Five Best Blogs: Excited Parents, Dread-Filled Kids

Nearly 900 Districts Set to Compete for New Race to Top - Politics K-12 - Education Week ow.ly/dnQOV

1500 districts get 20pct+funding from the USDE, says @edwriters' MZ ow.ly/dnS2P National avg is 12 pct

Is Teach for America Working? - Room for Debate -NYTimes.com ow.ly/dnR2U 

Politico has full video, speech from Jeb Bush on educationow.ly/dnwS6

Failed Effort To Limit Use Of Student Achievement In CA: After much-last minute scrambling, CA Assemblym... bit.ly/T38hjd

Professor [Petrilli?] Vows to Grade Students Based on Their Klout Scores http://ow.ly/dmj2Q  Jezebel @michaelpetrilli

Don't teach like a champion A Chicago Latino English Teacher ow.ly/dnHYl

The importance of character: Liberals don’t want to admit it, and conservatives don’t want to pay for it http://ow.ly/dnrIg  @ttoch

Picture Reddit via Buzzfeed

Comments

[Bruce]

Alex Caputo-Pearl wins the Teach For America debate, in my view: an organization that initially filled real needs has outgrown its humbler beginnings, and typically transforms naive, idealistic talent through a stage of sophomoric hubris and then on to misplaced policy advocacy that is doing at least as much harm as good. The talent of the people recruited is impressive, as is their energy; but how can we seriously expect such intentionally underprepared, unqualified educators to advocate sound policies when their brief careers have included virtually no time for reflection, comparison, or serious research? They are in a hurry to make a difference, and compared to the norms in the terrible conditions they often step into, they are an improvement; but they do not represent significant competition when compared with those leading the strongest schools and institutions to be found around the world.

[Sarah]

I agree with Bruce. TFA is well-meaning, but I often find myself wondering why they seem to embrace the philosophy that one doesn’t need to research the best answer, but establish a quick fix... they would benefit as an organization from looking at work done independently.

[Sarah]

And grading students based on Klout scores? What’s next? Grading based on Facebook friends? Youtube hits? Finally, Internet-savvy slackers have a grading scale that gets their “hard work” an A.