EdTech
Bad Proxies for Good Teachers
Read Rotherham’s Atlantic article on Teach For America (TFA) and what it takes to be a good teacher. It’s a great summary of what the field, TFA in particular, has learned recently about the attributes of good teachers. However, it’s frustrating that we remain so unsophisticated about the predictive…
Hysteria Around Turnarounds
The NYTimes ran a story with this misleading headline and byline A Vote to Fire All Teachers at a Failing High School CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. — A plan to dismiss the entire faculty and staff of the only public high school in this small city…
The Weight of Leadership
Winston Churchill took office the day the Germans invaded the low countries of Europe. Perhaps born a warrior and an idealist, Churchill in some ways relished the epic nature of conflict but never took it lightly. A recent HBO film, Into the Storm, explored Churchill’s leadership and life during…
Gentlemen, Start Your Hearings (But Let the Race Run)
Here we go. McNeil outlines House plans to begin ESEA reauthorization hearings starting with charter schools (great place to start). Miller and Kline are thoughtful and could actually put together a decent bipartisan draft. No word from the Senate where it’s harder to imagine anything thoughtful happening.
Thoughts on Consumer Learning
Consumer learning will get big. Consumer learning will be social. Consumer learning will be freemium: free plus premium services. Consumer learning will incorporate Massively Multiplayer Online learning games and learning environments (MMOLG, MMOLE). Consumer learning will mobilize money, energize entrepreneurs, and personalize a process that for…
Pearson Vision Impressive
Textbook publishers are catching a lot of grief these day, some of it deserved. But I met with a Pearson exec this morning and continue to be impressed by the leadership of this company (with whom I have a business relationship). Long before Obama landed on readiness, Pearson realigned…
Teacher Quality Means Some Must Go
The President and Secretary deserve credit for advancing the teacher quality agenda–a tough thing for democrats to do. Some of the credit for that goes to Jon Schnur and DFER. Because we don’t have very good predictive techniques, it’s important to watch teachers in their first few years,…
Brookings Makes Thoughtful Recommendations on Choice
Brookings released a thoughtful report encouraging expanding K-12 choice including the following recommendations choice be exercised through systems in which parents have more options than at present (with the expansion of virtual education programs being a promising means to that end); admission into particular schools within choice systems be…
RttT Plans: Detailed, Compliant, Insufficient
I spent the last two days reading Race to the Top plans. Here’s a few observations: 1. The plans are comprehensive and detailed. They all slavishly follow the Department of Education scoring rubic. As I’ve repeatedly said, RttT is a great program, but this isn’t ‘loose on means’.
New Frame for ESEA: Half Right, Big Risk
Message refined, Secretary Duncan is doing the morning show circuit socializing a proposal for the reauthorization of federal education policy. He’s attempting to assemble the first bipartisan coalition of the Obama administration to address a major piece of legislation. It won’t be easy and it probably won’t happen this year…