Weekend Reading: NYC's $100M SIG Stalemate

A roundup of magazines, sites, and columns I didn't get to during the week:

"Mass Resistance" To Education Reform Jonathan Chait (TNR): That sounds like devolving policy to the level of government at which local interest groups (in this case, teachers unions) will exert the most sway, and foreclosing the possibility of using evidence-based methods to drive policy toward more effective practices. 

Fixing Schools, Fixing Teachers WNYC: The state refuses to release the $100M until the city and the teachers' union can agree on a new teacher evaluation system that combines test scores and classroom observations [for the 33 SIG schools].

Top Right's Faces of Innovation Slate:  Khan’s educational videos are revolutionizing how kids learn math and science. 

Math Teacher Full of Tangents Slate: A student who is fed up with his math teacher's disruptive digressions seeks counsel from Slate's advice columnist Prudence. 

The sex ed hall of shame Salon:  This week people were abuzz over news that New York City had  mandated sex education -- and some were simply scratching their heads at the realization that this wasn't already the case. Seriously, it took this long?

Comments

[Mary Porter]

Alexander, you're going around and around in tighter circles as you compile the musings of your (really very small) circle of reform pundits.

I like the quote you chose from Chait's little piece: "...the possibility of using evidence-based methods to drive policy toward more effective practices." None of you clowns has any evidence to support your management policies, and you have no idea what practices might be effective toward any educational goal. You only listen to each other, though, so none of you realizes how hollow your arguments have become.

While you circle the wagons and comfort each other with the same old slogans, the real conversation about legislatively mandated data-driven reform is exploding out from under you. Diane Ravitch isn't the only seasoned policy voice being raised, for instance. On your right, please meet Beverly Eakman of The New American. You should take a few minutes to catch up on the strands you're industriously unreporting.

http://thenewamerican.com/component/search/?searchword=eakman&ordering=&searchphrase=all