The Department of Education’s planned release of the first year of School Improvement Grant (SIG) data has important implications for the future of the program – and for reform generally.  While much of the early attention devoted to SIG has focused on its cost-effectiveness, in light of the ongoing debate over school and district human-capital policies the question of which of the four SIG modContinue Reading »

The fallout from last week’s news that Washington and Wisconsin can join 24 other states with flexibility from NCLB has centered on the New York Times’ front-page coverage and whether ESEA waivers represent A) sensible relief to states from an impossible task or B) an all-out retreat from school accountability, particularly for disadvantaged and underserved students.

State education offiContinue Reading »

As Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney’s record on education mirrored that of President Bush, including rigorous standards, assessments, and charter schooling. He even supported No Child Left Behind. But as Andy Rotherham noted in TIME nearly a month ago, “As the presumptive nominee of a party that is increasingly allergic to a robust federal role in most areas of domestic policy, Romney talContinue Reading »

An early nod from the powers that be. The U.S. Department of Education checks in on the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, which is the subject of an ongoing series in the local newspaper, highlighting the district’s efforts to use $8.7 million in federal money to improve academic performance. (Las Vegas Sun)

When money runs dry. Boston officials are trying to find ways to sustaiContinue Reading »

Image Credit: Flickr User, Mollivan Jon

Last week Cleveland Mayor Frank G. Jackson announced that the city’s school district would transform itself from a command-and-control bureaucracy into a confederacy of schools operating with greater-or-lesser autonomy, depending on their performance. Charter schools as well as district-operated ones would participate, witContinue Reading »

Last year we described Providence’s joint labor-management efforts to turn around its lowest performing schools. The story centered on our “unlikely allies”, Providence union president, Steve Smith, and then-superintendent of schools, Tom Brady. Could these two characters create a new type of turnaround strategy, a unique collaborative restart model? Would it work?

At the time, it was alContinue Reading »

It looks like Hawaii has finally reached agreement on a new labor contract, much to the relief of the state and the USDOE who had threatened to pull back some or all of the state’s $75 million Race to the Top grant. The (statewide) district and union have been battling over teacher pay and evaluation provisions for more than a year. The dispute came to a head last summer, when the state announcContinue Reading »

Yesterday, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) released a long-awaited bill to reauthorize No Child Left Behind. After a series of Republican bills in the House and Senate as well as the Obama administration’s ESEA Waiver plan, the draft legislation represents the first bipartisan effort to rewrite NCLB in this Congress and is the product of months of compromise between Harkin and the Senate Health, EducContinue Reading »

In Clark County, Nevada, five schools are slated for turnarounds this year. The Las Vegas Sun has launched an ambitious reporting project to follow the turnarounds throughout the year. Already there are some great vignettes:

Technology and turnarounds. “Robert Libka, who leads a transformation team of 10 educators at DePue High School, used Skype to connect with a teacher in Indonesia during a recent professional development workshop. “It was 1 a.m. her time and she was interested enough in our work to log-in,” said Libka. . . .Technologies such as Skype can improve collaboration for rural educatorContinue Reading »