2 speeches
The text of President Obama ‘controversial’ speech is out. It’s full of old fashion values. He’ll suggests that students should fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put…
Education Needs to be Turned on Its Head
A Leo Babauta post (via Milton Ramirez tweet) recites the failings of the age cohort-batch process-compliance rewarding system knows worldwide. The system fails to prepare about two-thirds of American kids–all but the compliant and well supported. And, as Leo points out, while we talk about innovation and creativity, we still have…
UK opens 200th sponsored academy
One of Tony Blair’s reforms that I’m fond of is the Academy program–the equivalent of a sponsored charter school in the US. The BBC reports that the 200th opened with 67 more to come this year. They’re dropping a feature that I liked–the requirement to invest at least 2 million…
Rock-Solid Hunches
I received a mailer from a research firm suggesting that innovation must be based on “rock-solid evidence.” They were obviously offering to conduct this research and were quoting Jim Shelton in a recent webcast where he was discussing i3 grant criteria. Jim was speaking specifically about grant requirements…
The role of the private sector in edu
The WSJ reported that “The US government doled out $502 million for a dozen wind and solar energy projects.” The big winner was Iberdrola, a Spanish wind giant. Coming in second was Horizon, a subsidiary of a Portuguese firm. Third place went to a UK owned firm.
Athletes making a difference
I miss basketball season. Remember all those touching NBA Cares commercials where a 20 year old millionaire showed up at school and they made a commercial out of it? Fortunately there are dozens of current and former athletes that are making a real difference in their communities.
How to fix failing schools
The National Journal question this morning was, “What are the best methods for school improvement?” We’ve learned a good deal about improving elementary schools in the last decade. A focused leader, data driven instruction, and improved time on task can quickly boost lagging reading and math scores. Secondary…
Paul O'Neill, Stanley Kaplan, and USED staff
1. Paul O’Neill may be the best charter school attorney in the US, certainly the best east of the Mississippi, by virtue of handling a high volume of charter contracts for more than decade. Paul’s Charter School Law Deskbook is the definitive book on the subject. He…
$3.5B for school improvement will benefit charters/services
This EdWeek blog is a good summary of the USED guidance $3.5B Title 1 school improvement fund. Each state will receive an allotment and will distribute it to districts that agree to enact one or more of the four prescribed strategies: · Turnaround: replacing at least…
Fall on Poverty Bay
Summer came early to Poverty Bay and so did fall. It was dark and drizzling when we (dog and person in tow) hit the beach at 5:15. The tide was low an hour before and sun wouldn’t be up for an hour. It wasn’t really raining, just that…