Leaders & Laggards: a call to action
The Leaders and Laggards report is an important scorecard showing why, how, and where America is losing the education race. We pride ourselves on innovation but this report suggests there isn’t much of that in education. A bipartisan group of think tanks scored states on school management, finance,…
Free higher ed courses not great USED investment
Rick Hess makes a series of good arguments that the $500m ‘online skills laboratory’ isn’t a great investment. In the mixed provider post secondary space, quality content isn’t the top barrier. Â It’s pricing that reflects the sunk costs of existing institutions. Â A healthy market will make investment in…
i3 grant opportunities for SES providers
The Invest in Innovation (i3) grant program offers an opportunity for supplemental educational service (SES) providers to support the grant application of a partner school district. Â The $650 million grant program has three categories; the smallest category–Development Grants–will have awards of up to $5 million that only require a research…
The Chamber of Commerce Party
I had dinner with four Republicans last night. They wonder where their party went.  It was a chamber of commerce gala, so I probably had dinner with a couple hundred Republicans and a lot of pro-growth Democrats, but I talked politics with four in particular. The current and former state…
Ouchi is almost right and late to the party
Bill Ouchi, back in EdWeek, is still pitching decentralization a decade after a bunch of us showed that it was a thin theory.  In nearby districts, John Stanford and I both did the 100 flowers approach with pretty thin accountability.  We assumed that people knew what to do and would…
Big Levers
There are plenty of theories about how to improve education. Most focus on what appear to be big levers—a point of entry and system intervention that appears to provide some improvement leverage. These theories usually involve ‘if-then’ statements: ‘if we improve this, then other good stuff will happen.’ Leading theories…
Regression to the mean
Last week, Reed Hastings predicted the future. He suggested that elected school boards all regress to the mean and that it’s impossible to create continuity of leadership. Denver had the most aggressive reform agenda of any district led by an elected board until yesterday when they began…
Wow, DOD gets learning
Two years ago I held a learning conference. A colleague invited a couple admirals. I though it was a dumb idea, but I was blown away by their sophisticated view of human development and job training. Today I spent an hour with a defense contractor that probably runs the…
Dropout prevention reports…and the rest of the solution
NASBE recently released a dropout prevention report that included some typical recommendations (data, training, community partnerships, multiple pathways). Â I’m glad the state boards on on the case. NGA also issued a report which better describes the solution set including a recommendation to “provide rigorous, relevant options for…
Public & private investment will benefit edu
The private sector plays a big role in K-12 education especially in the four Ts: textbooks, testing, technology and tutoring. Â There has been relatively little R&D spending in education, but most of the useful investment has been by the private sector. Â Federal stimulus investments will accelerate efforts to bring quality…