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News & analysis
Obama prepares to revamp “No Child Left Behind” law
President Obama is poised to broaden federal influence in local schools by scrapping key elements of No Child Left Behind, the Bush administration’s signature education law, and substituting his own brand of school reform. (Washington Post)
Apple donated iPads to TFA corps members
This month, 9,000 Teach For America members are trading in their post-it notes for iPads thanks to a donation from Apple. They are joining the growing ranks of educators who must decide how to use new iPads in their classrooms. (Gotham Schools)
Rhode Island: Central Falls schools receive grant from the Gates Foundation
Central Falls is one of three school districts to receive support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to collaborate with area charter schools to improve student achievement. (ProJo)
Minnesota: Still waiting on Feds, state to release school progress data
State education officials say they will release data related to the federal No Child Left Behind law next week because they haven’t yet heard from the feds on a waiver from that law. (MPR)
Minnesota: What are successful schools doing to close the achievement gap?
Five of the top math scorers and four of the reading odds-beaters [on Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments] are members of a network called Charter School Partners that seeks to identify and replicate gap-closing strategies. The exact mix varies from school to school, but all have longer days and years, rigorous expectations for continuous improvement by teachers, strong leaders and a relentless reliance on data. (Beth Hawkins)
Opinion
Our Achievement Gap Mania
The problem with achievement-gap mania is not that it is necessarily wrong; the problem is that its self-confident purveyors have been uniformly uninterested in the cost, complications, or consequences of their crusade. The result has been to effectively stifle debate, alienate most parents from the school-reform agenda, and insist that a flawed, mechanistic vision of schooling ought to steer our course in the 21st century. (Rick Hess)
Grading the GOP Candidates on Education
Most of the Republican candidates do not even include education positions on their websites. But as President Obama gets ready to put the debate about how to reform No Child Left Behind on the front burner (he’s planning a big speech at the White House for this Friday), the GOP candidates can’t avoid education forever. As some start to drop hints about what their education plans might look like, here’s a handicapper’s guide to the leading contenders and their views — and record — on education. (Eduwonk)
Urban school reform as housing policy
This is something people on all sides of the education reform debate need to think harder about: If urban neighborhood schools improve, will poor families actually be able to attend them, or will educational progress be a further driver of gentrification and displacement? (Matt Yglesias)