Why the ‘market theory’ of education reform doesn’t work
Modern education reform is being driven by people who believe that competition, privatization and other elements of a market economy will improve public schools. In this post, Mark Tucker, president of the non-profit National Center on Education and the Economy and an internationally known expert on reform, explains why this approach is actually harming rather than helping schools. Tucker is also editor of “Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems” (Harvard Education Press, November 2011).
By Marc Tucker
Years ago, Milton Friedman and others opined that the best possible education reform would be one based on good old market theory. Public education, the analysis went, was a government monopoly, and, teachers and school administrators, freed from the discipline of the market, as in all government monopolies, had no incentive to control costs or deliver
New data on public education released
Here’s an infographic with some new data about public education enrollment and spending, student achievement and other related issues just released by the U.S. Census Bureau.
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‘Something is wrong when….”
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
This past summer, New York high school Principals Carol Burris and Harry Leonadartos attempted to testify about school reform before New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Education Commission in New York City. They were not given the opportunity to speak, and they wrote about it in this post. Yesterday the commission — which is chaired by former Citibank chairman Dick Parsons — visited Long Island and Burris was allowed to speak. She received a standing ovation when she was done. Below is her testimony. Read full article >>
New data on public education released
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
Here’s an infographic with some new data about public education enrollment and spending, student achievement and other related issues just released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Read full article >>
How to waste $500,000+ in education funds
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
The following press release from the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) landed in my e-mail box with this headline: “Charter School Consortium Selected to Measure Student Growth, Inform Teacher Instruction.” Read full article >>
‘Meducation:’ Colbert on giving poor kids ADHD drugs so they can focus in school
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
From The Colbert Report files: Here is Stephen Colbert’s hilarious take on a New York Times story about doctors who are giving ADHD drugs to poor children who don’t have ADHD simply to help them focus better in school. Michael Anderson, a pediatrician who treats children from poor families in Cherokee County, north of Atlanta, is quoted in the article as saying, ““I don’t have a whole lot of choice. We’ve decided as a society that it’s too expensive to modify the kid’s environment. So we have to modify the kid.” Read full article >>
What Joel Klein’s misleading autobiography means for school reform
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
Joel Klein has repeatedly talked about how he grew up in a poor neighborhood and was headed for failure until a high school teacher helped him realize his potential. This story, he says, shows how important teachers really are. But in the important following post, Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, explains why Klein’s story is misleading — and why that matters in the school reform debate. Read full article >>
How long one teacher took to become great
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
In today’s education world, young college graduates accepted by Teach For America get five weeks of summer training and are considered by some to be “highly qualified teachers.” Here’s a different sort of story, from veteran educator Marion Brady, who explains how long it took him to become a good teacher. By Marion Brady A few weeks ago I flew into Buffalo, New York, rented a car, and drove down to northeastern Ohio for a high school class reunion — the 55th — for students I’d taught when they were 9th graders in 1952. They told me stories about myself, some of which I wish t... more »
The ‘right’ college major can mean big bucks, according to Census data
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
College students who earn a bachelor’s degree in engineering earn about $1.6 million more than education majors over the course of their career, according to new data released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Read full article >>
Holding Broad Academy and Bush Institute ‘accountable’
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
Jeb Bush is holding his fifth annual national summit on school reform next month in Washington D.C. According to the agenda, one of the strategy sessions is called “Transforming Colleges of Education,” and the writeup says in part: “Nine out of every ten teachers graduate from traditional teacher prep programs at colleges of education. Should these colleges be held accountable for the caliber of students they admit into their programs and the teachers they send into the classroom?” Read full article >>
Who is Abigail Noel Fisher?
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
The Supreme Court is hearing arguments on Wednesday in a case involving a young woman who sued the University of Texas. The woman alleged that she was denied admission to the system’s flagship in 2008 because she is white and the school’s affirmative action policies resulted in the acceptance of African American and Hispanic students with lesser credentials. She was offered admission to a different UT campus with the possibility of transferring later, but she opted to go out of state to attend college. Read full article >>
Can schools really reform society?
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
It’s not uncommon to hear people say that schools are the best way to transform society. But is this really true? In the following post the issue is considered by Larry Cuban, a former high school social studies teacher (14 years, including seven at Cardozo and Roosevelt high schools in the District), district superintendent (seven years in Arlington, VA) and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, where he has taught for more than 20 years. His latest book is “As Good As It Gets: What School Reform Brought to Austin.” This appeared on his bl og. Read full article ... more »
Nobel Prize winner in medicine flunked biology
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
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Nobel Prizes: Which schools have won the most?
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
*(Correction: Rockefeller University has won 17 awards, including six when the institution had a different name. An earlier version said Rockefeller had won 11 Nobels.)* It’s that time of year again when the Nobel Prizes are bestowed on the world’s brilliant, accomplished and lucky in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, economics, literature and peace. Read full article >>
Eleven year old: ‘Ridiculous’ to use my test to grade my teacher
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
In the out-of-the-mouths-of-babes category, here’s a post about the flaws of modern teacher evaluation that are evidence to an 11-year-old but, apparently, not to school reformers. It was written by Sean C. Feeney, principal of The Wheatley School and president of the Nassau County High School Principals Association. Read full article >>
School libraries without books
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
Imagine a newly modernized school with a built-in library/media center — but no books to put on the shelves. Actually, you don’t have to imagine. Read about what’s going on with libraries in D.C. public schools (DCPS) in this open letter to Mayor Vincent Gray from D.C. resident and school library advocate Peter MacPherson. He’s been fighting a move by DCPS to cut funding for dozens of school librarian positions. Read full article >>
Things educators could say but don’t
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
With reform policies based more on hope than data, you might think educators would speak up more than do. Why don’t they? Here’s some thoughts about why most stay quiet, from Robert Bligh, former general counsel of the Nebraska Association of School Boards. Bligh’s research interest involves the efficacy of the school reform efforts promoted by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act since its original adoption in 1965. He served as assistant professor at Doane College and was editor and publisher of the Nebraska School Law Reporter. Read full article >>
Next on school reformers’ agenda
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
According to Michael Petrilli, executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, school reformers aren’t resting on their laurels and have some new goals in mind. Read full article >>
Pennsylvania eases NCLB rules to help charter schools
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
How is this for fair? Charter schools in Pennsylvania are now being assessed by easier rules than are traditional public schools when it comes to determining whether No Child Left Behind mandates have been met. Read full article >>
Still obtuse about standardized testing
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
For all that President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan talk about wanting to move beyond “bubble tests,” the high-stakes role of standardized testing in public education as a result of their policies can hardly be overstated. Here’s a new look at testing by Walt Gardner, who writes the Reality Check blog for Education Week. Gardner taught for 28 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District and was a lecturer in the UCLA Graduate School of Education. He uses his background to put educational issues in context for readers. Read full article >>
Blaming stressed-out parents for school failure
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
I said I wouldn’t publish anything more about “Won’t Back Down,” the pro-parent trigger movie, but …. Here’s a post, written by Vicki Abeles and Wendy Grolnick, about the film but also about other movies and books that subtly — and not so subtly — blame some parents, especially mothers, when schools fail and kids fall behind. Read full article >>