAT, Wash. Times, CNN.com
High school students nationwide are taking seemingly tougher courses and earning better grades, but their reading skills are not improving through the effort, according to two federal reports released here Thursday that cite grade inflation as a possible explanation.

PTA's Go Way Beyond Cookies NYT
The transformation of Livingston’s pizza lunch reflects how parent groups across the country, especially in affluent suburbs, are undergoing a kind of corporate makeover, combining members’ business savvy, technological prowess and negotiating skills to professionalize operations.

More 'reliable' Wikipedia soon to launch eSchool News
Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger is getting ready to launch a new collaborative web site. Called Citizendium, the new site will require posters to register their names and has tapped subject-matter experts to serve as content editors.

Questionable Journalism: The "Moving Across The Country" Anecdote

In case you hadn't seen it, this post from The Quick & The Ed (here)points out how the WSJ turns an education-related anecdote into a trend story -- and how quickly the anecdote gets picked up and used in the public debate as a truism.

What isn't noted is that this isn't the first time that this reporter (Suein Hwang) has written a story whose main premise has seemed to some to be more controversial than well-documented. Just over a year ago, it was a front page story called "The New White Flight," about how schools in Silicon Valley were losing white kids who wanted less competition with Asian kids. Jay Mathews wrote a response that touches briefly on the lack of statistics to go along with the story (I Am an Asian Parent).

If it happens a third time, it's a trend.

Remembering Shanker

Joe Williams reminds us that Al Shanker passed a decade ago today and says some very nice words about him (The Chalkboard: The 10-Year Void).

I only met him a couple of times, but I remember them vividly.

Different Takes On NAEP High School Reports

High School Students Taking Tougher Courses EdWeek
The proportion of high school students completing a solid core curriculum has nearly doubled since 1990, and students are doing better in their classes than their predecessors did.But that good news is tempered by other findings in two federal reports released here today.

Reports: Test scores, grades don't jibe Houston Chronicle
Large percentages of high school seniors are posting weak scores on national math and reading tests even though more of them are taking challenging courses and getting higher grades in school, two reports released Thursday show.

Now's the time to test standardized tests Christian Science Monitor
A five-year federal experiment to boost K-12 schools by standardized testing is still far from its goal: making all students "proficient" in math and reading by 2014. Now Congress will soon weigh whether to renew the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The review itself will be a new test of what the US expects from schools.

Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

Just what the world needs -- a reality/quiz show demonstrating just how smart or dumb we grownups are:
Fox Announces A New Reality Show Questioning Whether Viewers Are “Smarter Than A 5th Grader”

Morning Round-up February 22, 2007

New Jersey Schools Told to Protect Gay Students NYT
Students who are bullied by other students because of their sexual orientation are protected by New Jersey’s antidiscrimination law, and school districts must take reasonable steps to stop such harassment, the state’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled yesterday.

Tempting Teachers To County Classrooms WaPo
At a recent job fair at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, more than 200 teacher recruiters -- some from as far as Atlanta and Denver -- competed for the attention of about 330 graduates clutching freshly printed r?sum?s.

States standup to cyberbullies CNN.com
States from Oregon to Rhode Island are considering crackdowns to curb or outlaw the behavior in which kids taunt or insult peers on social Web sites like MySpace or via instant messages. Still, there is some disagreement over how effective crackdowns will be and how to do it.

Educators REact to No Child Left Behind NPR
Joel Packer, director of education policy and practice with the National Education Association, offers reaction from educators to recent proposed changes to No Child Left Behind.

Lessons From Reading First: No One Cares About Local Control Anymore

Fresh off of his appearance in Hot For Education last week, former Reading First czar Chris Doherty is back in the news. EdWeek (E-Mails Reveal Federal Reach Over Reading) focuses on the extent of the intrusiveness in RF and the historic ban on federal meddling in local decisions. The Title I Monitor details his close relationship with reading guru Reid Lyon, who is interviewed in the piece about his role and what happened ("Reading Czar" Served as Conduit Between ED, White House).

What jumps out at me when I try and figure out why these Reading First stories never make it to the national level -- I'm talking Good Morning America here -- is that the notion of protecting local control over education decisions is pretty much dead. Sure, as the EdWeek story points out, there's long been a federal ban on meddling with curriculum. And I'm not saying that RF and Doherty were right. But after Goals 2000 and NCLB and all the rest, local control is mostly a fig leaf in the minds of most non-educators at this point, isn't it?

If that's the case, as it may be, then the only thing I can think of that would make RF a national story is perhaps a love triangle between Doherty, Lyon, and former deputy Sandi Jacobs (now at NCTQ). Or maybe I'm wrong and it will keep bubbling up.

Apple & Dell Square Off On Teachers Unions

Over at Eduwonk, Andy links to the back-and-forth about teachers unions that's going on between Apple bigwig Steve Jobs and his counterpart at Dell (Eduwonk.com: No Apple For Teacher). It's interesting to note that the Gates Foundation -- as opposed to Gates the individual -- has thus far come across as basically neutral on unions.

Flipper Finn?

Over at Small Talk, Mike Klonsky takes the flip-flop idea a little further (Finn, Fordham, Flip-flop). According to Klonsky, "Finn and friends have recently done an about-face and have become enemies of NCLB, after years of pushing it on schools and school districts....Finn ("Fool me twice") has suddenly figured it all out. You see, NCLB is trying to force standardization and compliance on schools and educators and that just won't work....It was only last June that Finn personally attacked Jonathan Kozol for his hostile anti-NCLB stand."

He's Been Disqualified

The inimitable Casey Lartigue complains (rightly) about being excluded from Hot For Education 2007 "right in the middle of black history month." Check it out here: I've been disqualified

NCLB Alternative Unveiled Today

The Forum on Educational Accountability is unveiling its alternative to NCLB today: "Leaders of national education, civil rights, religious, civic and disability groups will hold a news briefing Wednesday, February 21, 2007 at 9:30 am to release the Forum on Educational Accountability's Redefining Accountability: Improving Student Learning by Building Capacity, a new report with recommendations for replacing the test-based sanctions of the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) law with means to hold states and localities accountable for making systematic changes that improve student achievement. You can see it here.

History Is Elementary Hosts Carnival

The 107th Carnival of Education is up at History Is Elementary. Here's a great section on Parental Involvement:

Richard over at Shadowscope provides a parent view regarding our public schools. It’s honest, it’s frank, and I know that many of us on the frontlines feel his pain. Visit Richard at Public School.

Matt over at Going to the Mat gives us a view of what can happen when we have Parental Involvement In VA Schools.

Does a Flower Turn to the Sun? No, this isn’t a science post. Here’s a partial quote, “…parents don’t really have the knowledge to make decisions about the quality of schools.” See how Casey of What Would You Say If You Weren't Afraid? responds to that kind of idea.

Morning Round-up February 21, 2007

A History Department Bans Citing Wikipedia as a Research Source NYT
With the move, Middlebury, in Vermont, jumped into a growing debate within journalism, the law and academia over what respect, if any, to give Wikipedia articles, written by hundreds of volunteers and subject to mistakes and sometimes deliberate falsehoods.

Jobs, Dell appraise technology, schools eSchool News
In a rare joint appearance, Jobs and Dell, whose namesake company, Dell Inc., is the world's No. 2 computer manufacturer after HP, sat down with a small group of educators and policymakers in Texas to discuss attitudes on education and talk about ways schools can better embrace technology to improve learning.

Budget Would Trim Funds for "Even Start" NPR
President Bush's budget proposes deep cuts in Even Start, a popular program that helps teach parents to read and speak English. Parents who can read can help their children with schoolwork and promote reading.

Candidates: Take Your Pick Of Education Plans

Education Sector today released a report called Eight for 2008: Education Ideas for the Next President. Aiming to appeal to Republicans, Democrats and coincide with NCLB, Ed Sector has come up with eight possible education plans. While education, unfortunately, does not always receive a large part of the national election attention, Ed Sector offers these ideas to be included in the "ideas primary" while candidates are learning what is most important to Americans. A brief review of the report is listed below. The Full report can be found here.

It's All In Your Head

It matters much less whether you are a boy or a girl - success or failure can be a matter of how you feel about school and yourself, and almost nothing to do with your actual abilities.

Black Parents Seek to Raise Ambitions WaPo
Tom and Renee Carter joined last year with about 15 families, including the parents of nearly every black male sixth-grader, to push their sons to graduate on time in 2012 with options for the future and without lowering their expectations or test scores along the way. They call it Club 2012.

Researchers: Math anxiety saps working memory needed to do math CNN.com
Math anxiety -- feelings of dread and fear and avoiding math -- can sap the brain's limited amount of working capacity, a resource needed to compute difficult math problems, said Mark Ashcroft, a psychologist at the University of Nevada Los Vegas who studies the problem.

Students' View of Intelligence Can Help Grades NPR
A new study in the scientific journal Child Development shows that if you teach students that their intelligence can grow and increase, they do better in school.

Morning Round-up February 20, 2007

In Vermont, Prisoners Go To High School Behind Bars WaPo
Vermont's largest high school is run by the Department of Corrections. The school -- operating in each of the state's jails and prisons, with walk-in schools at Probation and Parole offices -- has about 3,500 registered students, though only about 350 attend classes every day.

With One Word, Children's Book Sets Off Uproar NYT
The inclusion of the word (scrotum) has shocked some school librarians, who have pledged to ban the book from elementary schools, and reopened the debate over what constitutes acceptable content in children’s books.

More students across US logging on to online classrooms Boston Globe
Enrollment, counted as the total number of seats in all online classes, not the number of students, has grown twentyfold in seven years, and the group expects the numbers to continue to jump 30 percent annually.

Week In Review February 12 - 18

Best Of The Week
Did The NYT Get It Wrong On The University Of Phoenix?
Would a Constitutional Amendment Do Any Good?
If SEIU and Wal-Mart Can Do It, Education Can, Too
Hot For Education 2007 (Sports Illustrated Edition)

On The Hill
Kennedy Head Start Reauthorization Quick Out Of The Gate
Live Blogging The Aspen Institute Report Release
The Papers Cover The Aspen Commission Report

People & Places
Obama Panders, Then Pushes, On NCLB
Who's Who: Edison Lobbyist Heather Podesta
Ed Trust's Amy Wilkins Is Back
Lawyers' Committee Honcho On The HotSeat
Aspen Report Leader Heads To The Hill

Education Policy
Resistance to Weighted Student Funding In Chicago
Now Here's A Big Education Idea
Learning More About Funders
Flip-Flopping Finn, Part 2

Media Watch
What The Other Blogs Didn't Tell You
Bloggers Coming Clean
Most Viewed" On EdWeek? Not Quite.

Flip-Flopping Finn, Part 2

Tearing down NCLB (and most efforts to improve it) has emerged as the central strategy of the Fordham Foundation's Checker Finn during the past few weeks and months. According to Finn (and his deputy Mike Petrilli), little good came from the original NCLB -- and little can be done to improve it.

No doubt, Finn and Petrilli (with whom I have worked) find lots of company in criticizing NCLB from both the left and right, though most seem to want to mend, not end the act. But it's hard not to notice that these two were critical friends of the law for almost the entire duration of its existence. It's as if the Ed Trust turned against the law, or the NEA came out for it.

Their turnabout on NCLB could represent the inevitable scramble to get off a sinking ship, some sort of epiphany, or an opportunistic change of course prompted by, among other things, the decline of Republican fortunes. But the change is something that needs to be addressed, I think. [Petrilli thinks he's already covered this with his NRO piece, but for some reason I'm not satisfied.]

Coalition DVD Event In Providence

The Coalition of Essential Schools folks tell me that they are premiering a new film about their efforts developing small schools on February 28th in Providence, for anyone who's interested. Ted Sizer is going to be there, and the film has apparently won the Aegis Award for Best Educational DVD.