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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Hechinger Report | Companies, nonprofits making millions off teacher effectiveness push

Hechinger Report | Companies, nonprofits making millions off teacher effectiveness push:

Companies, nonprofits making millions off teacher effectiveness push

New education reforms often translate into big money for private groups. Following the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, states paid millions of dollars annually to companies to develop and administer the standardized tests required under the law. Companies also cashed in on a provision mandating tutoring for students at struggling schools.

Now, a movement to overhaul the teaching profession is creating a new source of revenue for those in the business of education. More than half of states have changed, or are in the process of changing, their laws to


Q&A with Leon Botstein: ‘Middle schools and high schools are an American catastrophe’

Leon Botstein (Photo by Steve Pyle)

Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College in New York since 1975, has long believed that American universities should be playing a major role in improving the country’s secondary education. Botstein, who is also music director and conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, says he’s less concerned about a decline in the awarding of undergraduate degrees than he is with the U.S. fixing high schools. Bard has been deeply involved with trying to improve college-going and graduation rates through the establishment of early college high schools. Botstein spoke with Liz Willen of The Hechinger Report