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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
Of all 50 states, the one that spends the most money on public preschool is Oklahoma. And researchers at Georgetown University have concluded that Oklahoma’s investment easily pays for itself over students’ lifetimes. Here’s a look inside Nikki Jones’s preschool classroom in Tulsa, Okla. (NPR)
Try a little thought experiment. Suppose somebody invented a new kind of hospital. At first, nobody—not even the inventors—knew whether these new hospitals would work. But gradually the evidence came in—and it showed the new hospitals working better than the old ones. Not all of them, and not all the time. But most of them and more often than not. (Reason)
Over the past 20 years a new reform movement has emerged in American education. Led by a coalition of entrepreneurial policymakers, philanthropists, and business leaders—as well as by a number of educators—the movement seeks quantifiable gains in student achievement. And in pursuit of that aim, its adherents have pushed for the implementation of strategies like accountability testing, teacher compensation reform, “value-added” evaluation methodologies, and charter school expansion. (Education Week)
An unholy alliance between the Tea Party and the teachers’ unions threatens to derail the most promising education reform in decades. (The Daily Beast)
New York
The number of students placed on waiting lists for kindergarten dropped by half this year as New York City’s Education Department used a new strategy for matching students with schools, officials said on Monday. (New York Times)