In 1983, A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform was released. This report from the U.S. Department of Education highlighted a number of troubling findings on the state of education in the U.S. The most disturbing - U.S. students are lagging behind in test scores when compared to their overseas counterparts. According to the 1997 Florida Statute 228.056, one of the many purposes of charter schools was to “make the school the unit for improvement.” Charter schools have become the needed catalyst for change in public education. It is not surprising that both charter and traditional school test scores have enjoyed steady improvement since the charter onset.

More “Florida Charter Schools: Doing More with Less (David Calvo)”

The Indypendent - Education As Commodity: Corporate Dollars Seek To Redefine Public Schools - Anyone care to respond? Email edspresso@edreform.com if you’d like to provide a Guest Commentary.

The latest 2006 commission report represents a broad bipartisan consensus of the U.S. corporate elite. It was funded by Bill Gates and the Gates, Hewlett, Casey and Lumina Foundations. The commission includes two former U.S. secretaries of education — Rod Paige and Richard Riley; a former U.S. Secretary of Labor; the heads of the New York City and Washington, D.C., public schools; the “president emeritus” of the Communications Workers of America; the president of the Urban League; the head of the National Association of Manufacturers; major corporate players (e.g., Henry Schatz, former CEO of Lucent); and other prominent politicians and academics.

According to the report, “we” (U.S. capital) need a highly skilled and creative work force to compete in the world market. The report admits that the emphasis on standards-based learning discouraged creativity in favor of rote learning. And, the new report says, the stress on educating for high skills is inadequate for the current global economy, where the only way to thrive will be to always be the first to come up with new technological breakthroughs.

This vision of a dog-eat-dog world is, unfortunately, an accurate portrayal of the dynamics of global capital. And, as the new report admits, automation and digitization have made it possible for U.S. companies to export almost all manufacturing and many service jobs, skilled and unskilled alike. But the folks behind the report are the very folks who shift capital around the globe to wherever labor is cheapest and profits are highest.

Washington Post - Top Teachers Issue Call for Revamped Pay Plans

Tired of reports by business executives and Cabinet officers on how to fix U.S. schools, 18 award-winning teachers produced their own recommendations this month, starting with a major overhaul of how teachers are paid.

The report, sponsored by the Hillsborough, N.C.-based Center for Teaching Quality, said teachers should be able to advance through three tiers — novice, professional and expert — and schools should stop paying teachers more just because they have more years on the job.

"If you don’t have a career ladder that encourages teachers to advance in their profession — and be paid accordingly as they advance — tinkering around the edges by providing $2,000 bonuses for a handful of teachers will not secure the stable, high-quality professional workforce we need," the teachers said.

Houston Chronicle - HISD Examines Charter School Success -

It sounds like a simple formula to fix broken public schools: Require students to spend more time in class. Ask parents to sign contracts committing to be involved. Hire teachers who believe every child is college material.

Popular charter schools such as the Knowledge Is Power Program and YES Prep Public Schools follow such rules, and both have waiting lists of students who want to attend.

With enrollment declining in the Houston Independent School District, the impending expansion of successful charter schools here raises questions about whether traditional districts could — or should — play copycat.

"I don’t think there’s anything we’re really doing that couldn’t be replicated in a traditional ISD," said Chris Barbic, the founder of Houston-based YES Prep.

Yet even Barbic acknowledges it would be difficult for traditional districts, which have more students and more red tape, to make big changes. It also would require schools to spend their money differently, on teacher salaries instead of football, perhaps.

Top Teachers Issue Call for Revamped Pay Plans - Tired of reports by business executives and Cabinet officers on how to fix U.S. schools, 18 award-winning teachers produced their own recommendations this month, starting with a major overhaul of how teachers are paid.

Education As Commodity: Corporate Dollars Seek To Redefine Public Schools - As the No Child Left Behind Act comes up for renewal, the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce is ushering in a new phase in the campaign to privatize public schools. The commission, whose last report laid the groundwork for NCLB, issued a book-length report December 2006

The Drive Is On To Save Recess - It’s all work and no play for kindergartners in the Woodland Hills School District. Their school day starts at 8:40 a.m. and continues to 3:10 p.m., with no designated break for recess.

Alameda Point Thrives Despite Many Setbacks - In the 10 years since the Navy left the Island, Alameda Point has sometimes been compared to a ghost town. In many ways, it is. . .But hidden among empty hangars and old barracks is a community that teems with energy.

Negotiations Continue For Charter School - While the Mark Twain Academies charter school is getting closer to its target enrollment of 213 students, the school’s leaders are concerned about having enough classrooms to house their students.

District Should Be More Open To Charter Schools - It is always difficult for those who hold power to allow the status quo to be upset in the name of progress. Any movement to break the inertia of a status quo is also a statement that standard operating procedure is failing.

Increase Aid To Charter Schools - Charter schools, the neglected stepchildren of the state education establishment, are gradually coming into their own thanks to their record of lifting the academic achievement of young inner- city children. Unlike regular public schools, with their phalanxes of administrators and strong teacher unions, the charter schools are still treated as an experiment, even 10 years after their start, and been starved for money.

GOP, Strickland Joust Over Solution To School Funding - Majority Republicans in the House have pledged to implement "Gov. Ted Strickland’s School Funding Solution." The governor says he’s amused when he reads a comment like that from the House budget briefing document released last week. It depicts Strickland’s education budget as his plan to fix school funding, when he has made it clear he is still developing that plan.

HISD Examines Charter School Success - It sounds like a simple formula to fix broken public schools: Require students to spend more time in class. Ask parents to sign contracts committing to be involved. Hire teachers who believe every child is college material.

Charter School Grows, Raises Concerns - When Dawn Pope saw her daughter’s fourth-grade class at Sams Valley Elementary, she was dumbfounded that one teacher was expected to instruct 30 pupils.

Charter Chains Shows Results, Ambitions - The preferred term is "promotion ceremony," for the record. But whatever you do, don’t call what’s about to happen at KIPP TRUTH Academy an "eighth-grade graduation."

Backlash Threatens Charter School Expansion While Some Public Schools Sit Empty In Gary - Local hostility toward charter schools is blocking building, leasing and expansion plans. Four local charter schools are looking for more space, among them Thea Bowman, Charter School of the Dunes, and KIPP.

Expand Charter School Opportunities In State - Oklahoma legislators have approved a bill that would make it easier to establish charter schools. But we think the bill doesn’t go far enough. The 1999 Charter School Act allowed school and CareerTech boards to be charter school sponsors.

Cleveland Plain Dealer - GOP offers version of budget; Proposal emphasizes higher ed, school choice 

As was widely expected, Republicans countered Strickland’s move to end a voucher program outside of Cleveland - which provides fewer than 3,000 students in low-performing districts with vouchers to attend private schools - by fully restoring money for the program.

The Republicans also plan to allow charter school expansion in some cases rather than the moratorium sought by Strickland….

Strickland spokesman Keith Dailey said the overall reaction to the GOP plan was "very positive."

Contra Costa Times - Teachers leaving profession in droves

Teachers stifled by bureaucracy and blocked from making decisions in their own classrooms are leaving teaching in droves, according to a new study by Cal State University’s Teacher Quality Institute.

Nearly 22 percent of California teachers leave teaching after four years, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. With this type of exodus, the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning projects a 33,000-teacher shortage in California by 2015….

The 1,900 teachers surveyed by the institute said they left mainly because of the endless amounts of paperwork, constant interruptions and fruitless meetings that take time away from actual instruction, said Ken Futernick, principal author of the study and director of K-12 Studies at the institute….

According to the study, teachers who left tough schools said poor working conditions trumped pay among reasons they left.

"They’re almost saying ‘you couldn’t pay me enough to stay at this school,’" Futernick said. Interestingly enough, teachers surveyed who stayed in the field and felt supported at their campus cited their compensation as adequate, the study says.

Los Angeles Daily News - Antonio’s schools (AVUSD): Mayor needs authority to set up his own charters

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa struggles to get some control over the Los Angeles Unified School District — the courts have struck down his takeover legislation, and next month’s school board races promise to be close. So City Councilman Richard Alarcón … is proposing that City Hall open an Office of Education, which would be empowered to create and run charter schools.

Assuming the office could run its schools better than the district does, which shouldn’t be hard, students would start streaming in, and what we could then call the Antonio Villaraigosa Unified School District — or AVUSD — would thrive.

Although this proposal is no substitute for reform at the LAUSD — or for electing reformers in next month’s school board election — it could help. Given the district’s hostility to charters, it would be useful to have another local entity empowered to create them.

Fund Was Poorly Monitored, Audit Finds - D.C. school system officials failed to properly monitor spending in a special account that allowed them to carry over funds from one fiscal year to the next, according to an audit released by the city’s chief financial officer yesterday.

GOP offers version of budget; Proposal emphasizes higher ed, school choice - Columbus- House Republican leaders rolled out their version of the state’s next two-year budget with a heavy emphasis on higher education and school choice.

Let’s work together for the sake of children - Public school choice is alive and well in the Denver Public Schools as the Rocky Mountain News has reported in its "Leaving to Learn" series. Denver parents have more choices than most Americans, and Colorado has worked to expand those choices through charter schools, magnet schools and open enrollment.

Public vs. charter: Great schools come in various forms as long as teachers, principals remain dedicated - Atlanta’s Charles R. Drew Elementary School garners a lot of great press for being a charter school success story, and for good reason, but state data reveal an even more effective but mainstream public school — East Lake Elementary — just down the road.

Senate accord fleshes out online schools’ oversight - The Senate compromised Thursday on far-reaching legislation to oversee online schools, aiming to address problems of sloppy spending and poor student performance raised in a state audit.

Antonio’s schools (AVUSD): Mayor needs authority to set up his own charters - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa struggles to get some control over the Los Angeles Unified School District — the courts have struck down his takeover legislation, and next month’s school board races promise to be close. So City Councilman Richard Alarcón has come up with a promising alternative: Let the city start up its own district.

Teachers leaving profession in droves - Stephan Goyne entered teaching as a "fight the good fight" kind of guy, taking a job in East Oakland right out of college. . . . But after six years in the trenches — transferred from campus to campus, forbidden from organizing field trips and ordered to teach math only after lunch — Goyne left the profession.

Coach Class - Next fall many New York City public school teachers may find their "literacy coach" — most likely a young woman — compelling them to teach reading and writing exclusively by the methods of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project.

Chester Upland board caps charter school enrollment - Over the objections of charter school parents, the three-member board that runs the troubled Chester Upland School District voted last night to cap charter school enrollment at about its current level.

Charter school issues grow as hope of leasing space dies - After a month-long, behind-the-scenes struggle between Metro Schools and the city’s newest charter school over its location, one school board member is calling on Director of Schools Pedro Garcia to start cooperating.

Charter school gets Cambridge OK; Rigorous curriculum a key step for Oasis - The University of Cambridge has certified a Cape Coral school to teach a rigorous international curriculum. Oasis Freshman Academy, which will be housed at the city-run Oasis Charter Middle School beginning in August, learned of the certification recently.