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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

Is this really any surprise given an education accountability system that grades performance and issues sanctions based on a single indicator: student test scores? Hat tip: This Week in Education

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and state school Superintendent Nancy Grasmick can finally agree on one thing: O'Malley's proposal to make the state competitive for Race to the Top round two. Score one for Grasmick? Before Maryland decided not to apply in the first round of the Race to the Top competition -- making it one of only 10 states not to -- O'Malley said that no legislative changes were needed, while Grasmick insisted that they were if Maryland was to submit an application that had a snowball's chance in hell of being successful. It looks like the Governor has come around. The Baltimore Sun reports that the Governor "wants to add a year to the time it takes public school teachers to achieve tenure and to tie their performance evaluations to data on how well their students are doing" and that Grasmick is "very happy." A draft of the governor's Education Reform Act of 2010 shows that it includes: •Lengthening the teacher tenure t

This post isn't specifically about education, but the lack of political comity in Washington these days will impact the prospects for solidifying education reform and reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (not in 2010, maybe in 2011 or 12, if ever).... I finished reading the late Senator Ted Kennedy's autobiography, True Compass , on the plane ride back home from California yesterday. It reminded me that Teddy Kennedy was no blind partisan. Sure, he called Republicans on the carpet when they deserved it and campaigned vociferously for fellow Democrats, including President Obama. But he also looked for bipartisan opportunities to pass legislation to strengthen education and further social justice. His work on the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) and the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) with two different Presidents Bush are testament to his legislative accomplishment and his focus -- especially in the latter part of his career -- on being a policymaker fi

Tomorrow I'll be Twittering from the New Teacher Center's 12th National Symposium in San Jose, California. Tuesday's agenda features a morning keynote panel on measuring teacher effectiveness. Panelists include Terry Holliday, Kentucky Commissioner of Education; Brad Jupp, Senior Program Advisor, Teacher Effectiveness and Quality, U.S. Department of Education; and Tom Kane, Professor of Education & Economics, Harvard University and Deputy Director for Education, Gates Foundation. It is moderated by my intrepid NTC colleague, Eric Hirsch . Today, keynoters include Linda Darling-Hammond and Richard Rothstein, but my schedule likely won't allow me to have my thumbs affixed to my phone or laptop during their presentations. To follow me, here is the link to my Twitter account.

Eduflack offers up a first-rate post today on the winners and losers in the education portion of the President's FY2011 budget . Claus von Zastrow issues a wise caution regarding federal funding for professional development ( UPDATE: as well as a second thought ). The New York Times 's Sam Dillon and the National Journal's Eliza Krigman (hat tip: Eduwonk ) have the scoop on implications for Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization. The budget is just at the first step and Congress has yet to have its say. Likewise, I wouldn't bet on reauthorization this election year (yep, congressional elections are only nine months away!). 2011? 2012? Anyone? UPDATE: Here is what the Education Experts at the National Journal 's blog think.

Education Next apparently has provided a platform for school choice advocate George Mitchell to shill for voucher schools outside of the state of Wisconsin. Here is his latest spin on a study that shows the high school graduation rate to be 12 points higher in seven Milwaukee voucher schools compared with 23 Milwaukee public high schools. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story by Erin Richards provides the crucial quote regarding causation from the study's author, John Robert Warren , a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota: "We still don't know whether it's going to the voucher school that causes you to be more likely to graduate, or if it's something about the kinds of families that send their kids to voucher schools would make them more likely to graduate," he said. Then there's the whole question of which and how the voucher and public high schools were chosen for purposes of comparison. More questions than answers. Unlike Mitchell, I