In explaining why San Diego opted out of the state’s bid for $700 million in federal Race to the Top money, Richard Barrera, the school board president, said this:
“It’s a bad idea for folks in Sacramento to make education decisions in San Diego.”
In Fiscal Year 2007, the most recent data available from the National Center [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'School Funding'
Local Control?
Snow Removal and School Funding
My friend took this picture on Sunday, showing the snow removal efforts of Fairfax County (the snowy mess before the pink line) and Arlington County (the clear roads in the distance after the pink line). This arbitrary snow removal boundary reminded me of the similarly stark differences in school funding and school quality that local [...]
School Funding’s Tragic Flaw
Public education costs a lot of money — over $500 billion per year. Over the last century, there have been huge changes in where that money comes from and how it’s spent. In 1930, only 17 percent of school funding came from state sources, and virtually none came from the federal government. Today, the state [...]
The Big Con
I’m reading the new book from New Republic senior editor Jonathan Chait, The Big Con. It’s really good, describing how “American politics has been hijacked by a tiny coterie of right-wing economic extremists, some of them ideological zealots, others merely greedy, a few of them possibly insane.” Chait shows how a combination of crackpot (i.e. [...]
Moderate Democrats’ Original Sin
In his Post column today, Richard Cohen commits the original sin of moderate Democrats writing about education.
Cohen slams the Democratic candidates in last week’s DC-based presidential debate for calling for more school funding without acknowledging that the DC school system is reasonably well-funded and still does a terrible job. Fair enough. But then he continues:
The [...]
Say It Loud, Eliot Spitzer, and Say It Proud
Blogging again after a week on vacation. I could say I’m glad to be back, but given that I was here, that would be an egregious lie.
On Monday, Governor Eliot Spitzer made a big announcement about school funding in New York, supporting a multi-billion dollar increase in resources, but saying that the money would come [...]
The Rich Get Richer
The Education Trust released its annual Funding Gap report yesterday, just in time for New Year’s. (Disclosure: I used to work at Ed Trust and wrote the 2003 and 2004 editions of the report.) As always, the report exposes the basic resource inequities that hamstring many educators and disadvantaged children. Despite the fact that low-income [...]
Jon Chait, Wrong About Education
The good thing about articles like Paul Tough’s much-discussed NYTimes piece about the achievement gap is that they get a lot of people talking about an important educational issue. The bad thing is that many of those people don’t really know what they’re talking about.
Take, for example, Jonathan Chait’s new column in the LA Times. [...]
Unwarranted Pessimism on the Achievement Gap
Matt Yglesias is too pessimistic about the prospect of closing the achievement gap.
Referring to Paul Tough’s recent NYTimes article, which concludes that the gap can be closed if we put disadvantaged students in schools that are better-run and have more money, he says:
This seems to me to involve assuming a can opener. Schools full of [...]
How Does Your State Stack Up on Pre-K?
Find out in this new report from Pre-K Now. National picture: 31 states increased their preschool funding by $450 million for FY2007. And don’t forget quality.
Spending Limit Silliness
AFTie Ed has been posting extensively on the issue of state Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) initiatives. He thinks they’re bad for education, and he’s absolutely right.
TABOR provisions–often implemented via ballot iniative or constitutional amendment–limit annual state spending growth to a fixed percentage, typically tied to the inflation rate and sometimes a measure of population [...]
George Will, Wrong Once Again
George Will, to his credit, has a mild interest in education policy, which is more than most nationally prominent columnists can say. The problem is that his columns are nearly always based on a few tired, outdated, and/or foolish ideas about finance and schools. To wit, yesterday’s column in the Post, focused on the “65 [...]
School Reform by Referendum?
An interesting court case is happening in New York City – a coalition of parents and teachers, including representatives from Class Size Matters and the American Federation of Teachers, filed a lawsuit in order to place a class size referendum on the November ballot. The city blocked the referendum, which would set aside 25 percent [...]
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 Aldeman's False Fronts is quoted on Accuracy in Academia.
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.
03/08/10 | Andrew Rotherham's Eduwonk post on RTT finalists is quoted on Class Struggle.
03/07/10 | Andrew Rotherham is quoted on the success of MATCH in The Times-Picayune.
03/06/10 | Eduwonk's reaction to Ohio's status as a RTT finalist is cited in a Wall Street Journal editorial.
03/05/10 | Andrew Rotherham's reaction to New York's status as a Race to the Top finalist is cited on National Journal.