Reckhow: Gates Shifts Strategy & Schools Get Smaller Share

This is a guest post from Michigan State University political scientist Sarah Reckhow, whose new book Follow the Money came out in December:

From a bird’s eye view, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a behemoth in education philanthropy, with considerably more resources than its peers and a highly targeted agenda that magnetically attracts attention from media and politicians.  

But the decade from 2000 to 2010 was a time of enormous growth and evolution for the Gates Foundation. Warren Buffett’s pledge of more than $30 billion substantially increased the Gates Foundation’s resources, and grant-making more than doubled from 2005 to 2009. Even more marked are the Foundation's dramatically shifted priorities, as illustrated by this chart. 

Read on for some preliminary figures and observations about the Gates Foundation's evolution, as well as some challenges and questions about the strategies the foundation is embracing.

Afternoon Video: Bill Gates Does The "Colbert Report"

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In case you missed it (like I did) last week, here's Bill Gates talking with Stephen Colbert about philanthropy and Steve Jobs.  PS:  Rhee is on Colbert (or is it Jon Stewart?) tonight, according to JFR.

Quotes: Growing "Cynicism About The Ed Reform Community"

The number of ed reforms that hold up when the evidence is looked at critically seems to be tiny. The number that continue to work when they're scaled up seems to be tiny. The number that continue to show results all the way through high school seems to be tiny. The number that can withstand critical scrutiny seems to be tiny. And of the ones that are left, the cost to keep them up usually appears to be prohibitive... My cynicism about the ed reform community grows by leaps and bounds every time I read a story like this. And that's pretty often.  - Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum, responding to news that early results from a much-imitated San Jose reform effort were inflated.

Morning Video: Districts In 28 States Face Ballooning Bond Payments

 

This California Watch report shows how more than a thousand districts in 28 states are using a new kind of bond financing that makes building cheap in the present but extremely expensive when it comes to paying off the debt. Roughly 400 CA districts have borrowed $9B but will have to pay back $36B.

Quotes: Charter Renewals Too Easily Given, Says Charter Advocate

In the charter school space, too often there's a willingness to give failing charter schools more time. We shouldn't be giving out yearly probationary renewals as much as we have done. -- NACSA head Greg Richmond in the Huffington Post

Events: Gates To Keynote SXSWedu Event In March

Before I forget, you might be interested to know that Bill Gates is keynoting SXSWedu.com, closing things out on March 7.  

What is SXSWedu?  It's this thing that used to be a music event, then morphed into a tech event, and now includes some education, too. Last year, the documentary Brooklyn King premiered at the event, so ... anything can happen.

There will be lots of edtech, needless to say, and lots of talk about how technology is going to save (but not replace) us all.   This year, I think I'll send my vGo telepresence device instead of attending in person, or perhaps just monitor the event via my personal drone.

Quotes: Ed Schools Make For-Profits Look Easy

The ed schools know how to fight this stuff off. If the Administration thought the for-profits were tough, just wait. -- Unnamed Whiteboard Advisors insider commenting on the chances for teacher prep reform in 2013

People: The Funder Becomes The Fundee

Longtime NSVFer Jordan Meranus -- who's name and portfolio I mangled more than a few times over the years (and whose vague resemblance to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel I only just noticed this very moment) -- left the NSnest a year ago to help build something called Ellevation and -- wouldn't you know? -- Ellevate has just been announced as one of NSVF's latest investments.  

What's Ellevation, you want to know?   "Ellevation provides a set of tools for teachers and administrators who work with English language learners (ELLs). It saves time and simplifies compliance requirements, so that educators can focus on their most important task—helping ELL students to succeed."

Congrats, etc. That sounds pretty exciting.  I once was on the verge of taking a foundation job when EdTrust's Kati Haycock told me that it was much more fun to get money than to give it out (Thanks, KHay!). I bet it's fun to go from giving it out to gettting it, too -- especially when you're getting it from the outfit you used to work for.    Image via NSVF

Reckhow: The Short, Sad Story Of PENewark

This is a guest post from MSU political scientist Sarah Reckhow:

The Newark education story often looks like ed-reform goes to Hollywood. The cast is packed with larger than life personalities (Cory Booker, Chris Christie, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah!). The plot line starts out so out heroically (Young billionaire tries to save city schools!).

But the protagonist is facing some setbacks.  The latest is the Christmas Day email release showing how team Newark and team Facebook (mostly Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg) managed the PR surrounding the announcement of Zuckerberg’s $100 million gift. The media coverage of the emails has emphasized how the Facebook and Newark teams sought to burnish Zuckerberg's image, but the emails also contain some juicy nuggets about the working assumptions of big budget education philanthropists. 

Some of the key takeaways include: internal jockeying among matching funders over what interventions to support, an expensive but ineffective community outreach effort, and the dangers of creating brand-now (and short-lived) nonprofits to do foundations' work.

Bruno: Beware Of "Breakthrough" Education Research

Keith Humphreys had a fascinating post last week explaining why "breakthrough medical findings" - he uses the example of fish oil pills - often don't live up to the hype after additional research comes in.

He's talking about medical research, but I think the same issues arise in education research all the time. As Humphreys explains, it's difficult to perform a large-scale, well-controlled experiment to test out a new idea, and journals aren't interested in publishing small studies that find small (or no) effects. If you do enough small experiments, however, eventually you'll come up with large effects just by chance. Those results might be exciting enough to get published, but they may not be borne out by larger subsequent experiments.

If you follow education research at all, you know it's not uncommon for journals to publish studies with small sample sizes. That's often justifiable - it's hard to do big, well-controlled experiments to test educational interventions - but it does mean that big, novel findings from such studies should be taken with a grain of salt. Think of them as clues or stepping stones rather than reasons to dramatically rethink schooling. - PB (@MrPABruno) Image via Flcker CCommons

Events: "Education Mayors" Headline West Coast Summit

Just over a month from now -- and just a week before a key election day -- United Way Los Angeles is hosting its Education Summit 2013, which will feature three "education mayors" (Emanuel, Villaraigosa, and Booker) as well as many of those who want to replace Villaraigosa and become the next Mayor of LA.  

United Way LA has been active on education issues and is hosting candidate forums for the three LAUSD board member spots that are also up for grabs on March 5. The first one is tomorrow night, featuring incumbent (and TFA alum) Steve Zimmer, who's been endorsed by the teachers union, and parent / advocate challenger Kate Anderson, who's been endorsed by the pro-charter, pro-accountability Coalition for School Reform.

Events: EdGrowth Summit In NYC

Everyone who's anyone (of a certain type) is at the Education Growth Conference in NYC today and tomorrrow.  Held at the superfabulous Times Center, the invitation-only #EdGrowth event "dives into the complexities of investing in an industry in which market and mission converge and examine the intricate mix of risk and opportunity across the global education marketplace." Yep.

Journalist-type folks from EdWeek, Bloomberg, USA Today, and the Hechinger Report. will be there.  Plus lots of education investment types (including NSVF) and a handful of district and public agency types. Plus Diane Ravitch (scheduled). Image courtesy of EdGrowth Partners.

Morning Video: Kid Attends School Via Cute Robot

This Verizon ad showing a sick kid attending school via robot turns out not to be science fiction -- "telepresence" education is already happened in a few places including New York, Colorado, Arkansas, and Pittsburgh (16 futuristic predictions that came true in 2012)

Pictures: The Injustice Of New York City's Cell Phone Trucks

"Why, they asked, are the students in more prosperous neighborhoods unofficially allowed to ignore the ban, as long as they aren’t caught? And why are the poor kids in the eighty-eight New York schools that have been equipped with metal detectors forced to spend five dollars a week—an expense that, for some, means going without food?" (NYROB: Why Are Poor Kids Paying for School Security?)

Quotes: 2013's Boldest Prediction (So Far)

One thing is certain: education’s reputation as a sleepy, slow-to-change sector of society is gone. -- Writer Annie Murphy Paul

TV: Oprah Network Features NOLA Turnaround Story

Coming in March, Oprah Winfrey's OWN network is going to start airing Blackboard Wars, the six-part story of the attempt to turn around NOLA's McDonogh High School. 

From the announcement:  "The Discovery Studios-produced docu-series centers on the dramatic transformation of New Orleans’ John McDonogh High School, one of the most dangerous and under-performing high schools in the country, where more than half of its students fail to graduate. The show, which will premiere in March, will go behind the scenes with education maverick Steve Barr and no-nonsense principal Dr. Marvin Thompson as they embark on an unpredictable mission to reinvent and revive the struggling school."

From another writeup:  "Blackboard Wars" examines the dramatic transformation of John McDonogh High School in New Orleans, which had a 54% dropout rate before the changes were put in place. “Education maverick” Steve Barr and “no-nonsense principal” Marvin Thompson have increased the attendance rate to around 80%, and they hope that in a few years, the graduation rate will skyrocket to 90%. The students at this school "feel disenfranchised," according to Thompson, who believes that treating each child differently creates a greater chance of success. The population also includes 19-, 20-, and 21-year-old sophomores, so the teachers have their work cut out for them." (San Jose TV) 

Apparently it was originally called Treme High. 

Thompson: The False Promise of "Big Data"

Education reformers have taken to invoking "big data" as education's next big frontier.  However, linguist Geoff Nunberg, in the NPR's Fresh Air report,"Forget YOLO: Why 'Big Data' Should be the Word of the Year," explains that "Big Data is no more exact a notion than Big Hair."

The quantity of digital data has increased, and true believers in number-crunching still claim,"'With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.'"  But Nunberg says "The trouble is that you can't always believe what they're saying."  That is no problem when algorithms predict "that I'd be interested in Celine Dion's greatest hits, as long as they get 19 out of 20 recommendations right." But even when we get to the point where we are measuring information in "humongobytes," we will still need people to ask the question of what are patterns for?-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

People: Meet Bradley Tusk, Reform Strategist

He's not the head of a reform organization, or an elected figure, or a foundation officer. He's not even really an education guy, and actually sort of looks like one of my favorite MMA fighters. But folks in and around the education world often mention Bradley Tusk (top left) for the work he does helping reform groups get their message out. Somehow, I've never done a post about him.

A former campaign manager for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Tusk has been mentioned in several past education news pieces, including this one from the NYT in 2010, this one from New York Magazine in 2011, this Washington DC City Paper sidebar [from which this image is taken] and a slew of mentions at GothamSchools. Before founding Tusk Strategies, he also did stints working for Chuck Schumer and Rod Blagojevich.  

According to his website (Education Reform), Tusk has had enormous successes working on "some of the most innovative and successful education reform initiatives across the country," including ERN (aka DFER), NBC News (aka Education Nation), StudentsFirst (aka Michelle Rhee), the Partnership for Education in Newark (aka Zuckerland), and Success Charter Network (aka Eva Moskowitz).

Whether he does a good job or not is up for debate, as with most things.  I get the sense that he's expensive, and not truly an education specialist.  No problem with that -- there are lots of non-education conultants and strategists opererating in EducationLand™ -- including on the left, where folks like Kombiz Lavasany work for AFT.  That can be a good thing, given the quality dropoff or lack of quality alternatives.  There isn't really any political shop that specializes in education exclusively that I can think of -- at least not yet.

Morning Video: More Coverage Of Rocketship

Here's the PBS NewsHour segment on the seven-school charter network called Rocketship that aired between Xmas and New Year's:

 

Quotes: "No Reasonable Explanation" For Slow-Mo Teacher Firings

There is no reasonable explanation for why firing a teacher is such a time-consuming, tortuous & expensive procedure. - LA Times editorial page 12/20/12

Media: New Cable Channel To Feature Do-Gooder Content

The New York Times is reporting that Participant Media, the production company behind “Waiting For Superman” as well as several other features and documentaries like "An Inconvenient Truth," is creating a new cable channel of its own to create more do-gooder fare from the likes of Davis Guggenheim, Morgan Spurlock, and others.

Maybe they’ll make something out ofStray Dogs, Saints, and Saviors, my book about Green Dot Public Schools, Steve Barr, and the rescue attempt at Locke High School. Or (more likely) a feature about mass teacher layoff at a failing Rhode Island high school or the Sandy Hook tragedy.

Cross-posted from LA School Report

Quotes: Half-Day Kindergarten, The Forgotten Problem

Children enrolled in half-day kindergarten receive less instructional time, likely experience a narrowed curriculum, have less time for experimentation and exploration, and enjoy fewer opportunities for play. - New America's Laura Bornfreund

Pictures: Bulletproof Backpacks Flying Off the Shelves

Bulletproof Backpack Sales Are Up, Sadly Mother Jones via Atlantic Wire 

Charts: Just 12 States Provide Universal Kindergarten

All the focus on universal preschool these past few years might lead you to believe that, well, Kindergarten was already taken care of, but I recently learned that's not the case at all.  

The bare dozen green states on this January 2012 map from CDF (!?) shows how unusual it is for full-day kindergarten to be provided at no charge to all children per state statute and funding. 

Morning Video: LA Board Members Demand Grant Approval

 

Here's a dramatic three-minute clip of LAUSD school board members debating last week whether or not they should be allowed to approve competitive grant applications such as TIF or RTTTD before they are submitted. Via LA School Report. See also: Grant Approval Varies In Other Districts.

Cartoons: Anything But Teaching

Everyone wants to be involved in education, but sometimes it seems like nobody wants to teach. Via Scholastic Administrator.

Bruno: Resolve To Avoid These 5 Meaningless Education Phrases

#meaninglesseducationphrases With 2012 coming to a close it's time to start thinking about our resolutions for the new year. I propose that we collectively resolve to remove from our education discussions terms and phrases that are so vague as to be useless.

Identifying such phrases can be tricky. It's not enough that you think that they are "wrong" per se; meaningless phrases are too unclear to be wrong. Rather, meaningless education phrases are phrases that sound so good - but mean so little - that both sides in a debate would feel comfortable using them to defend their positions.

Below the fold are five of what I consider to be the worst offenders in education. Feel free to add your own.

Congress: "Technical Amendments" In The Fiscal Cliff Deal?

Officially, there's not much going on in Washington DC right now other than departing lawmakers, arriving ones, and the fiscal cliff debate.  But it was two years ago in December, during contentious negotiations about the debt limit or something along those lines that Congress passed the (in)famous "codification" of the Bush-era highly qualified teacher regulations that I wrote about in my paper on NCLB, HQT, and alternative certification.

  

At that time, since it was a continuing resolution, the amendments were called variances discordances or or something like that. But the language was just a couple of sentences long -- that's all it takes: 

(a) A ‘highly qualified teacher’ includes a teacher who meets the requirements in 34 CFR 200.56(a)(2)(ii), as published in the Federal Register on December 2, 2002. (b) This provision is effective on the date of enactment of this provision through the end of the 2012–2013 academic year.

This makes me wonder if there must be at least a handful of education-related bits of business that the Administration, Hill leaders, or others are pushing to get included along with the fiscal cliff deal that if history is our guide will be passed late at night the Friday before Christmas or something ridiculous like that.

Do I know what these items to get slipped in might be? No idea. That's your job. They could be in the category of language needed to smooth NCLB waiver oversight or implementation, or some small but key business related to Common Core. What unfinished business out there needs getting done and has enough friends to get it on a short list of "technical amendments"? Figure it out now, or read about it when it's already been signed into law.  

Innovation: Unknown University Makes "Fast Company" Innovation List

Fast Company's 50 Most Innovative Companies 2012 includes little old Southern New Hampshire University (and this Yellow Submarine psychedelic image) "for relentlessly reinventing higher ed, online and off."

Never heard of Southern NHU?  Me, neither.

I wonder who would get that award in K-12, if anyone.  Houston? Denver? New Orleans? Or some disstrict like SNHU that we've never heard of.  (Fast Company)

Innovation: The False Promise Of "Zombie-Based Learning"

One of the pitches singled out for shame in The New Republic's article The False Promise Of Kickstarter is this one for Zombie-Based Learning (Geography taught in Zombie Apocalypse), which is hilarious but not necessarily worth the money it's receiving.

 

Reform: Can The Charter Quality Movement Gain Traction?

An announcement is just that -- a statement of intentions about things that haven't happened yet.  And this isn't the first time that charter quality proponents like NACSA's Greg Richmond have tried to rein in the charter school movement.  (Disclosure: I've done some freelance writing and research for them.) 

But NACSA's new "One Million Lives" might be the largest and have the greatest chances of success -- if it can find ways to pick up additional powerful allies and do what so few inside the reform movement are willing to do: name states, authorizers, networks, and specific schools. And if the reform movement can get over its collective denial.

Bruno: High Standards Or The Right Standards?

"High standards" is one of those educational phrases that gets thrown around a lot without actually meaning much; if higher standards are always better then there's no reason not to start teaching calculus in preschool.

Nobody favors "low standards" in education, they just disagree about what standards are appropriate in different situations. Framing the debate as about "high standards" vs "low standards" only serves to gloss over reasonable differences of opinion.

And so it is with the Education Sector's new report finding that "High Standards Help Struggling Students."

Even if we assume that the authors have successfully identified more than correlation, what the report mostly illustrates is that talking about "high standards" in general terms is not very useful.

Bruno: The Case Against A Bar Exam For Teachers

The idea of a  nationwide "bar exam" for would-be teachers is garnering support from everybody from Randi Weingarten to Joel Klein. The idea seems to be that only the "best and brightest" should go into teaching, and a rigorous exam would be a way of weeding out weaker applicants and raising the status of those that pass it.

This makes at least some sense. If nothing else, standardizing the credentialing process between states is a good idea, since transferring a credential to a new state is currently often a pain. Beyond that, though, there are at least two reasons to be skeptical that a "bar exam" for teachers is a good idea.

Quotes: Rethinking The Achievement Gap

Unlike the opportunity gap, which must be eliminated for reasons of moral equity [the achievement gap's] elimination is not a worthwhile goal. - Bruce Smith, commenting on a recent interview with Paul Reveille

Thompson: John Merrow Calls It Like It Is

Honestly, I  have never understood why anyone would push a high-stakes test score growth model that could not control for the numbers of funerals that students attended.  Why evaluate teachers with an algorthym that does not account for interventions (often for life-threatening emergencies) at school, hospital visits, and helping students navigate crises at home?

Perhaps advocates of data-driven evaluations have not had many experiences holding an unconscious student who did not seem to be breathing or talking down a kid who is having a psychotic episode in class.  Whether our kids endure hurricanes, domestic abuse, or a family life disrupted by cancer and heart disease, it never made sense to try to estimate expected test score growth of students dealing with intense trauma.

PBS's John Merrow, in "Schools Matter,"  describes teachers' roles in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and then he says what many of us feel, "The trend now is use scores on standardized tests as the measure of a teacher’s value, and it’s popular to say that teachers are the key to student learning."  But, Merrow concludes, “We have a growing income gap that ought to embarrass all Americans, and the people who put it on teachers to solve poverty ought to be ashamed of themselves. They are, at the end of the day, no friends of the teaching profession."-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

Survey Says: Yeah, But What's Your Panorama™ Score?

Inspired by Sabermetics, Nate Silver, and all the (Gates) talk about school surveys, these college seniors (Yale) and a few friends have developed a cheap cloud-based software platform called Panorama that can help schools conduct nearly-instant surveys of kids, parents, teachers, and community members -- without specialized paper and using pretty much any platform (including mobile).  So far they're in nearly 700 school in 6 states (including CA and CT). See: Data Geeks Set Sights On School Reform

Bruno: 'Restorative Justice' Vs. PBIS

One of the hip new things in K-12 education is "restorative justice": a philosophy of discipline that focuses less on punishing misbehavior and more on helping students repair any damage they cause to others in the school community. Nirvi Shah has a good piece in Education Week that nicely illustrates what 'RJ' can look like in practice.

That being said, I wish Shah had spent a little longer on exactly how hard restorative justice can be to implement and the risks of implementing it poorly. I had some experience at a school piloting a RJ system and I came away underwhelmed with its potential. I was frequently frustrated with its demands, disheartened by its results, and unsure of how to improve.

I'm fully prepared to acknowledge that many of my doubts and difficulties with restorative justice have their roots in my own limitations as a teacher. Nevertheless, the challenges were sufficiently numerous and substantial that I suspect many teachers and schools are likely to struggle with implementation in much the same way I did. I'll put a more detailed list of my difficulties and concerns below the fold.

Media: Upstart Station Corners Ed Radio Market

It's not really all that well known, and I have no real idea of its listernership or the quality of its programming.  But the BAM Radio Network seems to have cornered the market on "official" online education radio. BAM Radio creates  programming for teachers, education leaders, and parents on three main channels -- as well as programming for most of the major ed associations: NAESP, NASSP, AASA, IRA, NAEYC, PTA, NASN, NHSA, ASBO -- and now bills itself as "the world’s largest online education radio network." Some of its 12-minute radio shows -- Teacher's Aid, for example, are weekly.  Others -- for parents and leaders and associations -- are monthly.  And then there's the BAMMY awards. 

Previous posts:  "Bammys" Honor Educators, Media, Bloggers, Best Weekly Education Podcasts / Broadcasts

 

Media: Is This "Peak Hype" For Sal Khan?

Yes, that's Sal Khan, on the cover of Forbes magazine, featured in a 3,300-word profile (One Man, One Computer, 10 Million Students) in which all the usual cliches and numbers are thrown out, by the usual self-interested (if sincere) cheerleaders, complete with a reference (Khan's own!) to the significance of being on the cover of Forbes magazine.  

The printing press. Radio. TV. Personal computers.  Laptops (Negroponte!).  Tablets. Mobile. Kahn.  There are a few tidbits I hadn't already picked up, including that Khan didn't win any investors for the first 10 months and was about to give up when the checks started finally coming in.  There's a mini-lesson on the history of education that includes the Presusian model.

But there's barely any reference to improved outcomes for kids -- just to the fact that there's so much money being spent in education, so many millions of pageviews, and growing numbers of venture capitalists interested in getting a piece of it.  And there's only a side glance at the fact that education technology has a long history of limited impact, and online education isn't even that new.

"What is missing is the recognition that a whole lot of humans don’t like to learn that way or can’t," says Steven Gilbert, president of the TLT Group, a nonprofit educational technology consultancy, towards the end of the piece. "And we have enormous historical evidence that that is the case.”

Classrooms: Here Comes "Universal Design"

My latest article from the Harvard Education Letter, Bringing UDL into the Mainstream, is now up online (subscription required).

It describes how an approach called UDL (universal design for learning) has been spreading from individual classrooms, to schools, to districts, and now even to states (or at least a few of them) -- despite the lack of clear effectiveness research and the confusion between it and other popular reforms such as differentiated instruction and buying iPads.

Thanks to everybody who helped me get up to speed on this fascinating issue.  Any experiences or insights into UDL that you want to add, please do so in comments or on Twitter.

My Spring 2012 Harvard Ed Letter article (no subscription required) looked at the impact of NCLB waivers on special education programs and students (With the Rise of “Super Subgroups,” Concerns for Disabled Students Mount).

Morning Video: Trade School Is The New College

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Young people head to trade school NBC Nightly News

Morning Audio: How Oklahoma Got Universal Preschool

Listen to this segment from This American Life about the strange and fascinating way that Oklahoma ended up with a universal preschool program (or at least a much-expanded program compared to other states).  The tale's got education, research, politics, and all the usual twists and turns. Audio here.

 

Quotes: Outside Money Turns Candidates Into Chess Pieces

These are battles between gigantic groups, and candidates are just chess pieces. Candidates are becoming afterthoughts. - Los Angeles political consultant Parke Skelton, in LA School Report. 

Reform: Chicago Delays Unified Charter-District Application

This year's application process in Chicago was supposed to feature a unified application process, timeline, and unified website.   That's what NYC, New Orleans, Boston, and Denver have for all or part of their systems, many of them using the same outfit to make the process work.

But that isn't happening for another year at least -- due in large part to concerns from charter schools about the district's ability to handle the system.  

That leaves Chicago parents who are willing to endure the process to pore through roughly 15 different kinds of schools, and seven different applications (not including charters).  It's only recently that parents can apply to some kinds of schools online rather than by mail or in person.

The process in Chicago is almost comically complicated, and the supply of high-performing schools -- district and charter -- remains woefully low.  One result is that roughly two out of three white, college-educated parents send their kids to private or parochial schools.

Coverage: Chicago parents: Get your [multiple] school applications ready WBEZ, Ready, Set, Apply…. for the 2013/2014 school year! cpsobsessed, CPS opens application process for selective, magnet schools Catalyst.

Thompson: Take A Breather, School "Reformers"

The Fordham Flypaper's Mike Petrilli says that reformers are ready to take "a breather." In "What's Next on the School Reform Agenda?" Petrilli writes, "Like a snake that's just swallowed a deer, most reformers (and the education system itself) simply can't take anything else on right now."

He then lists pension reform, digital learning, teacher preparation, and principal licensure as areas that some members of the PIE Network see as the next waves of reform.  I am not qualified to say much about pensions or digital learning proposals, so, in contrast to reformers who love to micromanage areas where they have little practical knowledge, I will remain silent on them.  But, I agree with Petrilli that teacher preparation is "a natural outgrowth of reformers’ obsession with teacher evaluations," and the second area raises the question, “are principals the new teachers?” It sounds like an effort to do to principals what they have been forced to do to teachers. 

Petrilli then makes the sensible suggestion that the next wave of reform should be finance reform.  I have doubts about much of Petrilli's proposal, but that is not the point.  School reformers should shift their attention to issues that they are qualified to analyse.  Let them bone up on state governance issues and get involved with macro finance debates, while avoiding micro issues in the types of schools that they never attended, and classrooms where they have little or no experience.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

Charts: Updated Look At Teacher Salaries, School Day Length

This chart from Chicago Magazine says that Chicago's just-approved new contract puts the city more in line with the school hours in other big city districts.  

Five Best Blogs: Online Charters Dinged For Quality & Cost

Up 30 pct since last year, online charters face quality & cost backlash ME NJ NC PA TN FL http://ow.ly/ebDyU  @SSimonReuters

US Chamber and National PTA coalition urge Duncan to me more careful with NCLB waivers, notes SI&A Cabinet Report ow.ly/ec0o8

Reform-backed CT candidate wins recount primary thanks to late $$ from reform group http://Courant.com  http://ow.ly/ebWhB  

Wilingham & Ferlazzo debate whether online nastiness is a function of psychology or strategy (or, probably, both) http://ow.ly/ebEHA 

When Curious Parents See Math Grades in Real Time - WSJ.com ow.ly/eco90 

Teach Plus: Charter or District? Whatever Works ow.ly/ecb9h

How Teachers Can Avoid "SHOCKTOBER" NPR http://ow.ly/ebKWO @roxannaelden 

On The HotSeat: Interview With A Blogger

At some point in the not too distant past, as you may recall, the Huffington Post launched an education page. 

The arrival of HuffED  was arguably the biggest thing to happen to online education news and commentary in the past decade, easily eclipsing the Washington Post's vibrant but aging set of education blogs and EdWeek's numerous but little-read offerings. With HuffPost’s now-familiar mix of serious and silly items, and scads of unpaid commentary, the education page provided an enormous amount of material each day. 

But who is behind all that HuffED content, and how does she do her job?  She's Emmeline Zhao -- you may recall reading about her here first  -- and she sits right next to Joy Resmovits at the Huffington Post offices, which, it turns out, are not deep in bunker or in a TriBeca penthouse.  Read all about her below, though be warned there's no attempt to settle issues like whether HuffPost is good for the world. We already know the answer to that.  Nor do we delve into the whole sponsored page thing, which the page shedded a few months ago.  Everyone agrees that was a horrible idea. Plus it's Friday!

Quotes: Movie Critics Won't Affect Audience Experience

If you look at the successful issues movies, 'Erin Brockovich,' 'Norma Rae,'... I bet you don't remember what the issues are. What you remember are the characters realizing they can accomplish something, going up against a monolithic institution and being able to change it. - WBD backer in LA Times

Nonprofits: Schnur Starts A Hybrid Education Group

Right under your noses, while you weren't paying attention, the ever-present but never quite seen Jon Schnur has created a new school reform organization called America Achieves, and assembled a Seal Team 6 of education operatives to join him.  Michele Jolin.  Bethany Little.  Wendy Kopp.  Dave Medina. Mike Johnston as a board member. Melody Barnes as an advisor.  My grad school girlfriend. Other people.  Bloomberg, Gates, Arnold, and Noyce for funding.

As you may recall, the former Gore education advisor started New Leaders and then served as a policy advisor on the Obama education team.  Schnur formally left New Leaders a year and change ago, but wouldn't say exactly what he was up to next.  (A book.  Family time.  I'll call you back, he always said. Or maybe I was supposed to call him back.) For a time, there were murmurings about a new outfit called Proof Points. Then, in less time than it takes a Senegalese street vendor to whip out the umbrellas on a rainy day, there was America Achieves.  

America Achieves.  What does that even mean?  Is it a statement of fact ("America achieves about as well as some small European countries.")?  Or is it an imperative ("America achieves, or dies!")?  I have no idea.  There's a Broad-esque fellowship program for superintendents -- and teachers.  There's a Rising Leaders Policy Program (ie, Velociraptors Boot Camp). There's some Common Core, natch.  A West Village address with easy access to the PATH train (and, probably, a secret tunnel to the local Equinox).

 Worth noting: America Achieves does not look to be set up as a pure advocacy group, and doesn't seem like it's going to be a pure think tank, either.  I'd call it a nonprofit consulting firm, with some services and leadership development angles.