School Tech Connect: Yong Zhao Explains China's Secret Plan...

School Tech Connect: Yong Zhao Explains China's Secret Plan...

Yong Zhao Explains China's Secret Plan...

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

...which is, they're trying adopt the decentralized education system we're so anxious to shed.

Popout
Yong Zhao: No Child Left Behind and Global Competitiveness from TFT on Vimeo.

National standards, national curriculum, centralization, authoritarianism, emphasis on tests... it's all preparing us

57 schools get money to pilot 'weighted student funding' | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

57 schools get money to pilot 'weighted student funding' | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

57 schools get money to pilot 'weighted student funding'

by Jamie Raver

Sidebar Article:

No

Featured Title:

From the Summer edition

Author:

by Dale Mezzacappa

The School District has begun a pilot project in which 57 schools are testing parts of a system called “weighted student funding” (WSF) that would significantly change how resources are allocated to schools and how spending decisions are made.
Under WSF, funds are allotted to schools based on students’ needs, with weights given to factors such as poverty and English-language proficiency, rather than allocating each school a set number of teachers and other staff based on enrollment. In addition, school teams are actively involved in deciding how the money is spent.
read more

NYC Public School Parents: The tangled web of influence behind Klein's decision to allow the expansion of Girls Prep charter to go forward

NYC Public School Parents

Independent voices of New York City public school parents

NYC Public School Parents: The tangled web of influence behind Klein's decision to allow the expansion of Girls Prep charter to go forward

The tangled web of influence behind Klein's decision to allow the expansion of Girls Prep charter to go forward

by Leonie Haimson

Last week, Joel Klein disclosed he would invoke “emergency powers” to enable Girls Prep Charter School to expand within PS 94, even as it pushes out a program for autistic kids, contrary to theruling of the NY State Education commissioner, David Steiner.

Steiner had held that Klein's actions violated state law, as Klein had refused to recognize that the autistic program was a school, any change to which required a public process occur beforehand,

Eduwonk � Blog Archive � Show Me The Money

Eduwonk � Blog Archive � Show Me The Money

Show Me The Money

by smead

Guest post by Jim Ryan

Thanks to Andy for inviting me to guest blog. I haven’t blogged much at all, so I apologize in advance if I’m lousy at it. I’m a law professor at the University of Virginia, and I write and teach about law and education. I recently finished a book, which will be published this week by Oxford University Press, which I may talk about later this week. For the first couple of days, though, I want to raise some questions that have puzzled me. I’m hoping readers will have answers.
A front page story in the NYT on July 27 described the recent findings of some education economists regarding the impact of good kindergarten teachers on their students over the long haul. The headline of the article says it all: “The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers.” The researchers estimated that this was the present value

Ouch! Deceptive Practices Found At Kaplan, Inc., A Washington Post Company - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

Ouch! Deceptive Practices Found At Kaplan, Inc., A Washington Post Company - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

Ouch! Deceptive Practices Found At Kaplan, Inc., A Washington Post Company

Yet another reason to to be smarter about education.

The New York Times reports:

"The Washington Post Company's Kaplan Inc. unit suspended enrollment on Friday at its campuses in Pembroke Pines, Fla., and Riverside, Calif., where undercover investigators for the Government Accountability Office found deceptive practices by admissions officials.

At a Senate hearing on Wednesday on recruitment at for-profit colleges, a G.A.O. report, accompanied by videos, described deceptive or fraudulent

National Journal Online -- Education Experts -- Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation?

National Journal Online -- Education Experts -- Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation?

Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation?

Over the next couple of years, roughly a billion dollars will be spent on innovation in education through federal grants and private initiatives. A significant chunk of that money, $650 million, will be distributed to the 49 winners of the Investing In Innovation (i3) competition announced last week. Some education analysts -- Rick Hess, Tom Vander Ark,Alexander Russo and others -- posit that the competition, as evidenced by the winners, is really rewarding best practices and credibility, as opposed to innovative or transformational education practices.

With the i3 program, has the administration invested enough in proposals that bring truly innovative practices to the education system? Is America doing enough to leverage the benefits of modern technology in the education sector?

-- Eliza Krigman, NationalJournal.com

Frederick M. Hess responded to Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation? on August 9, 2010 10:02 AM

It's the Name That's the Problem In terms of execution and track record, the list of i3 winners is a pretty solid lineup-- especially compared to what usually gets funded in eduation. And, pound-for-pound, the $650 million for i3 is likely to do far more good than is the $4.35 billion for Race to the Top or the tens of billions showered upon K-12 through ARRA and edujobs. The problem is really with the branding. i3 should've been called "Nonprofit and District Stuff That Seems to Work." After all, by narrowly drawing rules of evidence, emphasizing models that plug cleanly into conventional classroom-school-district structures, and stiff-arming for-profits, Congress and ED pretty much barred the door against potentially transformational "innovations". This matters because...

Diane Ravitch responded to Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation? on August 9, 2010 10:14 AM

The Fruitless Search for Innovation American education has been chasing innovation for over 100 years, when it should have been pursuing systemic improvements that would reshape the essentials of education: curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The first Bush administration, in which I served, launched a competition for "new American schools," which was supposed to jumpstart innovation. Nothing got a jumpstart except for various winners' bank accounts. That was almost 20 years ago. The history of education-in-search-of-innovation is a story of big ideas, big egos, and no results. We are looking for change in all the wrong places. It...

Chester E. Finn, Jr. responded to Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation? on August 9, 2010 10:15 AM

New American Schools All Over Again This week I'm quoting Mike Petrilli (in part quoting me!) from Fordham's Flypaper blog a few days back: Alexander Russo nailed it this morning* when he wrote that “old school reforms win big in i3.” Indeed. What hit me when I saw the list of winners–especially the groups that brought home the big bucks–was that this is New American Schools all over again. "Can you have a revolution via an RFP process?" Remember that initiative from the 1990s? (If not, read this excellent Jeffrey Mirel history, published by Fordham in 2001.) Here’s what Checker...

Tom Vander Ark responded to Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation? on August 9, 2010 12:17 PM

iPad more innovation than i3 The i3 program funded credible scaling efforts that will make incremental improvements to traditional schools—solid investments but not innovation. Optimizing the current system will not reach all students; it won’t close the achievement, teacher, or funding gap; and will cost more money. Innovation is more likely to come from outside the system—from gaming, social networking, informal learning, tutoring, or military training—than through grants to school districts. We’re more likely to spot the potential for innovation watching developments with iPad than i3; watching TechCrunch more than Ed.gov; watching NEA.com more than NEA.org. Other than Ed.gov, every other...

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Look Ma, I'm a turnaround expert!

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Look Ma, I'm a turnaround expert!

Look Ma, I'm a turnaround expert!

by Mike Klonsky

With the Obama administration pouring billions into its nationwide campaign to overhaul failing schools, dozens of companies with little or no experience are portraying themselves as school turnaround experts as they compete for the money.(NY Times)

Mr. Duncan helped trigger the stampede in a June 2009 speech, saying that only

As San Diego Schools Plan Reforms, Details Are Still Elusive

As San Diego Schools Plan Reforms, Details Are Still Elusive

• Story
• Comments (3)

Share

Send this page to your friends

Print

Create a hardcopy of this page

Font Size:

Default font size

Larger font size

Related Stories

• Related: Quiet Coalition Floats Idea of Expanded School Board
• Related: San Diego Schools Zig on Reforms While Obama Zags
• Related: San Diego Schools' New Testing Idea: No Child Left Unmeasured

The Issue

San Diego Unified has countered critics who call it a failure by saying it has plans to fix its problems, but many of those plans are still vague.

The Problem

The lack of details has given ammunition to school district critics and could endanger the reforms themselves.

The Quest

School district leaders are trying to find clear, measurable ways to emphasize critical thinking, collaboration between teachers and other ideals.

Posted: Sunday, August 8, 2010 5:15 pm | Updated: 8:05 am, Mon Aug 9, 2010.

By EMILY ALPERT

Critics call San Diego Unified a failing school district. Even worse, they say, it has turned down federal reforms -- and federal money to back them.

The school district argues it has reform plans of its own. Plans to amp up critical thinking. Plans to encourage teachers to collaborate. Plans to empower schools to make their own decisions instead of imposing ideas from the top. Plans to ensure that each child is measured individually.

But the school district still has to translate most of those plans into concrete changes in classrooms. While San Diego Unified has working groups and slideshows loaded with phrases like "focus

Schools Lose Out on Innovation Grant

San Diego Unified didn't get a $5 million federal innovation grant that would have helped it revamp the way it analyzes data. The grant, which would have spanned from three to five years, would have helped the school district amp up its existing efforts to better track and review data to see what programs are working and how well, bringing financial, staffing and student achievement data together.

Summer Schoolers’ Poetry in Motion

In my story today, I focused on a group of teens who are trying to improve their English at Mira Mesa High this summer -- and wrote some pretty amazing poetry in the process. Last night, I got to check out poems and prose from all six San Diego Unified high schools that hosted summer schools for English learners last night, at a showcase event at Centro