Accountability in Public Schools
New York Times, NY, August 29, 2009
The Obama administration laid down an appropriately tough line in late July when it released preliminary rules for the $4.3 billion pot of money known as the Race to the Top Fund. The administration rightly sees it as a way to spur reform by rewarding states that embrace high standards and bypassing those that do not.

Kennedy Gone; Power Shuffles Likely on K-12
Education Week, MD, August 28, 2009
The death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy leaves a void in the landscape of education politics, with no obvious heir to his leadership on K-12 issues in the U.S. Senate.

‘We’re In the Venture Philanthrophy Business’
Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2009
“The unions no longer control the education agenda of the Democratic Party,” billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad tells me. I’d say that’s debatable. But to the extent it’s true, the party has Mr. Broad, a ¬self-described moderate Democrat, to thank.

Per-Student Spending Gaps Wider Than Known
Washington Post, DC, August 31, 2009
Private schools without religious affiliation spend almost twice as much per student as their public and Catholic counterparts and more than double that of other Christian schools nationwide, according to a new study.

FROM THE STATES

Arizona

Camps Disagree On Way To Fix Public Schools
The Arizona Republic, AZ, August 30, 2009
The current public-school debate can be roughly divided into two camps. On one side: those who say investing in America’s public-school system will improve student achievement. On the other side: those who have lost faith in the public-school system and believe investing in competition and privately operated schools is the best way to improve student achievement.

California

Schools Choice Pushes LAUSD into a New Era
Daily Breeze, CA, August 29, 2009
Los Angeles Unified may have opened its gates for independent operators to run up to a third of its campuses, but the key players - including the influential teachers union - do not anticipate a bitter power grab to take over public schools.

Georgia

School Choice Would Bring Quality - And Accountability
Hopkins County, GA, August 30, 2009
For the first time in history, lawmakers and education officials in Frankfort indicate they are considering charter schools as an alternative for Kentucky students mired in failing schools - and that’s a lot of students.

Georgia Virtual School Grows More Popular
Augusta Chronicle, GA, August 29, 2009
The program began in 2005 with 1,644 students enrolled. Last year, 4,891 students took courses in the fall, spring and summer semesters, Mrs. Galland said.

Illinois

Prairie Crossing Charter School Updating Its Image
Chicago Daily Herald, IL, August 29, 2009
Prairie Crossing Charter School in Grayslake has a new logo and updated marketing materials as part of an effort to attract more donations from corporations and local businesses.

Massachusetts

Charter Schools Have Proven Record Of Success
Salem News, MA, August 31, 2009
The prospect of another charter school in Salem appears to have provided a platform for more of the inflammatory rhetoric that misrepresents the truth.

Michigan

More Good Schools
The Detroit News, MI, August 30, 2009
For the first time in a bitter history of education disputes, leading Michigan Republicans and Democrats are working together to create new charter schools for children in Detroit, ground zero for America’s struggle to fix urban education.

Innovation Proposals Aim To Transform Michigan Education
Detroit Free Press, MI, August 30, 2009
Be bold. Be dramatic. Think big. That’s what state Superintendent Mike Flanagan asked school leaders to do in coming up with plans to reimagine how kids are educated. He said it’s necessary to produce better-educated students who are more prepared to compete with their peers around the world.

New York

New York City Charter School Has Big Dreams for Small Cash Flow
ABC News, August 29, 2009
To get more bang for limited school bucks, pay amazing teachers a six-figure salary. That’s one of the radical ideas behind The Equity Project Charter School, opening in September in New York.

Ohio

Charter Grades Making Progress
Columbus Dispatch, OH, August 30, 2009
The two schools illustrate the deep disparities in charter-school performance in Ohio. There are more highly rated, successful charter schools this year, especially in central Ohio. And although the percentage of schools that were graded F decreased by more than 40 percent, more than half of the charter schools in Franklin County and its adjoining counties still were rated as a D or F.

Try Again: Charter School Shows Grit By Acknowledging Failure And Starting Over
Columbus Dispatch, OH, August 30, 2009
No excuses is part of the mantra for the Knowledge is Power Program, and backers of Columbus’ first KIPP charter school aren’t making any. The KIPP Journey Academy, part of a growing network of high-profile charter schools around the nation, got an F on its Ohio Department of Education report card for last year, and its board makes no bones about the need to start almost from scratch to fix it.

Oklahoma

Election May Change Education in Oklahoma
The Oklahoman, OK, August 30, 2009
Major changes could be made at the state Education Department after next year’s election. Republican leaders say they’d like to see more local control and performance pay, while educators say teacher pay raises and data to measure individual student performance is on the top of their list.

Pennsylvania

Troubled charter schools need better oversight

Philadelphia Inquirer, PA, August 31, 2009

Re: “FBI seizes records of N. Phila. charter school,” Wednesday: When reading the recent coverage of Community Academy of Philadelphia Charter School, it is important to realize that the law allowing for charter schools in Pennsylvaniais in serious need of reform.

Washington

Los Angeles School District Hopes Charter Approach Rescues Failing Schools
Seattle Times, WA, August 31, 2009
The Los Angeles Unified School District already has the highest number of charter schools in the country. It is set to add 250 more charters in a praiseworthy effort to rescue failing schools.

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Copyright: Doug Stroud www.lttlphotography.co

Baseball may appear to have a very incongruous relationship to the topic of education reform, but it appeared, at least on August 19, on a muggy evening in Washington, to have more in common with kids most in need of schools than any other piece of popular culture.

Washington, DC was for years without a team.

Children in DC for years were without any access to schools that work.

Baseball used to be a huge phenomenon in Washington.

Many schools used to be phenomenal here as well.

Dunbar High School was a college prep school with a very high percentage of graduates. But at last night’s Nationals game, at least two parents of children who participate in a program of choice said there was no way they’d send their daughters to that school - a school that is now a symbol of miseducation for all but the most motivated and hardened students.

Indeed, programs like the one that allowed these parents and 2,000 others to choose alternatives to their assigned public schools - schools like St. Augustine, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Archbishop Carroll - are giving parents what baseball here, even with its warts, is giving the community. Hope, dreams, and a chance to redevelop their lives.

As the Nats closed in on the Rockies last night, twice (before losing with a close 5-4), hundreds of students attending schools of opportunity cheered on their ailing team, happy to be in a stadium that has helped transform a once-desolate neighborhood, happy to be with others who have also had a second chance at an education.

While they are not winning yet, baseball has helped save this city. The DC Opportunity Scholarship Program is doing the same, but unlike baseball which rests mostly in private sector hands, school choices for DC students rest in government hands - Congress mostly - which has chosen thus far to deny them any more access to their own field of dreams, their chance for a way up, their way to come from behind.

They can still pull out a bottom of the 9th win for these kids when they return from recess. We can hope.

(To learn more about School Opportunity Night, please visit: www.saveopportunity.org)

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Hard-Hit Schools Try Public-Relations Push
Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2009
Public schools in the U.S. have added professional marketing to their back-to-school shopping lists. Financially struggling urban districts are trying to win back students fleeing to charter schools, private schools and suburban districts that offer open enrollment.

Obama Pushes States to Shift on Education
New York Times, NY, August 16, 2009
Holding out billions of dollars as a potential windfall, the Obama administration is persuading state after state to rewrite education laws to open the door to more charter schools and expand the use of student test scores for judging teachers.

Do Teachers Need Education Degrees?
New York Times, NY, August 15, 2009
Should the public schools reduce the weight they give to education school credentials in pay and promotion decisions? Is this happening already, and, if so, what is replacing the traditional system for compensating teachers?

FROM THE STATES

District of Columbia

D.C. Student Scores Show Fluctuations
Washington Post, DC, August 15, 2009
Forty D.C. elementary schools logged double-digit gains in pass rates on the citywide spring math exams. But 19 had double-digit losses.

Georgia

Money Woes Test Some Start-Up Charter Schools
Augusta Chronicle, GA, August 17, 2009
The red ink on many charter schools’ report cards aren’t from poor academic grades but from money challenges, though recent legislation is easing some of those difficulties just as dozens of groups try to start new ones.

Idaho

Lawmakers Work On Lifting Charter Cap
The Olympian, ID, August 15, 2009
Four months before the 2010 Legislature is slated to begin, Idaho lawmakers are working on a bill that would amend state law to lift the cap limiting the number of new charter schools each year. At stake are federal grants from a nearly $5 billion fund made available by President Barack Obama.

Illinois

At Troubled Schools, More Reform
Chicago Tribune, IL, August 17, 2009
Harper is one of two city high schools that just completed the first year of a controversial, expensive and experimental program called turnaround. It’s what it sounds like: Chicago Public Schools leadership fires the entire staff and injects money, a new curriculum and extra security to try to reform troubled schools.

If Illinois Blows This …
Chicago Tribune, IL, August 17, 2009
Competition for Race to the Top money will be fierce. And Illinois has plenty to do if it wants to qualify. According to The New Teacher Project, a non-profit organization that works nationally to improve teacher quality, Illinois now is only “somewhat competitive” for Race to the Top funding.

Louisiana

States to Vie For Share Of $4.3 Billion Grant
The Times-Picayune, LA, August 17, 2009
A national education group has deemed Louisiana one of the two most competitive states in the hunt for a share of $4.3 billion in discretionary money that the U.S. Department of Education will award over the next year.

Massachusetts

Business Gets Behind Charter School Push
Worcester Business Journal, MA, August 15, 2009
Business groups are gearing to support a proposal by Gov. Deval Patrick to lift the cap on the number of charter schools in the Bay State. On the side of more charter schools are groups like the Massachusetts High Technology Council and the Associated Industries of Massachusetts. Private businesses have also been vocal about supporting the plan, including Hopkinton-based EMC Corp.

Missouri

Subtle School Reforms Add Up
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO, August 15, 2009
New principals. New after-school programs. Community services in open classrooms. A marketing campaign. Student recruiting. Staff training. At first, it doesn’t seem like much. Mostly, a return to basics. But this restart is the most significant package of reforms to arrive since a business executive was brought in to slash the district’s budget six years ago.

New York

Gates’ $4 Mil Lesson
New York Post, NY, August 17, 2009
America’s richest man chipped in to help preserve mayoral control of New York City schools.

Ohio

Don’t Limit Opportunity
Columbus Dispatch, OH, August 16, 2009
Ohio has come a long way in the regulation of charter schools, and if a moratorium on new ones ever was justified, it isn’t any longer. What’s more, the cap could hurt Ohio’s chances of sharing in the biggest federal education-grant program ever offered.

Catholic Schools Struggle With Public Cuts
Cincinnati Enquirer, OH, August 15, 2009
Harrmann, like thousands of Ohio parochial and private school principals, in recent weeks learned that he’ll get 17.5 percent less in state money than expected this year and next due to last-minute cuts in the state’s new budget.

Tennessee

Urban Districts Share Reform Successes With Nashville Schools
The Tennessean, TN, August 15, 2009
Leaders of some of the nation’s most challenging urban school districts were in Nashville on Friday to share their ideas and strategies on reforming public schools at an education summit hosted by Mayor Karl Dean.

Wyoming

Charter School Advocates Speak Out
Billings Gazette, WY, August 16, 2009
Charter school advocates claim it is time to rewrite the state laws governing such schools. “We simply need to replace our old statutes with comprehensive, next-generation charter law,” Rep. Sue Wallis, R-Gillette, said in a media release.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Undermining a Success Story
Washington Post, DC, August 15, 2009
APPARENTLY not content with their part in stifling needed change in traditional schools, teachers unions are now setting their sights on undermining public charter schools. A case in point is the high-performing KIPP Ujima Village Academy in Baltimore.

Paying For Grades
Worcester Business Journal, MA, August 15, 2009
In the wake of Gov. Deval Patrick’s filing of legislation to double the number of public charter schools in the state, the American Federation of Teachers has resumed its push to unionize charter schools.

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Schools Glad To Have Stimulus Cash, But Delays & Rules Frustrate
National Public Radio, August 10, 2009
There are many stories from across the country about how school systems are putting the money they’re getting from the federal economic stimulus package to use.

Rich Prize, Restrictive Guidelines
Education Week, MD, August 10, 2009
The U.S. Department of Education’s proposed guidelines for awarding $4 billion in Race to the Top Fund money send a strong message that any state hoping to land a competitive grant should expect to allow student test scores to be used in decisions about teacher compensation and evaluation.

FROM THE STATES

District of Columbia

New Ad Campaign Demands Immediate Action from Duncan, Obama on D.C. Vouchers
Business Wire, August 10, 2009
A new radio advertisement—premiering tomorrow—features parents demanding that Education Secretary Arne Duncan and President Barack Obama save and strengthen the Washington, D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.

The Selflessness of Teaching
Washington Post, DC, August 11, 2009
But no amount of praise showered on teachers will ever produce the kind of dramatic results we need to close the achievement gap — because, at its core, teaching is never about the teacher.

Georgia

Study: Some Charter Schools Struggling Financially
Macon Telegraph, GA, August 10, 2009
Nearly half of the Georgia charter schools examined in a new report are in financial trouble, suggesting a chronic problem that could lead to the schools shuttering.

Idaho

Luna Seeks To Lift Charter School Cap
The Olympian, ID, August 10, 2009
Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna says he will urge lawmakers to lift the cap on charter schools to improve the state’s odds of competing for more than $4 billion in federal education grants.

Indiana

Virtual Learning Supporters
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, IN, August 11, 2009
Indiana’s public education community is often characterized as obstructionist. But as the state moves further into the brave new world of cyber-learning, it might well be state educators leading the way.

Virtual Charter Not The Same As Home Schooling
News Sentinel, IN, August 10, 2009
There are plenty of concerns that could be discussed by Hoosiers about Indiana’s new virtual charter school. But whether it is a “back door” effort to institute taxpayer-supported home schooling should not be one of them.

Montana

Superintendent: Federal Charter School Rule Blues for MT
Public News Service, August 11, 2009
Federal “Race to the Top” education grants may speed right by Montana and other rural states. The grants require the creation of charter schools; Montana doesn’t have a single charter school, nor have there been any requests to establish charters in 20 years.

New Jersey

Public Schools That Operate Outside The District Can Help Relieve Overcrowding.
Cherry Hill Courier Post, NJ, August 11, 2009
The state Department of Education recently approved two more charter schools for South Jersey. They will be the first two in the tri-county area not located in Camden

New York

Bloomberg Plans to Stop Promoting Low-Performing Fourth and Sixth Graders
New York Times, NY, August 11, 2009
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Monday that he planned to make it harder this year for fourth and sixth graders who score poorly on standardized tests to move on to the next grade, extending a policy that his re-election team hopes will help him curry favor with voters.

North Carolina

Charter Schools Perform Well On Tests
Asheville Citizen-Times, NC, August 11, 2009
All three of Buncombe County’s charter schools reached expected growth goals during the 2008-09 school year, according to the ABCs of Public Education accountability report.

Oklahoma

A Way To Help Steer Dropouts Back To School
The Oklahoman, OK, August 11, 2009
GOOD ideas come from all sorts of places. Including Texas. And that’s a place Oklahoma should look as education advocates and policymakers do the tough work of trying to tackle the problem of high school dropouts.

Pennsylvania

Phila. School Progress Steady But Slow
Philadelphia Inquirer, PA, August 11, 2009
It was back to school yesterday for 600 Philadelphia School District administrators, and Superintendent Arlene Ackerman greeted them with good and bad news.

Parents Ask To Join Agora Cyber Charter Suit
Philadelphia Inquirer, PA, August 11, 2009
A group of parents from the Agora Cyber Charter School has asked to become part of a suit pending in U.S. District Court in an effort to keep the Devon-based school open.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

A Working Model
America Magazine, August 11, 2009
If you are looking for a convincing argument in support of voucher programs for Catholic schools, you could do no better than Patrick J. McCloskey’s new book, The Street Stops Here: A Year at a Catholic High School in Harlem, a profile of New York City’s all-boys Rice High School.

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NATIONAL

Arne Duncan, Educational Kingmaker
Politico, August 10, 2009
But not everyone has bought into the Obama-style reforms, which are expected to include a greater emphasis on merit pay for teachers and data systems to track progress. Both have been long resisted by the powerful teacher unions - big backers of Democratic candidates.

A Long Trek Before a Race to the Top
Huffington Post, NY, August 9, 2009
Duncan’s announcement of Race the Top criteria didn’t come out of the blue — it’s the result of the smart investment of several billion dollars by a coalition of foundations supporting the work of hundreds of education policy entrepreneurs.

2 Views To Boost Schools: Investment Or Competition
Arizona Republic, AZ, August 9, 2009
The current public school debate can be roughly divided into two camps. On one side: those who say investing in America’s public school system will improve student achievement. On the other side: those who have lost faith in the public school system and believe investing in competition and privately-operated schools is the best way to improve student achievement.

FROM THE STATES

California

Calling All Teachers! Let’s Start A School
Los Angeles Daily News, CA, August 9, 2009
Throughout the ruckus last month surrounding LAUSD board member Yolie Flores Aguilar’s resolution to solicit competitive proposals for the operation of new schools, it was clear that already existing players in the new schools adventure all think they know best about schools and teaching, and learning. Well, as a teacher, let me tell them who knows best. Teachers. Not the teachers’ union, not the charter management organizations…

Don’t Let Politics Block Blooming LAUSD Reform
Daily Breeze, CA, August 8, 2009
Here are two things that virtually everyone involved in education in Los Angeles agrees upon: First, that the current educational system is failing. Second, that reform is crucial. Unfortunately, that’s where the agreement ends. When it comes to how to reverse Los Angeles Unified School District’s years-long decline in school enrollment, graduation rates and reputation, there’s little consensus.

District of Columbia

Schools Need Teachers Like Me. I Just Can’t Stay.
Washington Post, DC, August 9, 2009
Four years later, the question I encounter is equally thorny: Why leave teaching? It’s not just a question about how I’ll pay my rent. Reformers have big plans to transform failing urban schools, and their work hinges on finding a way to keep strong teachers in the classroom. By throwing in the towel, I have become one more teacher abandoning her students. So why am I leaving?

Michigan

De-fund Detroit Public Schools
Detroit Free Press, MI, August 9, 2009
Detroit is crumbling, with public schools leading the way toward total dissolution. After decades of mismanagement and malfeasance, after countless scandals and promised reforms, after losing about half of its student population since 2001, the end seems finally, perhaps mercifully, here. The Detroit public school system is on the edge of bankruptcy.

New York

Obama, Teach New York A Lesson: How The Feds Should Answer The State’s Request For School Funds
New York Daily News, NY, August 10, 2009
The reality is that the Empire State’s self-absorbed, feel-good approach to education policy is on a collision course with President Obama’s plans to promote pragmatic change in our nation’s schools by rewarding only the most progressive states through a $4.3 billion federal “Race to the Top” reform contest.

Charters: The Best Special-Ed Choice
New York Post, NY, August 8, 2009
IF New Yorkers needed another reason to lift the artificial cap on charter schools, they got it with this June’s US Supreme Court decision that mandated public reimbursement for private-school special-education services — services that charter schools can provide at a fraction of the cost.

North Carolina

An Alternative For Training Our Teachers
Greensboro News Record, NC, August 9, 2009
Imagine an experiment in which “Victoria,” a recent college graduate with a degree in English, takes over a 10th-grade class, the racial composition of which is 80 percent minority. A few miles down the street, in another 10th-grade classroom, is “Sherry,” a teacher with three years of experience and a degree in education. Less than half of Sherry’s students are minorities.

Ohio

Charters Reach Farther Out
Columbus Dispatch, OH, August 10, 2009
What once was a trickle of suburban students to charter schools is now a steady stream, with suburban and rural districts statewide losing students at nearly twice the rate of urban ones.

Charter School Advocates Wary After Budget Battle
Middletown Journal, OH, August 8, 2009
Charter schools are breathing a collective sigh of relief that plans to cut funding were stopped. When first proposed, the two-year state budget included funding cuts to charter schools anywhere from 5 percent to 70 percent, depending on the type of school, said Bill Sims, president and chief executive of the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

Oregon

Oregon’s a Slow Starter In Race To Better Schools
The Oregonian, OR, August 8, 2009
A state with 71 failing schools and a stubborn achievement gap remains all too reluctant to embrace change and innovation.

Pennsylvania

More Charter Schools Mean More Choices in the Lehigh Valley
Allentown Morning Call, PA, August 10, 2009
The alternative to public schools continues to increase in popularity across the state and in the Lehigh Valley. This year, nearly 2,400 students in the Lehigh Valley will attend charter schools, up from about 100 students in 2001. Soon, that figure will grow.

South Carolina

Reform-minded, Too
Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC, August 9, 2009
Republicans do not hold a monopoly on new ideas. These Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls are also pitching reform.

Tennessee

Schools Escaped Takeover, But Dean’s Not Backing Off
The Tennessean, TN, August 10, 2009
Mayor Karl Dean didn’t get an opening to run Metro Schools this year, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at his calendar.

Utah

All Charter Schools May Face Accreditation
Salt Lake Tribune, UT, August 7, 2009
All charter schools soon likely will have to be accredited by the same group that now checks up on Utah high schools. Utah State Board of Education members gave preliminary approval to the rule Friday, which would require charter schools serving students of all ages to become accredited.

Virginia

A Parent’s Right To Choose
The New Dominion Magazine, August 9, 2009
“We’re for anything that moves the ball forward. And we don’t feel that adult interests should get in the way of what’s best for children. Obviously that’s gotten us at loggerheads with the teachers’ unions, but we feel that there needs to be a realignment of the Democratic Party’s positioning on education issues so that it’s more kid-centered,” said Kevin Chavous, a Democrat and former member of the Washington, D.C., City Council who now heads up the group Democrats for Education Reform.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

McDonnell Talks Jobs In Response To Presidential Address
Washington Examiner, DC, August 9, 2009
Virginia’s former attorney general closed his address by praising the president’s effort for education reform through expanding charter schools and performance pay for teachers and principals.

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