Unfortunately, my month-long silence does not signal the end of newsworthy education reforms. Indeed, it is merely the result of job hunting, apartment hunting, thesis finishing, and final exam taking. With these tasks complete and my new status as an officially diploma’ed master, I once again return to Friday Ed Bites.

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I shall begin with the unbelievable but quickly forgotten pieces of news. Chinese students take IV drips of amino acids in the weeks leading up to their entry exams for high school and college. Now that makes SAT tutoring and parents writing college essays look like child’s play. Perhaps a bit of water could suffice, particularly since drinking water can have positive effects on performance.

A representative from North Carolina (Virginia Foxx) claimed that students are lazy and should be working harder to pay for college. After all, when she attended college, it cost her only $87.50 in tuition. (This story has been around for a few weeks now, but it’s well worth reading if you need a bit of outrage in your day.) This student in England primary school journals her daily lunch, and rates it on a variety of factors including number of mouthfuls, overall health, and pieces of hair. Even Jamie Oliver has taken notice!

One Texas resident, Deion Sanders, hopes to open a charter school. The charter school will—if all goes according to plan—star in a reality TV show that focuses on Mr. Sanders’ coaching of the school football team. Take from this what you will. Lastly, kindergartners in Georgia may become an integral part of teacher evaluation—by circling emoticons (happy, sad, neutral) next to various questions about their teachers’ performance. Nope. Can’t make this up.

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Now, to the Philadelphia school district (if such a thing still exists). A new plan is in the works that would completely dismantle the current district-level structure of education. Instead, the city would push for higher charter school enrollment by developing “achievement networks” of 25 schools run by charter school operators. This plan comes on the heels of news that the district may not have enough money to operate next year. For further reading, here is an NPR clip on the subject. Alexander Russo at This Week in Education put together a summary of the most important points. And, here is Valerie Strass’s contributions. But, will such a plan improve student performance? Skeptics say no.

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To think that a week could go by where charter school performance and funding didn’t make education news. Hah. Recently, Bruce Baker of School Finance 101 published a lengthy piece examining the position of charter schools within the public school system. I strongly recommend that you read this piece, particularly if you are at all confused about how charter schools operate. (Here’s a quick response on the subject by Sherman Dorn.)

Continuing the charter school conversation, the National Education Policy Center just published a study on how much charter management organizations (CMOs) spend on educating students compared to traditional public schools. Bruce Baker, one of the authors on the study, published a post responding to KIPP’s criticisms. Matt Di Carlo, of the Shanker Blog, also wrote his on piece on the subject (found here). These are two authors whose opinions are worth reading.

Final interesting note about KIPP: Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania, just announced a partnership between KIPP and Penn. It’s the University’s way of attracting more low-income and minority students. I recognize their reasoning for doing this, but I hope that Penn also understands that they must ensure an on-campus support system for these students. Attracting low-income and minority students to an ivy league institution is relatively easy compared to the challenges of retention. And admission counselors nationwide know all too well the impact that institutional priorities can have on students’ lives.

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I’ll end with this: a story about a man who apologized to his teacher thirty-nine years later. Perhaps it’s a bit silly—indeed, it’s more “feel good” than newsworthy, but I recommend reading it anyway. Then, maybe follow it up with Aaron Sorkin’s commencement address at Syracuse University.

It’s great to be back!

Hess, with snarky tones (that I love so very much), critiques this year’s offerings at AERA. Daniel Willingham offers his own interpretation of Hess’s critiques, pointing out that perhaps all education ‘reformers’ should focus less on everything education-related and more on the parts of education that they personally understand most deeply.

Over on Flypaper, the Fordham Institute blog, Paul Gross guest posts on the diminished quality of science standards . We are, as he says, doing a disservice to Darwin’s contributions to science.

As with the debate surrounding whether more money increases student achievement, so too is there a debate on whether more time in school increases student achievement. The folks over at Education Sector put together a lovely infographic to help you clearly and concisely understand the central issues (direct link to image here).

There’s talk in Seattle of finding a new way to bring the charter school concept to their community. What they call ‘Creative Approach Schools’ require 80% of teachers to support the transition. Interestingly, this closely mirrors the Education by Charter concept put forward by Ray Budde in the 1980s. His theory, with quite a bit of adaptation, is what we now know as the charter school movement.

‘Bully,’ the documentary on bullying in America’s schools, opened last Friday. After an open conflict with the MPAA over its R-rating, The Weinstein Company has decided to release the film to theatres with no rating, offering theatres the opportunity to decide for themselves. Andy Rotherham responds to the movie here. And, you can see the cities where the movies will be playing here.

A less serious note about indecent behavior: high schools everywhere are cracking down on what constitutes appropriate prom attire. Less impactfully, one middle school just banned hugging.

One KIPP student shares her less than positive experiences, calling attention to a known criticism of the KIPP model. A 20-year old Princeton junior ran for — and won! — a seat on his California school board. His platform? Pro-reform. As Alexander Russo on This Week in Education says, “in a previous era, someone like Andrew would have finished his college education and applied to Teach for America.” Can he deliver on this pro-reform promise? This slam poetry piece by Rachel Smith, a senior in Chicago, comes to mind. Her impactful piece criticizes teachers who work in urban schools and treat the job merely as their chance to be a savior to inner-city, troubled youth. (It’s fantastic.)

I close with this candid account of fraternity life at Dartmouth. Don’t read this while eating or just before eating. My Saturday began at 7:15am when the off-campus frat house began their “state school” party. By 9am, the police had arrived to a street that wreaked of beer. You won’t find sympathy from me for the antics of Ivy League undergraduates.

Is this new report put out by the Council on Foreign Relations attempting to be the next iteration of A Nation At Risk? Maybe, but the argument that national security is threatened by our underperforming education system is not without its critics. Valerie Strauss compares the report to ANAR, but ultimately concludes no such similarity. For the sake of simplicity, she also compiled some of the strongest dissents to the report in her post here. But, if you’re truly fascinated, why not watch Condoleeza Rice and Joel Klein talk about it themselves on Newshour? (via This Week in Education).

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Paula Cohen on The American Scholar responds to claims by Rick Santorum that a college education brainwashes students. She points out that college should, in fact, help students separate their own viewpoints from those of their parents. Dick Cavett at the NYT throws down with even stronger language in his piece on the merits (or demerits?) of homeschooling.

The topic of homeschooling aside, one Baltimore parent is suing the teacher, the school board, and the mayor because a teacher allegedly stole a student’s lunch money. As one commentator wrote, what’s more ludicrous: that a teacher stole lunch money, or that the mother is suing for $200,000? I also appreciate this NYT piece on the ‘cupcake wars’ that ensue at some PTA meetings — when cultures combine, conflict can arise. Who knew bake sales would be the breaking point?

Remember Wendy Kopp’s response to Ravitch’s less than delicate attack on TFA? This week, Gary Rubenstein critiques Wendy’s critique. This is getting complicated. Matt DiCarlo asks what we can learn from TFA — an insightful consideration of why there must be some middle ground on the TFA debate. A TFA alumnus also responds to Kopp’s piece, which Kopp then responds to. The critique of the critique of the critique keeps building.

Quickly keeping the TFA thread going: the Seattle School Board, after contentious debate, voted to keep their TFA partnership. It’s worth reading if you’d like to understand why some districts oppose the introduction of TFA teachers into their school system.

Bureaucracy fail: the Oklahoma state Board of Education scheduled a public hearing to give teachers a place to share their opinions about changes to Oklahoma’s public school grading system. Unfortunately, no members of the state BoE could attend, so teachers were told to state their opinions into a recorder. Oh hey, quick piece of advice: if you want to give off the impression that you respect teachers and their work, don’t schedule a meeting of this nature only to send a recording device in place of a human.

Julie Margetta Morgan at Center for American Progress wrote a piece about the five reasons why we need to pay attention to education debt. All too relevant, my friends. Meanwhile, The College Board launched a new website, bigfuture, that helps students plan their college application process. I love a flashy website, especially when it comes loaded with pertinent information.

There’s new software that predicts a student’s likely GPA based on their track record in other classes and the performance of other students in years past. Degree Compass, the Netflix-compared course recommender recently implemented at Austin Peay State University, is the ultimate institutional research tool — it compares a student’s individual performance to past performance in similar classes to predict a student’s GPA in a class and help find the courses best-suited to the individual student’s needs. (PS: developed with money from the Gates Foundation — unsurprising!)

Lastly, the Becker-Posner Blog questions whether public school teachers should have tenure, and comes to their conclusion with (new to me) logic.

A few weeks back, news outlets reported that a new documentary on bullying, aptly titled “Bully”, was set to release with an R rating from the MPAA. Many were upset by the rating, arguing that it went against the documentary’s attempt to draw attention to a serious problem. (And really, how depressing is it that a documentary about bullying needs to be rated R? Are the children doing the bullying not under 17 themselves?) Now the protest against the MPAA’s rating has moved into tinsel town, where celebrities are voicing their opinions (Johnny Depp among them).

Valerie Strauss of The Answer Sheet summarizes a new study that examines whether students who sometimes experience failures are more likely to succeed. For one, yes. Hubris is dangerous; the Greeks taught us that. Two, it reminds me of this Times Magazine piece on grit and character in a NYC school (here is an Atlantic Monthly response). And lastly, it reminds me of this Wired piece that examines why some people learn faster than others. This quote in particular resonates with me:

The problem with praising kids for their innate intelligence — the “smart” compliment — is that it misrepresents the psychological reality of education. It encourages kids to avoid the most useful kind of learning activities, which is when we learn from our mistakes. Because unless we experience the unpleasant symptoms of being wrong . . . the mind will never revise its models. We’ll keep on making the same mistakes, forsaking self-improvement for the sake of self-confidence. Samuel Beckett had the right attitude: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Here’s a follow-up story that explains a bit more about the rationale behind TED-Ed, the newly launched TED initiative that animates teachers’ lessons for classroom use. And, just in case you want more fodder for the technology debate, here’s a piece on the Daily Kos critiquing Khan Academy and many other “glitzy” charismatic leaders in education reform.

This new Atlantic piece examines Rahm Emanuel’s education ideas for Chicago, one of those well-known “what a mess” cities (alongside NYC, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and DC). A huge percentage of Illinois public schools are charter schools, and Chicago has undergone huge reform efforts with mixed results (recall this critique from last fall). If you’d like to know more about Chicago education reform history — and who wouldn’t! — I recommend the appropriate chapter in Between Public and Private, the entirety of (the albeit dense) Organizing Schools for Improvement, and So Much Reform, So Little Change (a book I responded to here and here).

Pennsylvania state leaders are trying to minimize cheating on standardized tests in Philadelphia by not allowing teachers to proctor the tests to their own students. Amidst a sea of cheating allegations, this is perhaps unsurprising, but still elicits strong reactions from local teachers. Some say it encourages deeper distrust issues among parents and politicians. Given the aftermath of NYC’s release of VA scores, I can’t disagree. Nor is it surprising that the newly-released MetLife Survey of the American Teacher found that teacher job satisfaction is at a fifteen-year low.

Watch Diane Ravitch duke it out with Wendy Kopp. Ravitch’s two-part piece is book review of both Wendy Kopp’s A Chance to Make History, and Finnish Lessons, a book on the Finlaned education system. But, by the end, it reads mostly like an acerbic attack on TFA. Kopp’s thoughtful and informative response is here.

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It’s sunny in Philadelphia. I hope it’s sunny where you are, too!

Good morning! It’s not Friday. Friday had a take-home exam and a business plan meeting. But, there are still a few bites from last week that deserve some attention.

I’m beginning to wonder if — for all my criticisms of Khan Academy — it’s having some incredibly positive side-effects. This video announcing TED-Ed inspired the thought, but there are of course a growing number of these lesson plan networks (Teaching Channel, for example). We’re finally finding ways to connect educators across the country. What a great way to improve teaching practices without relying on the discovery of a teacher-proof curriculum!

The Virginia bill that would essentially end teacher tenure has died. Sorry Gov. McDonnell — looks like this year’s General Assembly is throwing you a few disappointments and political fumbles.

Speaking of Republican governors, this piece examines the similarities between many Republican governors and President Obama on education reform. Take from this what you will — either you’re disappointed that Obama is aligning with Republicans, or you’re disappointed that Republicans are aligning with Obama. From where I stand, the former have more to be disappointed by than the latter. Unless you’re a DFER-aligned Democrat, Obama is not your man for education policy.

Still wondering about the challenges of technology? Read here about how a Futurama robot was elected head of the DC school board. No, not really, but the faux-election was a lesson in what can happen when voting goes digital. There’s a snarky comment to be made here about robots and Michelle Rhee, but I’m just not getting there fast enough.

Babson College now offers a class on the food truck industry. Is Food Truck 200 an academic examination of whether Portland or NYC has better food trucks? Please say yes.

Rural schools are capitalizing on international interest to increase revenue. Yep, selling seats to international students. This makes the seemingly random international apps I used to read from Smallville, IA make more sense. What doesn’t make sense — some families are willing to pay $30,000 for these seats. Worth the cost?

Charles Murray, scholar at AEI, wrote a piece for the NYT about his new book. He puts forward four possible solutions to improving the class divide: no more unpaid internships, no more SAT, no more race-based affirmative action, and “pricking” the B.A. bubble. Generally, I agree. Unpaid internships are easier for more affluent students. The SAT — and, I’ll say it, the GRE — do little to actually measure a student’s desire to learn. Passion, sadly, cannot be captured by a standardized test. As for the affirmative action piece, that’s tough. There are still unspoken yet institutionalized biases towards minority students and we can’t dismiss that. But, financial status matters. Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, responds here on Valerie Strauss’ The Answer Sheet.

There’s still plenty floating around in my head about the admission process, and I’m not yet sure that I can articulate my thoughts without devolving into an unfocused and ineffective rage. Race, gender, wealth — these factors all influence every admission decision ever made. Race and wealth are common enough, though perhaps many don’t understand the depths of their power. Gender is an insidious influence; as the number of females attending college continues to rise, it becomes harder and harder for a female to prove herself in the admission process — especially if she needs financial aid. I’ve seen what happens in committee discussions when institutional priorities influence admission decisions. It’s painful, but frequently unavoidable.

There are a lot of angry words going around about the recent release of NYC teachers’ value-added scores. I, too, disagree with the decision, and the blogosphere is full of voices who are upset, shamed, and bemused that administrators would ever think it acceptable to release such data. Value-added measures are hardly a fool-proof accountability tool. So, I bring to you a ton of links that respond to the release of these scores:

• Bruce Baker of School Finance 101 published two thorough pieces on the VAM of NYC teachers. Both examine whether the value-added data can actually tell us anything useful about what goes on in the classroom. Short answer: not really.
• Unsurprisingly, and thankfully, Matt Di Carlo also published a piece analyzing the data.
• Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post’s The Answer Sheet posts an email from a principal who has found terrible inaccuracies in the reporting of her school’s data, not to mention gross generalizations that fail to capture the actual quality of the teachers there.
• Gary Rubenstein also ran a two-piece post on his analysis of the VA data. He comes at the data from the perspective of a K12 educator with years of experience, and his hypotheses and findings correlate strongly with the more technical findings of Baker and others.
• And, in case you weren’t sure why people are up in arms about the release of this data, just read Diane Ravitch’s piece on the subject.

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Just for kicks, check out the text in SB 507 out of the Wisconsin state legislature. You may need to read it twice to fully absorb:

[An amendment] requiring the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board to emphasize nonmarital parenthood as a contributing factor to child abuse and neglect.

Now, moving on.
This story about a homeless mother being thrown in jail for using a fake address to get her son into a better school has been heard before, but it also strikes me as one of the strongest points in favor of a more centralized form of education. The kicker? She has to pay back the district for the money she ‘stole.’ Yes, because a homeless woman has both an address and the ability to pay property taxes to support her place in the education system. Public education is meant to be free for all, no? Some may argue that her child has the most to gain from free education, no?

Let’s now contrast this story with a parent whose intentions are a bit more transparent. One father wrote into Lynn O’Shaughnessy on The College Solution to applaud himself because his children pay for college by claiming independent status on their taxes (per their father’s insistence). As Lynn points out, qualifying as an independent means taxpayers are contributing to that student’s college education. In some circumstances, this is not only appropriate but laudable. In this instance, it’s just sad. His actions are taking financial aid from students who many need it more. Nothing upsets me more.

Ken Libby, on a guest post for The Shanker Blog, does a quick analysis of where Gates Foundation grant money is going. Most fascinating to me? The drop in donations to charter schools. While the number of charter school grants is the same, the amount of money donated has dropped dramatically. Perhaps the venture philanthropy that so many charter school networks rely on isn’t as sustainable as we all thought.

A few wrap-up pieces!
A recently-released study from Loyola University finds that art class was a leading factor in increasing student test scores at three Chicago schools. Small sample and an outcome focus on standardized testing, but still interesting!

A Florida charter school is being examined for potential links to Scientology — a no-no in charter school authorization land.

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Finally, Bruce Baker discovered during his examination of the recent State of NJ Schools presentation that NJ has apparently proved that poverty doesn’t matter! “Selected schools”? I could make almost any student achievement dataset look like that if I tried hard enough. Attempting to misleadthe audience — great job, team!

I’m currently sitting in my favorite DC coffee shop, surrounded by people who are clearly a little too entrenched in the DC way of life. Turns out I can easily tune out their conversation if I instead focus on this week’s education news. The interblag has been spreading the “what I really do” meme, and it recently made its way into education. I suspect this resonates with many teachers:

Source: This Week in Education

This essay written by Stuart Schmill, Dean of Admission at MIT, is a must-read for anyone interested in the college admission process. Key point: “Our actions speak the loudest. If we tell students that it’s O.K. to back off on their classes to make room for other activities, or simply to make room for balance and reflection, we must make decisions that align with those statements.” Admission work is half-recruiting and half-gatekeeping. Sometimes, offices lose sight of the need to align these two tasks with each other. Applying students bear the brunt of this failing.

Charter school critics remain vocal. This NYT editorial argues that charter schools are being approved at an increasing rate, while the number of charters that close each year after review is dropping. Their underlying assumption is that the accountability measures built into state laws are failing. The piece itself tells us little about whether this is true, though it does link to many oft-cited studies on the subject. John Thompson, writing on This Week in Education, calls for soul-searching regarding the role of discipline in charter schools. Lastly, Mike Goldstein of the MATCH Charter School in Boston responds to Noble Charter Network’s discipline policy where students must pay $5 when they are given a detention.

Dana Schwartz from the New America Foundation wrote a fascinating piece on how one South LA public school is designing a turn-around model that focuses on improving the local community. My take-away: the increasing number of charter schools in the area led to a declining enrollment at the unsafe and low-performing Crenshaw High School. That Crenshaw is now responding with major improvement strategies seems to be a point in favor of the charter school theory. Competition is actually incentivizing improvement.

The debate around value-added measures continues as New York City releases teacher’s VA estimates, and other states increasingly decide to implement such policies. Matt DiCarlo of The Shanker Blog examines whether these measures do or should rely on poverty measures. Eric Hanushek (you remember him, right?) argues that releasing VA measures focuses the conversation on “what really matters: classroom learning.” I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I much prefer Bill Gates’s take on the matter: releasing these measures is a form of public shaming that does little good.

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I’ll end my Ed Bites there. Per the advice of a great professor, I try to stay agnostic about many of these reform efforts. How I feel about something means little compared to the effectiveness of the reform and its unintended consequences. Most of all, please please remember that wearing a bright pink tie and whinging about studying abroad in a third world country makes you look like a DC tool.