The Grade

I’ve written several times in the past about how both sides of the current education civil war — but perhaps reformers in particular — probably need to get better and faster at advocacy necessities such as opposition research, rapid response, and social media swarming. In 2013, the reform advocacy group known as ConnCAN launched its own […]

Today’s education news includes proposed changes to PA’s deeply inequitable school funding formula, pushback from civil rights groups over the proposed rewrite of NCLB, and an update from the NEA on its candidate interviews: Pa. Lawmakers Propose New School Funding Formula, as Tax Hikes Loom State EdWatch: The formula would provide additional funding for individual students from […]

Back in the 2000’s, Matt Miller was a frequent writer about education issues. One of his more memorable pieces was this one: First, Kill All the School Boards  [2008].  Now, according to his Wikipedia page, he’s a senior fellow at CAP and a regular contributor at a variety of publications and broadcasts but doesn’t cover education […]

Not unexpectedly, LA Governor Bobby Jindal has lost his appeal to block the Common Core process. Plus also questions about racial gaps in test scores for teachers: Jindal loses appeal on Common Core lawsuit in state court AP: A Louisiana appeals court Wednesday upheld a judge’s ruling that barred Gov. Bobby Jindal from suspending testing contracts tied […]

All eyes are on New Orleans right now, between the charter school conference ramping up there this weekend and the new Tulane report suggesting that things have gotten much better there for kids. That makes sense given it’s now been 10 years since Hurricane Katrina swept through.  But there isn’t a lot of agreement about just […]

PolitiFact has also taken a look at some of the things that Jeb Bush has had to say on the topic of education, and come up with some concerns about claims he’s made about the impact of his actions in Florida. For example, Bush as Governor banned racial preference in state school admissions, and claimed it had […]

Today’s news includes a new report from Tulane about school progress in NOLA, and more about the new MIT-based ed school being started by the former head of Teachers Collage New Orleans school changes worked, Cowen Institute says NOLA.com: Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, have New Orleans’ massive education changes worked? Tulane’s Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives […]

A big, belated congrats to NPR’s education team (Steve Drummond, Anya Kamenetz, Cory Turner, and others) for its recent series of stories called Grad Rates. I’ve heard and seen nothing but good things about the pieces, which included both national and local stories. At least one of them — the Chicago story by WBEZ’s Becky Vevea […]

width=”450″ height=”300″ src=”http://launch.newsinc.com/?type=VideoPlayer/Single&widgetId=1&trackingGroup=69016&siteSection=tbtimes&videoId=29231155″ frameborder=”no” scrolling=”no” noresize marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″ Good news for Hillary Clinton fans and supporters.  PolitiFact took a hard look at her campaign claim that “top hedge fund managers make more than all kindergarten teachers combined” and found it to be true.  What she said: “While many of you are working multiple jobs to […]

Today’s news includes reports of slow Common Core test score result reporting, a big SAT snafu, and Hillary Clinton’s universal preschool (UPK) proposal: State can’t explain slowdown on scoring of new Common Core tests Seattle Times: Scoring the new Common Core-based tests is taking longer than anticipated in Washington state, and the Office of Superintendent of Public […]