I heartily recommend Daniel DeVise’s profile of Trinity Washington University president Pat McGuire in this weekend’s Washington Post magazine. McGuire and her colleagues embody much of what is good and right about higher education. By transforming a failing women’s college into thriving university dedicated to serving minority and first-generation students, she is working in the [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'DC Public Schools'
When Policy Becomes Ideology
Last week Andy and I offered some ideas on the best way to characterize the theoretical and ideological divisions in education policy. Justin Cohen followed up:
I like Andy’s “Choice/Accountability” matrix, it’s far superior to the dichotomy that both of their posts reject. I worry, though, that it conflates “choice” and school-based “autonomy.” Right [...]
In Defense of Trains Running on Time
Talk about a buried lead. In a new Education Next profile of District of Columbia Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, the conclusion that, “Rhee’s most important achievement might be in the management fixes most people can’t see,” is hidden deep under a horrendous PhotoShop job of Rhee dressed as Joan of Arc and he-said she-said [...]
Playing Dress Up
DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee responds to most criticism of her management style (which even her strong supporters acknowledge is hardly warm and fuzzy) by saying “It’s all about the kids.”
But her actions say something quite different.
After (nearly) living through a kerfuffle caused by a photo of her wielding a broom, Rhee again posed for a [...]
Survey Says…
Next week the Washington Teachers Union (WTU) will be releasing results from a poll regarding ongoing contract negotiations with the District of Columbia Public Schools. I was able to get a look at the survey instrument (.doc), and it’s what you might kindly call “one-sided.”
When asking about the general conditions in DC public schools, it [...]
The Situation Room
Presuming all goes well and I’m not bumped for someone more photogenic and/or an international crisis of some kind, I’ll be on CNN’s The Situation Room today between 4:15 and 4:45, where they’re using Malia and Sasha Obama’s first day of school as an excuse to talk about the DC public schools they won’t be attending, [...]
Generalizability
The Michelle Rhee story continues to percolate ever-upward through layers of media, landing on the cover of Time this week. While there are many sound policy-based reasons for supporting her reform efforts, I have to admit one of the things I like is that she talks the way I talk. Not just about education, but [...]
Stop the Violence
Last Sunday, the Washington Post ran a story about the recent surge in school violence at Hart Middle School, where, in the past several weeks, three teachers were assaulted, a 14-year-old was charged with carrying a shotgun and students discharged fire extinguishers throughout the building. Hart, a school currently placed on “restructuring” status under NCLB [...]
Perspective
Alan Odden says that Michelle Rhee’s proposal to give DC teachers the option to trade job security for a lot more money, if they want to, or not, if they don’t want to, “would raise eyebrows everywhere, because that would be a gargantuan change.”
The only real eyebrow-raising element of this is that it’s national news. [...]
DC Teacher Chic
Is one of the more interesting teacher blogs up right now, providing a ground-level perspective on how things are playing out in DCPS amidst all the national attention, ongoing reforms, tense contract negotiations, general tumult, and of course the day-to-day challenges of a very difficult job. Check it out.
In other news, preliminary 2008 enrollment numbers [...]
Michelle Rhee’s "Plan B"
It looks like Michelle Rhee wants to bypass the teacher’s union and link teacher licensure to “effectiveness” as determined by OSSE. The union has already tripped up, in my opinion, by rejecting the principle of the idea and upsetting people like Kevin.
But really, they have a point about the nuts and bolts problems of teacher [...]
False Positives, Seed Corn, Etc.
This story in today’s Post about the 27 schools in DCPS that are in “restructuring” mode under NCLB is well worth reading. Faced with a federal mandate to choose among various reforms–charter school conversion, private management, replacing teachers and principals, etc.–Chancellor Rhee decided to send groups of outside teachers, parents, students and educators into the [...]
Crackonomics
On the whole, I’m sympathetic to DC Schools Chancelor Rhee’s intiative to shutter 23 DCPS schools. It doesn’t make sense for a district that’s experiencing long-term enrollment decline, including losing almost 30 percent of students to charter schools, to waste millions of dollars on maintaining a bigger physical infrastructure than it needs. The chancellor and [...]
Fire This Time
Last week the Post reported the following:
A technology manager for District schools who stuck schoolchildren with his tabs for thousands of dollars worth of lavish restaurant meals, nightclub jaunts and a visit to a strip club was charged yesterday with filing fraudulent expense reimbursement requests.
The story ran in the Metro section, below the fold. That’s [...]
Everyone is Wrong About Vouchers
Both Ezra Klein and Megan McCardle post about vouchers today, and both are wrong, albeit in completely different ways. Megan says:
I very rarely get angry about politics. But every time I see some middle class parent prattling about vouchers “destroying” the public schools by “cherry picking” the best students, when they’ve made damn sure that [...]
Consultants Earning Their Keep
Alexandar Russo, June 25th:
Kevin Carey mystifyingly defends the management consultant crowd by blaming incompetent management for DC schools’ problems.
The Washington Examiner, today:
Communications breakdown caused boxes of sporting goods, computers and other essential equipment to be left padlocked in a shuttered District of Columbia junior high school for almost an entire year while a neighboring school [...]
Charters and Fenty’s Mission
A front page Washington Post story yesterday looked at the large and growing share of District of Columbia students served by public charter schools. One-in-four D.C. students currently attends a charter, and slots for thousands more charter students are expected to come online in the next few years–even as the number of students in District [...]
An Important Day for D.C. Schools?
Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrian Fenty will sign legislation today adding him to the ranks of mayors who have taken control over their cities’ public education systems. The D.C. Council passed the legislation last Thursday. Congress must also approve the law before it takes effect, but is expected to do so with no problems.
I want very [...]
Boon for D.C. Scholarships
The Gates Foundation is commiting $122 million to college scholarships and mentorships for D.C. students, to give them an incentive to stay in school, help them afford college, and help combat the District’s high dropout rate. Unlike some major universities located in the D.C. Metro area, the Gates Foundation clearly seems to understand that D.C.’s [...]
Why You–Yes, You, Suburban Business Person/Parent/Professional–Should Care About Lousy Urban Schools
Via DCedblog, WaPo business columnist Steven Pearlstein makes a very strong case for why affluent and middle-class Washington-area suburbanites should care about the dismal performance of the D.C. and PG County Public Schools. Money quote:
Put another way, if the Washington area economy is going to continue to grow, much of the growth will have to [...]
Lowering Student Loan Default Rates: What One Consortium of Historically Black Institutions Did to Succeed 
College and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
03/11/10 | Kevin Carey is quoted on the rising costs of education in The Economist.
03/10/10 | Chad Aldeman's False Fronts paper is quoted on Accuracy in Academia.
03/09/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on Federal Family Education Loan defaults on The Huffington Post.
03/09/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on loan origination on the Firedog Lake blog.
03/07/10 | Kevin Carey calls for a Race to the Top in higher education in a column in The Chronicle of Higher Education.