Five Best Blogs: Romney Loses Third Ed Advisor

First Spellings, then Chubb, now Rees. Third Romney ed advisor says she's leaving campaign. @NapCS@heathbrown

Our politicians need an education: Why both parties miss the big picture - Lean Forward ow.ly/bzV33 Ted Rall

Newark reinvents itself... again via @hechingerreportow.ly/1NJ235

Chicago pushes longer school days as key to achievement: 'We had to do something' - U.S. Newsow.ly/1NIDTD

Venture For America: Skip the Bank Job, Join a Startup-ow.ly/1NIz1h @ezraklein 

Kaya Henderson belittles cheating scandal, describes plans for doing blended without rocketship ow.ly/1NIxvL

Comments

[Bruce]

A longer school year would be a better school reform bet for Chicago than a longer school day, since many students forget so much over our long summer vacations. But neither option is a particularly good one in the case of a budget deficit, and the Chicago administration's plan asking teachers to work 30 per cent more time for 2 per cent more money is not reasonable. The argument "everyone should sacrifice themselves for the kids", when pushed to an extreme, could turn us all into slaves. Instead, what zealous, self-interested, career-minded big city mayors may well be doing, to the detriment of us all, is to push such extreme measures as to discourage young people from teaching, which could lead to future teacher shortages that will be very expensive to alleviate.