ESEA
Personalized Learning
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. Â Some of the credit for that goes to Jon Schnur and DFER. Â Because we don’t have very good predictive techniques, it’s important to watch teachers in their first few years,…
Personalized Learning
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…
Personalized Learning
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’.
Personalized Learning
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…
Personalized Learning
Competition, Civil Rights, and Change Theory
Civil rights advocates are split on the competitive nature of $10 billion in grant programs from the US Department of Education. Some, like Education Equality Project, view it as an opportunity for states and districts with competent leadership to make important performance-promoting and gap-closing advances. Others, like the…
Personalized Learning
What I'm hearing
Here’s a quick overview of where I think the Department of Education is headed and a couple of the themes you’ll hear about tomorrow. Goals/Focus 1.Best in the world in college completion 2. Top of TIMSS by end of decade 3. Big STEM push…
Personalized Learning
The Final RttT Push (at least for Phase 1)
The mad scramble is on. Â Consultants and bureaucrats nationwide are putting the finishing touches on Race to the Top proposals this weekend. Â I’m sure a little last minute arm twisting is going on between state chiefs and district superintendents to get enough districts to opt-in to make state plans viable…
Personalized Learning
5 charter authorizing strategies to max RttT
It’s time to rethink charter school authorization.  There are 5,000 charter schools in the US (about 5% of the total number of schools) and a push from the Department of Education for more.  Given that half of the charters aren’t any better than traditional public schools, there has been a push…
Personalized Learning
DOE is major venture investor (but not ED)
The WSJ reports that the Department of Energy has quietly become the biggest venture capital investor: The DOE hopes to lend or give out more than $40 billion to businesses working on “clean technology,” everything from electric cars and novel batteries to wind turbines and solar panels.
EdTech
Racing to the top in Baton Rouge
Duncan’s Race to the Top is not simply a race to beat out other states for funding, or to pass “qualifying” language at the last minute, it is a competition to see who can work collaboratively and innovatively with real commitment to education reform. Â The challenge is so great…