There are two seemingly unrelated columns in today’s Opinion page of the New York Times that provide a crisp summary of where we stand in our current thinking about school reform — and where we need to go.
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Tag Archives: charter schools
This is Your Brain on Test Scores
Categories: Assessment, Learning
Tags: balanced scorecard, brain, charter schools, david eagleman, new york city, New York Times, test scores
Leave a commentSunday Morning Quarterback
Earlier this week the DC Public Charter School Board released its latest rankings of every charter school operating in the nation’s capital. Some schools earned higher or lower scores than last year — each school is rated either Tier 1, 2 or 3 — but the majority did not change. No surprise there: these things take time, not to mention the fact that our system for evaluating whether a school is high- or low-performing remains imperfect at best.
Categories: Assessment, Learning, Organizational Change
Tags: charter schools, DC, FOCUS, NFL, Pittsburgh Steelers, school choice, Washington Redskins
Leave a commentOK, Obama Won. Now What?
Categories: Assessment, Democracy, Equity, Leadership, Learning, Teacher Quality
Tags: Assessment, charter schools, finland, freedom, great teaching, Leadership, Learning, obama, school choice, special education, teachers, teaching
2 CommentsThe (Keynesian) Economics of School Choice
In the halls of Congress and on the presidential campaign trail, a debate is raging over which set of economic proposals to pursue in order to rebuild the national economy. At the same time, K-12 education reformers are engaged in their own frantic search for the right recipe(s) that can unlock the full power of teaching and learning. But rarely do we acknowledge that one individual stands, improbably, at the center of both debates – John Maynard Keynes.
Categories: Assessment, Equity, Learning, Organizational Change
Tags: charter schools, DC, DCPS, driving demand, economics, education reform, freedom, Great Schools, John Maynard Keynes, K-12, Learning, parents, school choice
2 CommentsIs School Renovation The Change We Seek?
OK, I realize I’m late to the game – I was in China last week when President Obama first outlined his jobs proposal to a joint session of Congress. But I’m back now, and I just read it, and as I look at it I’m wondering if anyone else has made a simple observation about his idea to renovate America’s crumbling public school buildings:
Is this really the change we seek?
Categories: Learning, Organizational Change
Tags: charter schools, Democratic Era, Industrial-Era, obama, renovations, Rick Hess, School Buildings
5 CommentsThe Other Education
I’ve always liked David Brooks as a columnist. He often takes stands I disagree with, but, generally speaking, he also approaches his role as a public intellectual with inquiry and openness, not orthodoxy and attitude.
In his education columns, however, Brooks has become a dangerous and myopic mouthpiece for a particular set of reform ideas that, without much prodding, turn to dust. And after reading a weekend column of his, I think I understand why.
Categories: Learning, Organizational Change
Tags: bruce springsteen, charter schools, david brooks, Learning, policies, waiting for superman
5 CommentsWhat Gandhi Would Think of “The Lottery”
I just saw “The Lottery” – a documentary film about public education in general, and the charter school movement in particular – and I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. The film is beautiful, and deeply moving, It is impossible not to fall in love with the four children (and their families) whose [...]
Categories: Equity, Leadership, Learning
Tags: charter schools, Gandhi, I/It, I/Thou, Martin Buber, Satyagraha, The Lottery
Leave a commentEvaluating Charter Schools
This morning I appeared on WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi Show. With the DC region at the forefront of the national charter school movement, people want to know why, after a decade of innovation and experimentation, it’s still difficult to evaluate local charters and compare them to traditional public schools. The framing question for the hour-long show, therefore, [...]
Categories: Learning
Tags: charter schools, choice, FOCUS, innovation, Kojo Nnamdi, WAMU
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