Parents have deep concerns about the Common Core standards and their associated assessments, signed onto by 43 states and the District of Columbia.  They have been adopted and developed in a rushed manner, because of pressure from the Gates Foundation and the US Department of Education, which threatened to withhold “Race to the Top” grants from any state which did not promise to adopt them. These standards and their assessments are likely to cost states and districts tens of billions … →

Last week, the Center for American Progress released a report by Matthew Chingos, who previously wrote a highly-flawed critique of Florida’s class size reduction program.  (See my recent debate with Chingos on CNN.) CAP has put out a series of crude reports posing as educational research, but this must be one of the least impressive.  Despite its title, “The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction,” lowering class size is only one of K-12 four reforms that, according to the Institute of … →

Originally posted in  seattleducation2011 For the Record… It looks like the Broad Foundation is actively trying to whitewash the history of their Superintendent Academy graduate, Maria Goodloe-Johnson, who was fired by the Seattle School Board earlier this month along with her handpicked CFO, Don Kennedy, for her failure to address a rampant case of fraud happening within the district’s central office. The District Administration magazine web site has  published a defense of Goodloe-Johnson written by Tom Payzant (dutifully echoed by … →

By Caroline Grannan, San Francisco [Charter schools] have a distinct advantage … Their families have already chosen to be at a charter and have often jumped through numerous hoops to get there. This makes it easier for charters to create their own cultures. They can define the length of their days, dictate exactly how children dress and enforce strict codes of conduct. Those students — scholars, in charter parlance — who fall out of line don’t last. – Jonathan Mahler … →

Reprinted from the John Young’s blog. Oh, lord, deliver our school children from the Bush brothers. Their dad was famously described by Ann Richards as “born on third base, and thinks he’s a triple.” That was a might harsh. But let’s face it. For George W. to have stepped forward as the answer to public schools’ every question — that stretched a double out of a dribbler. Unfortunately, tragically, his answers for the nation’s schools remain the end of every … →

In recent days, as John White has been appointed the new head of the New Orleans Recovery School District, there has been much written about how NOLA schools have created unprecedented “choice” for parents. Here what Karran Harper Royal, founding member of Parents Across America – New Orleans, believes about the question of “choice”.  See also the response from a NOLA parent below. Recently, the Times Picayune published a story that said “most charter schools outperform traditional schools.” The traditional … →

South Korean students get high marks on the international competitions like the PISAs.  In his State of the Union speech, President Obama said we should emulate its educational system.  Arne Duncan has repeatedly extolled South Korea as well,arguing that  parents in the United States should demand the same sort of excellence that Korean parents demand of their children. In several speeches,  he has repeated the story about how Obama asked the President of South Korea “”What is the biggest education … →