More evidence that the establishment is getting behind major reforms in how teachers are evaluated and paid: The New York Times editorial board today calls on Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the Obama administration to hold states to tougher accountability standards if they want to receive a piece of the $49 billion school stabilization […]
Education in America
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LABOR ON THE PATH TO REUNIFICATION.
Today, the nation’s major labor unions announced a new National Labor Coordinating Committee that brings together the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, and, for the first time in a major federation, the National Education Association, as well as all their affiliates, representing some 16 million American workers (full list of participants after the jump). It’s a […]
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THINK TANK ROUND-UP: BLEAK AND BLEAKER EDITION.
This week’s TTR displays a growing interest in suburban sprawl, inovative tax breaks, employment non-discrimination and, yes, these troubled economic times. Read on: Edgeless agony. In a report on American job sprawl released yesterday, Brookings analyzes nearly 100 urban centers — or rather, non-centers — to bring this news: Jobs have moved to the suburbs […]
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CHILD POVERTY AND THE EDUCATION WARS.
Matt Yglesias flags this Washington Post report on research showing that poverty creates so much stress in children’s lives that it leads to permanent cognitive impairment, including a depleted short-term memory. According to one study, kids who experienced long-term poverty scored 20 percent lower on memory tests than kids whose families were never poor. All […]
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IF I WERE EDUCATION SECRETARY…
On Bloggingheads last week, the Weekly Standard‘s Matt Continetti and I discussed how the Department of Education should spend its $5 billion “race to the top” stimulus fund, which is supposed to support innovation and reform at the state and local level. We also found that we agreed — think of that! — on the […]
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ON TAP: DIVERSIONS IN EDUCATION AND DIVISIONS IN MEDIA.
Merit pay: It will make our students smart, our schools safe, and our hair shiny and manageable. Or will it? Dana Goldstein looks at the education reform debate and wonders if this panacea isn’t really just snake oil. Meanwhile, Paul Waldman considers the epic battle between new media and old. As always, subscribe to our […]
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Is Merit Pay a Distraction in the Fight for Meaningful Education Reform?
Merit pay is the hot topic in education policy. But we should be skeptical of single-faceted solutions to multifaceted problems.
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WILL HEALTH REFORM, CAP AND TRADE, AND EDUCATION ALL HAPPEN IN ONE BILL?
One more tidbit from Senator Conrad’s conference call. According to Conrad, the reconciliation process is structured such that if you included instructions on more than one priority — say, both cap and trade and health reform, or cap and trade and health reform and education — “you’d have to write the legislation as one bill.” […]
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WHY THE POLITICS OF EDUCATION REFORM MATTER.
At the Columbia Journalism Review Daniel Luzer has some harsh words for my April print feature, a profile of the “education wars” and, in particular, a look at the crucial role of Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers. Luzer makes one excellent point with which I agree — that the history […]
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ON TAP: EDUCATION WARS, SENATE BATTLES, AND FINANCIAL MELEES.
The fight over the future of the public school system is not just important — it’s also pretty vicious. Dana Goldstein assesses the state of the education wars, which pit members of the Democratic coalition against each other. Meanwhile, Ezra Klein wonders if the reconciliation process could be successfully used to bring us back to […]
