minahkaypoh

Thomas W. Carroll, the president of the Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability, provides a sound analysis of states' chances of winning Race to the Top funding in phase one. [Hat tip: Alexander Russo ] I would agree that Florida and Louisiana are the likeliest winners in phase one, and would be surprised if Delaware and Tennessee were not, at least, semifinalists. I'm not as keen on Colorado and Michigan , but agree that Georgia is a likely semifinalist as well. Here are some other possible phase one semifinalists from my vantage point: Illinois , Indiana , Kentucky , Massachusetts, North Carolina , Ohio and Rhode Island . Much will depend on how many states make the cut (Rick Hess says 10-15) and where Secretary Duncan draws the cut line. Semifinalists are expected to be announced this coming week, possibly as early as Monday. Teams from those states will be invited to make a formal presentation before a panel of reviewers in Washington, DC sometime in M...

The Washington Post 's Nick Anderson reports that U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan was grilled by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) yesterday about why he proposed eliminating the set aside for Teach for America in the Administration FY2011 federal budget. "We made some tough calls. And what we did is we simply eliminated all the earmarks. We increased the chance for competition," Duncan said. "Teach for America is an earmark?" Doggett asked. "It was a set-aside," Duncan clarified. The organization, he said, would have "every opportunity to compete and get, frankly, significantly more money." My question is: Why should TFA receive such a set aside while other high-quality education non-profits do not? What about KIPP , Urban Teacher Residency United , The New Teacher Project ? How about the nonprofit I work for, the New Teacher Center ? All of these nonprofits are national in scope. Is there something special about TFA that merits direc...

I have to side with Rick Hess over Andy Rotherham on the question of whether the mass firing of teachers at Rhode island's Central Falls High School is a portend of things to come. In yesterday's Christian Science Monitor story , Hess calls the situation in Central Falls "a canary in a coal mine." In a blog post yesterday, Rotherham calls is "a bogus trend story." “This will be a canary in the coal mine,” says Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Such dramatic moves are likely to multiply as “an increasing crop of no-excuses superintendents and state commissioners” take the view that “it’s essential to clean house” to improve persistently failing schools, he says. This Rhode Island high school situation sure seems like a bogus trend story. Turnarounds may be a trend but really dramatic moves like this seem pretty anomalous. That whale in Florida killing people seems like a more common trend than sch...

Kudos to the Obama administration for nominating some very fine colleagues to the National Board of Education Sciences ! Adam Gamoran is an exemplary education leader, Deborah Ball a fantastically original dean, and Bridget Long one of the most creative thinkers on higher ed policy. Bravo.

Today's Providence Journal story reports that Central Falls , Rhode Island's " tiniest, poorest city has become the center of a national battle over dramatic school reform." Even the New York Times and the Washington Post have taken notice. While firing the entire teacher corps at Central Falls High School is a dramatic step, the school board's and superintendent's decision was largely based on the district's track record of very poor student outcomes, the teachers' rejection of a reform plan ultimatum from state Education Commissioner Deborah Gist targeting the state's lowest-performing high schools, and accountability pressures from the federal Education Department. The decision is supported by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who recently weighed in on the controversy, applauding them for “showing courage and doing the right thing for kids.” Nonetheless, the impact on individual teachers is great and undoubtedly places their li...

Governors are an interesting group. Always. They are not interchangeable spirits. Just think of some of the characters and personalities amidst their ranks: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rick Perry, Bill Richardson, Jennifer Granholm, Ed Rendell, Haley Barbour. With regard to education, governors do not come to the job with equal chances to impact the policy agenda. I grew keenly aware of this when I worked for the National Governors Assoiciation (NGA) from 2001 to 2004. Some of this is due to personalities and individual capacities, such as whether they effectively use their bully pulpit and engage in policy conversations. And some is due to politics, such as whether they campaigned for office on education. But much of the reason for this variation is out of governors' control: It is due to widely varying nature of state educational governance systems. This Education Commission of the States brief [summarized below] maps four models of state educational governance, present in 40 of the...

As a mother of two, including a 7-week-old infant, I think about childcare constantly. Who provides the best care? How much does it cost? What's the travel time involved? Can I find an arrangement that accomodates my desire to nurse? These difficult questions are keeping me up at night, as I struggle to find a situation that works for my infant, my toddler, my husband, and (last and possibly least) me and my career. But I'm also aware that my situation is quite good, especially when compared to others on our college campuses. The number of unmarried parenting students is rising, doubling over the last twenty years from seven to just over 13% of the undergraduate population. More than one-third of black female undergraduates nationwide are unmarried parents, and so are 21% of all Native American undergrads. More than half (59%) of these folks are really struggling--earning less than $10,000 a year. Unbelievably, 38% earn less than $5,000 annually! They are trying to make ends...