Best Of The Week (March 3-8)

Best Of The Week
Pesky Civil Rights Laws Blocking My Plans For All-Black Boys Schools
Single-Sex Scribe Liz Weil On The HotSeat
"Every school day, there is small joy."

Campaign 2008
Questions For Obama
Waffling On Vouchers Costs Obama Ohio
"Importance Of Education Given Valuable Lip Service"
Clinton-Era Class Size Reduction Lives!
Obama Ducks NCLB Questions, Channels Bill Cosby

Teachers & Teaching
Richard Whitmire Gets The Last Word
Everyone Hates Single-Sex Education (But Me And Some Other Sexists)
Who's Really In Charge? Sometimes It's A Little Old Lady.

Media Watch
WashPost Online Education Coverage Wins Award
Will NYT Have Education Blog Up And Running By AERA?
Informed -- And Dangerous -- In Texas
Journalistic Overstatement Of The Week

Whitney Tilson Wishes This Happened To Linda Darling-Hammond

One of Barack Obama's top advisors resigned this week for having called Hillary Clinton a "monster" in a conversation with a reporter.  But it wasn't education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond.  Better luck next time, LDH-hating Whitney Tilson.

OR:  Obama Advisor Forced To Resign For Calling Ed Schools "Monstrously" Good

WashPost Online Education Coverage Wins Award

The Post's online coverage (Fixing D.C.'s Schools) won this year's Scripps Howard National Journalism award for web reporting.  The citation calls the Post's online coverage "a site that uses multimedia narratives, still photos, videos, print stories, an interactive map database, and a question-and-answer section to examine why public schools in D.C. remain among the most troubled in the nation."  Congrats to all. 
"

Today's Best Blog Posts

Sorry this is so late today:

NCLB rebellion brewing anew?
Wishful thinking from the BoardBuzz...again.

No NEA Endorsement This Year?
They can't make up their minds, says EIA. Does it matter?

Weingarten to Retain UFT Position Upon Move to AFT Presidency
Randi wants to be like Al.

The attendee of tomorrow?
BoardBuzz wants better conference attendees in Orlando.

Throwing the Bathwater AT the Baby
"Did you hear about the mom who punished her young daughter by power-washing the kid at the local car wash?"

Will NYT Have Education Blog Up And Running By AERA?

Blogs for everyone!  Rumor on the street has it that the New York Times is finally going to start an education blog -- for now limited to local issues but linked up to larger issues at times, too.    I hear that they've tapped Jenny Medina, the newish metro education reporter, to do the job, though I haven't gotten any confirmation from her or her editors.  I do know that she's scheduled to appear later this month at an AERA conference event about education research and online journalists -- Rotherham and Colvin and I will be doing that one, too.  I hope she has a blog by then, though I'm sure her insights would be  useful regardess.  Previous:   Watch Out, New York City Schools -- Here Comes Medina

"Every school day, there is small joy."

In this week's post, Will Okun provides a montage of students and the following quip: 

"No profession complains about their jobs as much as teachers  except perhaps journalists . However, ask dedicated and passionate educators about their favorite aspect of teaching, and the answer is always the same: the students. Every school day, there is small joy."

Click the link and look at the pics if you want to smile and remember why you're doing what you're doing. 

Journalistic Overstatement Of The Week

For a while there, it seemed like Liz Weil's single-sex story was going to be the sole focus of readers' ire this week, but then along came Katherine Shaver's arts education story in the Washington Post yesterday, which took a report showing that a whopping 16 percent of districts have reduced time for art and music in recent years and made it into a much bigger trend:  "Art is often squeezed out of the curriculum by the academic demands of the No Child Left Behind law."

Big Stories Of The Day

At Charter School, Higher Teacher Pay NYT
A New York City charter school is promising to pay teachers $125,000, plus a potential bonus based on schoolwide performance.

Home-Schoolers Pushing Back Against New State Scrutiny EdWeek
Home-schoolers across the country have put their organizational skills and political clout to heavy use in recent weeks as lawmakers in a number of states seek to more closely regulate the families who opt to teach their own children.

School District has one bear of a computer system, but it's hibernating Las Vegas Sun
Officials knew the Clark County School District’s new computer system was going to cost at least $33 million. They pressed forward, saying it would make employees more efficient, resolve auditors’ long-standing concerns and save so much money by consolidating services that it would pay for

Kissing at school a crime? Rocky Mountain News
Public officials called it "nutty" and "foolishness" Wednesday morning, and one asked whether SWAT teams would now descend on teenagers kissing at school. 

Today's Best Blog Posts

Would a Democratic President Bring Big Changes? The Hoff
"Would testing be less frequent? Would accountability rules give negative labels to fewer schools? Even if the answer to both questions is yes, the law could still expect more from states than the 1994 version."

Do You Want Me to Apply SBR to Your Program? Edbizzbuzz
MDM explains all those confusing terms to us.

An Idea So Crazy It Just…Might…..Work!
Let them drop out, says Pondisco.

Jumpshot: Kevin Johnson Runs For Mayor DFER
Former Phoenix Suns standout [and charter proponent] Kevin Johnson officially announced yesterday that he is running for mayor of Sacramento, California, in what the experts are already calling a "knock-down, drag-out fight."

Strip for the vice principal Joanne Jacobs
"Strip searching a 13-year-old girl was “reasonable” and not “excessively intrusive,” a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court ruled last year.

Boys vs. Girls: A scientific divide? Scott Elliott
"Give my seven-year-old daughter a box of crayons with a sheet of paper and here’s what you’ll get — a drawing of a girl with a multicolored dress and brown hair standing on green grass with a friend and..."

Sixteen Percent Is The New "Often"

Three takes on today's Washington Post piece about curriculum narrowing and NCLB: 

For NCLB, the Hits Just Keep on Coming AFT Blog
"Hey, Ed Sector Interns! Rise to the defense of NCLB and get on this quickly! It's time to interpret the reported effects of NCLB as narrowly as possible and waste an hour or two on Lexis-Nexis.)"

WaPo Colors outside the lines DED
"I've heard that 40 is the new 30, but I didn't realize that 16% was the new often."

A Narrowed Point of View Kevin Carey
"It's worth noting, first of all, that reporters routinely misinterpret the CEP data or present it in ways that aren't really accurate."

Big Stories Of The Day

Education Panel Lays Out Truce In Math Wars Wall Street Journal
A presidential panel, warning that a "broken" system of mathematics education threatens US pre-eminence, says it has found the fix.

A Long March Washington Post
Both candidates have proposed billions more in such spending -- on health care, on energy, on education. Is this really affordable?

U.S. city eyes 'Third World' laptops MSNBC
Birmingham's City Council has approved a $3.5 million plan to provide schoolchildren with 15,000 computers produced by a nonprofit that aims to spread laptops to poor children in developing countries.

Seasoned teachers wanted in struggling schools Post and Courier (South Carolina)
Only 36 of the county's 293 National Board Certified teachers, the highest credential in the profession, work in schools rated unsatisfactory on the state report card.

High Schools Add Classes Scripted by Corporations Wall Street Journal
In a recent class at Abraham Clark High School in Roselle, N.J., business teacher Barbara Govahn distributed glossy classroom materials that invited students to think about what they want to be when they grow up.

USDE Wants To Know: Can I Have That Email Back?

We've all sent out an email that we didn't mean to send.  But for most of us it doesn't happen all the time.  However, one out of two email announcements from the USDE's Office of Public Affairs these days seems to be followed within a few minutes with a "recall" message.  Here's today's example:

The sender would like to recall the message, "U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION MARGARET SPELLINGS HIGHLIGHTS NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND IN RALEIGH".

With the occasional exception, I don't bother trying to figure out what was wrong with the first message -- wrong city?  wrong time?  But these email recalls have gotten so frequent that it's hard not to notice them and wonder whether this is an example of ineptitude or how little anyone cares about emails sent to the press.  My friends on the EWA listserve -- knowing how easily persuaded I am to do their dirty work -- have been hectoring me to point this out. 

The Daily Blog Roundup

Setting the agenda or setting my teeth on edge? Sherman Dorn
What people really mean when they say they want more talk about education.

 Helicopter Parents and Stinger Teachers EIA
It's a battle royal with no clear winner in Baltimore.

Trouble and spin, but no wolves Joanne Jacobs
"Raised by wolves, the orphaned Checker Finn became a leader of a street gang at the age of 13 . . ."

Good Grief! Not Fall vs. Spring Testing Again!
Obama horrifies McNeil when he weighs into testing schedules. 

À la Edmodo BoardBuzz
Twitter... for teachers.

Can A National Ed System Create More... Local Control? DFER
This sounds like a proposal for...Obama.

Breaking News: Busing Still Doesn't Work DED
"We learned in the 70s that busing low-SES kids to high-SES suburban districts didn't work. Minneapolis just re-learned that fact."

 The Carnival Of Education: Week 161

Waffling On Vouchers Costs Obama Ohio

Did Obama's back and forth about vouchers cost him the Buckeye State?  There's absolutely no real evidence of that.  But that won't stop me from making it up.  Otherwise there's really no big education angle at all to Clinton's big comeback in Texas and Ohio last night.  And that would be sad. 

Made-up scenario:  Obama initially refuses to close the door on vouchers, but then makes a last minute attempt to paint himself as a big opponent as opposed to a curious critic.  Ohio teachers and other labor folks smell something fishy and stick with or switch back to Clinton (thanks in large part to unreported "push" polling on the part of the NEA), keeping the state in her hands. 

Need more?  For recent details on the Obama voucher thing in Ohio that aren't made up, go here: Obama's "Outspoken" Opposition to Vouchers (Campaign K12). 

Single-Sex Scribe Liz Weil On The HotSeat

Elizabeth (Liz) Weil may be relatively new to writing about education, but her first two pieces on the subject for the New York Times Sunday Magazine include last weekend's much-discussed look inside the recent fascination with single-sex education. 

On the HotSeat (below), contributing writer Weil describes how the writing process went, what the reaction has been so far, and what she thinks people like me don't quite understand about what she wrote.  She loves it when there's good research.  She uses words like "deduce" and "sample set."

Sleep-deprived with two sick kids and an out-of-town spouse, Weil confesses to all sorts of things that are likely to get her into trouble.  For example, her interest in the topic was piqued by an article about why girls say "holded" more than boys -- about the different ways boys and girls learn language. And she admits to having family members with single-sex leanings (ie, her dad went to an all-boys school).  Make of it what you will.

To read some of her other work:
When Should a Kid Start Kindergarten?
 
To read the interview, click below.

Big Stories Of The Day

Busing to suburbs didn't boost test scores Minneapolis Star Tribune
For the second straight year, low-income students in the Minneapolis Public Schools fared better than the ones who were bused to suburban schools under the Choice is Yours, a voluntary desegregation program.

States Eye Looser Rein on Districts EdWeek
The push to give school districts greater operating flexibility is seeing a resurgence.

Can Students Be Paid to Excel? NYT
Many schools in New York City are experimenting with monetary incentives to promote learning.

12 Pr. George's Schools to Offer Extra Pay for Good Work Washington Post
Prince George's County education and labor leaders unveiled a long-awaited pilot program this morning that will offer teachers and administrators at 12 schools incentive pay for good work performance.

Teachers’ Union Spending EdWeek
From the hundreds of pages in the teachers' unions' most recent financial statements, Education Week selected highlights.

Lawmakers to consider new statewide student tests EdWeek
Nebraska's method of allowing school districts to create their own tests to measure achievement for the federal No Child Left Behind Act is unusual. ...

Chicago Board Votes to Close 18 Schools Edweek
Eight, on the city’s South and West sides will be “turned around” with new principals and teaching staffs.

Informed -- And Dangerous -- In Texas

After years of old-school group emails, Texas education guru Kimberly Reeves has her new blog up and running, and it looks like a good one.  Some recent posts to check out:        

Ed Talk From Obama In Beaumont
Let's Play A Game.
Texas TOY Ceremony
Cheerleading Scandal Immortalized
From Mr Rogers To Gray Rape
I Like You Just The Way You Are.
Considering the What Ifs of Various Races
Input Or Output?

 

Who's Really In Charge? Sometimes It's A Little Old Lady.

One of the things that I struggle to get across to school reformers, funders, and do-gooders of all types is that the official power structure in a school or district is oftentimes not the real power structure, and so relying on official things like org charts and how things are "supposed to" be will only frustrate your efforts.   Sometimes the person who's really in a position to get things done -- or stop you in your tracks -- isn't immediately apparent.  This is highlighted in this recent Salon review of  of "Gang Leader For A Day," which as you may recall is about life in the Robert Taylor homes before they were torn down (here).  One of the main power centers in this dysfunctional public housing complex is a little old lady named Ms. Bailey.  She -- along with a street gang -- makes or breaks things.   [Cross-posted from D299.]

Pesky Civil Rights Laws Blocking My Plans For All-Black Boys Schools

I wish that the ACLU sued governmental agencies for providing an inadequate and inequitable public education instead of focusing on segregation and discrimination protections that don't, alas, seem to have gotten schools where they need to go in the past 40 years or so.  But I'm told the Constitution doesn't work that way.  My plans for a chain of all-black boys schools will have to wait, I guess. 

Meanwhile, the folks at Learning Matters first reported on an accidental experiment single-sex education in 2003 on the PBS NewsHour, and then updated the story a couple of years ago -- with a surprise ending:

Part 2 is here.  Now you know how education decisions really get made. 

Around The Blogs

Obama's "Outspoken" Opposition to Vouchers Campaign K12
Obama says he's consistently been an "outspoken" opponent of vouchers. But the Ohio teachers' group told me they're not yet convinced.

Good Ideas For Inhibiting School Growth (II) Teaching In The 408
"I gotta think that not much is accomplished when a school-assigned police officer detains/ cites the push-cart vendor who, daily, plies our kids with mango and soda and those fried dough things soaked in bags of chili."

Spellings Uncertain NCLB Will Pass in '08 The Hoff!

For McKeon, It's All About the Kids AFT Blog
If voters elect a Democrat to the White House and Democrats held majorities in both houses of Congress, "You will be laying off people."

Obama Joins Chorus NCLB2

The Unknown Administrator Strikes Again EdWonks
The Unknown Administrator has once again put a sheet of paper in each teacher's mailbox that featured only the following statement: "A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body - the wishbone." That was it.

Theory II: Teacher's Salaries KDeRosa
Seems that low-SES students with lower paid teachers perform about as well as those with higher-paid teachers.

Obama Ducks NCLB Questions, Channels Bill Cosby

MSBC's First Read reports that Obama has been ducking NCLB or education related questions in favor of bashing Clinton on NAFTA (Inside the Clinton camp).  Yet another indication of just how low education is on the political totem pole.  Or maybe he's just resisting the urge to blurt out how much he loves vouchers.  (Joke!)

Meanwhile in Texas, Obama went all Bill Cosby on his audience, says Joanne Jacobs (Parents, do your job). “Turn off the TV set. Put the video game away. Buy a little desk. Or put that child at the kitchen table. Watch them do their homework. If they don’t know how to do it, give ‘em help. If you don’t know how to do it, call the teacher.”

Big Stories Of The Day

The arts of the campaign trail LA Times
An issue of particular interest on the ArtsVote agenda is arts education, which, arts advocates say, became a casualty of the test-driven No Child Left Behind Act.

Arizona Still Grappling With Order on Adequate Funding for ELLs EdWeek
Lawmakers are considering appealing the ruling to the full 9th Circuit court or to the U.S. Supreme Court. PLUS:  Limits on federal mandates for education squeeze through Salt Lake Tribune

Teachers' college choices aren't tied to kids' test scores Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Reading and math test scores of third- through fifth-graders in Milwaukee Public Schools do not appear to be affected by where teachers went to college to get trained, according to a study that the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute is releasing today.

Catching up from last week: 
States Struggle to Find Secure Pre-K Funding EdWeek
State policymakers are still scrounging for more money for the programs despite a pre-K spending growth of $1 billion over the past two years.

Richard Whitmire Gets The Last Word

One more thing about single-sex ed, this time from Richard Whitmire, USA Today editorial page editor and current prez of the Education Writers Association, who has written and thought a lot about the topic.  His thoughts via email (emphasis is mine):

Weil's piece did an admirable job taking a tough look at the two sides of the brain research debate: Is there really sufficient evidence to justify these gender-based teaching techniques? But she missed the most astonishing part of the trend. The U.S. Department of Education unleashed this surge of experimentation with single-sex education without producing any research advising schools on how to do it successfully. What were they thinking?

This rush to experiment reflects the fact that educators are only beginning to realize how far boys have fallen behind in school -- and not just poor, minority boys, as Weil would have you believe. If done well, single-sex schools can help boys, but most of the schools I visit where boys perform as well as girls aren't single sex and they don't rely on gender/brain research as their guides. The keys to their success are refusing to give up on any child and watching over boys' verbal skills, which appear to be the source of the problem.

UPDATE:  Here are some previous posts that reference Whitmire and boys (here, here).  For a reprint of Whitmire's New Repubic piece that you didn't get fromme, go here (Boy Trouble).

Everyone Hates Single-Sex Education (But Me And Some Other Sexists)

American Prospect blogger Ezra Klein (here) calls single sex guru Leonard Sax an "obvious" crank and says that single sex ed reinforces conceptions of gender.  To me, it's reflecting (acknowledging?), not reinforcing differences.  A generation of moms who tried to give their sons dolls and their daughters toy guns knows what I'm talking about.

Dana Goldstein (here) is even more appalled at what she reads.  "The stereotyping, heteronomativity, and misogyny of such an education would be laughable, if it weren't the backbone of actual lessons being taught to actual American children." She also suggests that such approaches could promote hate crimes against gay boys, which seems a little overheated to me.

Sara Mead (here) says that what's being described isn't single sex education, it's "gender based" education. She worries that readers won't get to the critique of Sax that's in the second half of the article, accuses Weil (who wrote the article) of giving too much credence to Sax's side of the argument, and chides the magazine of giving too much attention to a minor trend.  I think that Sax's prominence is bad only because he's such an obvious caricature it discredits the issues.

At least one blog comes out in favor of single sex education (here): "Let’s make sure to keep the kids mixed and keep ignoring solutions to the failing system. Our kids might be stupid, but at least they’ll be tolerant of their own ignorance."

Best headline: Same Sax Story

Previous Post: Does Single-Sex Equal Segregation? Not Really.

Around The Blogs

 VA's NCLB Ultimatum

If VA pulls out of NCLB next year, will it mean anything?

Teacher Voice Bustin'
Charters aren't scared of unions any more than unionized teachers, says Andywonk.

New Champion for High School Reform in the Senate?
Mark Warner is headed that way, says Alyson Klein.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss
Yesterday was his birthday, and I'm wearing a tall hat in his honor.

Chinese teacher faces wall of apathy
Administratos may like offering Chinese class, but do students?

Clinton-Era Class Size Reduction Lives!

Thanks to a friend for pointing me to this 2007 report on how states are using their Title II grants (Improving Teacher Quality State Grants), which confirms that they're still using almost half of the money for Clinton-era class size reduction efforts (ie, hiring more teachers).  Of course, the teachers have to be HQT to meet NCLB requirements.  But other than that, it's like it's the 90s, all over again.  So much for dramatic changes under NCLB and the Bush administration. 

"Importance Of Education Given Valuable Lip Service"

Thanks to a friend for sending along this lovely headline: Importance Of Education Given Valuable Lip Service:  "I intend to have the education crisis discussed, analyzed, evaluated and debated, day and night," O'Bannon said at a late-afternoon press conference. "But there is so much that Americans can do in their own towns. Talk about the problem with your family, with your co-workers, and most importantly, with your children. If the very Americans our system has failed do not hear of their own plight, then the elected officials have not done their job." From The Onion.

Questions For Obama

There are some tough if predictable questions for Barack Obama in the National Review Online today (Barack Obama), including "Please provide specific examples of your leadership, either in the Senate or Illinois legislature, on the following issues: The War on Terror, taxes, immigration, health care, energy, and education." and "What specifically would you change [on education and other issues], beyond shifting nomenclature and tinkering around the edges?"  I guess you could ask the same of Hillary, too. 

Does Single-Sex Equal Segregation? Not Really.

The best part of this weekend's big education story (Single-Sex Public Education) is how writer Elizabeth Weil describes the divide between two groups who have both been popularizing the movement but agree on little else.  But then, towards the end, the article slides back towards vague and politically correct fears about acknowledging boys' differences from girls.

On one side of the pro-single-sex divide are those who rely on brain research showing "essential" differences between boys and girls, many of whom have been urged along by a guy I'd never heard of called Leonard Sax.  The other single-sex group is a more socially-minded set of folks, most of whom seem to promote single-sex education in particular for girls.  [The internal conflict that's described reminds me of last year's big New York Times Magazine article (What It Takes to Make a Student), which describes another interesting internal conflict within school reform.]

There is, however, a sense that develops reading Weil's piece that the author thinks that single-sex education --especially the notion that boys and girls are fundamentally different -- is overhyped and potentially dangerous, in particular towards the end where it's compared to racial segregation.  To be sure, there is some desperation in the rush to adopt single sex approaches, and little likelihood that it will work large-scale miracles.  But it could do some good.  And the notion that boys and girls have to be the same -- or that it's somehow dangerous to educate poor minority boys  for whom not enough else seems to work -- seems old-fashioned and prudish.

But then again I have notoriously strong opinions on this issue, about which I've written several times in the past:  Slate Hates Boys, Single-Sex On the Rise, Brooks & The Boy Brigade, Media Hypes Boy Report, Boy Crisis A Loser Issue, Boy On Boy:  Whitmire Vs. Mathews.

Big Stories Of The Day

Cold realities take back seat in Atlanta classroom USA Today
In such a hard place, it might seem math would be but a vague abstraction with no real relevance to students' lives.

Free Lunch Isn’t Cool, So Some Students Go Hungry NYT
At many schools, separate lines and menus for those who pay and those who get subsidized meals create a stigma.

Lawmakers get tough with feds Deseret News
In other words, officials other than education bosses would be in a position to say yes or no to educational programs, which could include the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and career and technical education programs, money for English language learners, Native American children and even training for teachers, Deputy State Superintendent Larry Shumway said.

Voluntary Online-Teaching Standards Come Amid Concerns Over Quality EdWeek
Experts are hoping that the new guidelines may help bring clarity and credibility to an industry that some analysts say sorely needs both.

Cheating Scandals Rock Three Top-Tier High Schools ABC
National survey finds two-thirds of students admit cheating.

At 38, Taking the SAT Is Tough Wired
Wired Staff Writer Steve Knopper guinea pigs himself by taking the SAT as an adult, and finds it just as grueling as was the first time.

Best Of The Week (February 25-March 1)

Campaign 2008
Obama, Vouchers, And Where His Kids Go
"No Bold Solutions" On Education From Younger Obama?
Bloomberg Slams Candidates On Accountability
"Bitch Is The New Black"

Think Tank Mafia
Even The Think Tanks Shifting Obama's Way
Think Tank Campaign Moonlighting

USDE
Former Education Commissioner Bill Smith Passes
Who's Who In Education Update: Heather McGhee

School Reform
Schools Run By "Soft-Spoken Women Who Bore Boys"
Steve Barr: Is He Real, Or Animatronic?
"Dummy Fatigue"

Media Watch
Bedbugs And Other Media Myths
Awards Season
Selling Out Education, Little By Little