NATIONAL

Experts Hope Federal Funds Lead to Better Tests
Education Week, MD, August 5, 2009
No matter where teachers, state officials, and testing experts stand on the debate about school accountability, they generally agree that the United States’ current multiple-choice-dominated K-12 tests are, to use language borrowed from the No Child Left Behind Act, in need of improvement.

Teachers Unions Frequently Flunk The School Reform Test
New York Daily News, NY, August 6, 2009
In a parting shot as she moves on up to spend all her time as president of the American Federation of Teachers, former UFT President Randi Weingarten took a swipe at “critics of teachers unions” and “attacks that serve only to demonize teachers and their unions.”

FROM THE STATES

District of Columbia

The Battle for D.C.’s High Schools
New York Times, NY, August 6, 2009
Mayor Adrian Fenty of Washington and his hard-charging chancellor of schools, Michelle Rhee, face great challenges in their attempt to turn around a school system that has long been known as one of the nation’s worst.

Indiana

Stimulus Funds Offer A K-12 Opportunity
Indianapolis Star, IN, August 6, 2009
When students who will enter kindergarten this fall graduate from high school in 2023, we will look back at the present either as a time when educational reforms started to transform K-12 schools for improved student achievement and success, or as a lost opportunity. Never before have we seen the level of federal resources being invested in education through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Kentucky

Kentucky to Pursue Federal Education Grant
Louisville Courier-Journal, KY, August 5, 2009
Kentucky’s new education commissioner said Wednesday that his first priority is to win a competitive federal grant for school reform.

Massachusetts

Patrick’s Interference On Charter School A Sham, And A Shame
Gloucester Daily Times, MA, August 6, 2009
Gov. Deval Patrick likes to style himself as a practitioner of a “new” kind of politics. Now, it seems like he’s engaged in the worst kind of old-style, bare-knuckled political interference.

Opt-out Approach Takes Egalitarianism To Absurd Extreme
Boston Globe, MA, August 6, 2009
BECAUSE SOME parents are more alert than other parents to the opportunity presented by a charter-school admissions lottery, David Segal, a Rhode Island state representative, would eliminate individual initiative and enter school patrons in a random draw (”The new educational divide,’ Op-ed, Aug. 3).

Michigan

DPS to Announce Student Retention Plan Today
Detroit News, MI, August 6, 2009
Detroit Public Schools this afternoon will unveil what it is calling an aggressive new effort to retain students. Dubbed “I’m In,” the campaign, which will be announced at Cass Technical High School, aims to stem the district’s trend of losing as much as 10 percent of its students annually. The students either drop out, are sent to charter schools or private schools in the city or to schools in the suburbs.

New York

Golden Gates School Boost
New York Post, NY, August 6, 2009
New York state received a $6 million grant yesterday from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create nearly two dozen early-college high schools where kids can earn diplomas and associate degrees at the same time.

Oklahoma

Merit Pay at Forefront Of Bold Tulsa School Plan
The Oklahoman, OK, August 6, 2009
Sitting in a hotel room overlooking Seattle, Tulsa schools Superintendent Keith Ballard knows it’s finally showtime. He and his team have only days left to get the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to buy in - literally - to a plan to improve the district’s 3,100-member teaching force and put on the fast track a complex and comprehensive pay-for-performance system.

Oregon

Education Stakeholders’ View On Obama’s Vision For Reform
The Oregonian, OR, August 6, 2009
John Tapogna urges Oregon to compete for federal dollars under a $4.3 billion program designed to “test new ways of teaching” (”Time for Oregon schools to stretch,” Aug. 2).
Free money sounds nice, but Tapogna fails to mention the larger price to be paid.

Rhode Island

R.I. Regents to Bolster Teacher Evaluations
Providence Journal, RI, August 6, 2009
Teacher evaluations in most Rhode Island school districts are a meaningless formality. They aren’t done routinely and when they are done, they have little impact. Veteran teachers can go 5 or more years without even receiving an evaluation.

Tennessee

Tennessee Is a School Reform Leader
Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2009
Your July 31 editorial, “Obama’s ‘Race to the Top,’ ” highlights the ongoing struggle to reform our nation’s schools and some of the hurdles President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan may encounter from established education advocates, particularly teacher unions. Systemic and meaningful reform cannot occur without all stakeholders working together.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

A Constitutional Moment for American Education?
National Review Online, August 6, 2009
American education today finds itself in a similar period of challenge. But can we muster the imagination, leadership, and persistence to devise a different and better arrangement? Our traditional K-12 structures and governance arrangements are showing their obsolescence and frailty.