D.C.’s move toward charter-centric school system
Are we seeing the beginnings of the “New Orleanization” of the D.C. public school system?
There is new evidence suggesting that D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray is taking the initial steps in a move toward molding the system into one that has a small core of traditional public schools and a larger collection of independently run charter schools. For a lot of reasons, D.C. residents should be concerned.
Remember when Michelle Rhee quit as D.C. schools chancellor last October, insisting that she had to leave because the soon-to-be-new-mayor, Gray, wasn’t committed to her brand of reform? Wrong again.
Read full article >>The right way to lengthen the school year
This is the third part of a debate on time and learning that started with a a post I published Tuesday by Mark Phillips, professor emeritus of secondary education at San Francisco State University, about what he called an “absurd” debate on the appropriate length of the school year. He noted that there is no compelling evidence that a longer school year improves student learning. Then yesterday I published a response by Jennifer Davis, co-founder and president of the National Center on Time & Learning, and Emily McCann, president of Citizen Schools. Here is Phillips, once again, responding to the Davis-McCann piece.
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