Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of the Obama administration’s first 10 approvals of comprehensive NCLB waivers.* The Senate HELP Committee marked the anniversary with a hearing today on early lessons from the waivers, but one thing that deserves more attention is the process behind the waiver initiative. Congress should learn from that process—where the federal government outlines criteContinue Reading »

The mere mention of international measures of performance is rare in a NCLB waiver. Everyone knows how poorly American students stack up against their global peers on assessments like PISA, so it’s no surprise that states shy away from comparing their own student achievement against international assessments. Instead, states choose to benchmark academic progress against their own past performanContinue Reading »

Start reading! The Senate HELP committee will likely look into states’ (lengthy) NCLB waivers, an aide says. (PoliticsK12/Education Week)

The worst learning strategy? Highlighting and underlining passages. (TIME)

“We hope you’re not exceptional.” Two, $5,000 scholarships are up for grabs, but to get one, applicants can’t be stellar; they must be average. (College Humor)

“WeContinue Reading »

With President Obama’s re-election last night, we can be even more confident that the Administration’s No Child Left Behind waivers are likely to continue, at least until they expire in 2014*. The waivers rely on educational accountability systems that place much more weight on normative comparisons than performance against an absolute standard. That means concerns about setting the “righContinue Reading »

The Department of Education has granted waivers of key provisions of No Child Left Behind through the end of the 2013-14 school year to 34 states and the District of Columbia. It’s a complicated policy, but, as someone who worked on this issue for the Department until recently, I think it’s worth making clear that the next president will not have a magic wand to simply wave the waivers away.Continue Reading »

Ranking colleges on factors that matter. Washington Monthly is out with its annual college rankings again, but this time, editors include college tuition prices in the mix. University of California at San Diego comes out on top, giving students the biggest bang for their buck. (Washington Monthly)

Excitement over a snow day? No more. Some Ohio school districts will offer lessons and assiContinue Reading »

Sharing is caring. “Collaboration isn’t a fad or a silver bullet. And make no mistake, it’s not easy.” But when done thoughtfully and deliberately, it can boost kindergarten readiness, test scores, and graduation rates, just as it has in Cincinnati. Education Sector recently looked at the city’s Strive Partnership, which includes civic groups, businesses, nonprofits, and philanthropies, that seContinue Reading »

A new word for Merriam-Webster. A new study suggests that ‘cyberbaiting,’ or the act of taunting or pushing teachers toward their breaking points and then recording their outbursts with cell phone cameras, is on the rise. (TODAY)

We stand corrected. A couple of weeks ago, we wondered why Wisconsin lawmakers were pushing legislation that would allow for teachers to lose their licenses if Continue Reading »