Posts by Tom Vander Ark
The (new) American Education Agenda
There is an emerging consensus on an education reform agenda that incorporates measurement and accountability, teacher quality, equitable funding, public school choice, and investment in improvement. The short version looks something like this: The (new) American Education Agenda Good Schools: Every student deserves access…
Likely to be the most important post of the year
Brooks column this week will probably be the most important post of the year, so it’s posted in full: The fight against poverty produces great programs but disappointing results. You go visit an inner-city school, job-training program or community youth center and you meet incredible people doing wonderful…
High School Turnaround Green Dot Style
The biggest question in education may be ‘how to turn around failing schools?” We’ve learned a lot about how to dramatically improve a struggling elementary school in the last 10 years—proven reading curriculum, diagnostic assessment, targeted intervention, talented teachers, and relentless leadership. High schools are a…
Bill Ayers on teaching
“Education is always and everywhere about opening doors, opening minds, opening possibilities. Education is about opening your eyes and seeing for yourself the world as it really is in all its complexity, and then finding the tools and the strength to participate fully, even to change some of…
Joel Klein on Transforming Teaching
Here’s a great HuffPost from Joel Klein on transforming the teaching profession: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-klein/transforming-the-teaching_b_200616.html Eliminating the racial and ethnic achievement gap in our nation’s public schools is the most urgent civil rights challenge for this generation. I co-founded the Education Equality…
In favor of Humanities
In an engineering curriculum crowded with plug-n-crank, Drama was one of the few humanities courses I took in college. I don’t know how I ended up in the course, it must have fit in my schedule and looked easy. When I saw Dr. Hogan at lunch today,…
Why charters matter
Barbara O’Brien is a persuasive advocate for kids. As a young corporate executive, she recruited me to visit with Governor Romer in 1992 to convince him that Colorado kids needed charter schools. There are now 141 charters schools in Colorado thanks in large part to (now Lt. Gov)…
Firing bad teachers is costly & difficult
Here’s excerpts from an important story from what’s left of the investigative staff at the LA Times It’s remarkably difficult to fire a tenured public school teacher in California, a Times investigation has found. The path can be laborious and labyrinthine, in some cases…
Great op-ed from great edu-govs
The two most effective education governors in recent memory, Govs Jeb Bush & Jim Hunt, teamed up for a great op-ed today on the $5B innovation fund. I made some similar points recently on HuffPost.
Groups making a difference
DFER: Joe Williams and a strong board continue to push the Ds to support real accountability and real choice. CA Charter Assoc: Jeb Wallace has kicked CCSA advocacy into high gear—both CA and national. ConnCAN: we’d be in a much different place if…