The Answer Sheet: Education Reform


Posted at 12:50 PM ET, 04/28/2013

Obama's big second-term education problem
By Valerie Strauss
President Obama has something of a problem in his second term in terms of education policy: His first term.

By Valerie Strauss  |  12:50 PM ET, 04/28/2013 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Tags:  Education Policy, Education Reform, It's Duncan's Problem Too, President Obama

Posted at 10:00 AM ET, 02/25/2013

'You can't have that data': 19 months of stonewalling by ed bureaucrats
By Valerie Strauss
In state after state, critics of education reform try to get data from state education departments to see for themselves how well the reforms are working but often get stonewalled. Here's one such story.

By Valerie Strauss  |  10:00 AM ET, 02/25/2013 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Tags:  Education Reform, School Reform, So Much For Transparency

Posted at 11:30 AM ET, 02/02/2011

The Bartleby Project
By Valerie Strauss
A veteran educator writes about the country's obsession with standardized testing and what might be done about it.

By Valerie Strauss  |  11:30 AM ET, 02/02/2011 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  Guest Bloggers, Guest Bloggers, Guest Bloggers | Tags:  education reform, president obama, school reform, standardized test industry, standardized tests, test industry, the bartleby project

Posted at 05:00 AM ET, 02/01/2011

'It makes no sense:' A dissection of Obama's education view
By Valerie Strauss
Here is a dissection of what President Obama said about education in his State of the Union speech, plus more.

By Valerie Strauss  |  05:00 AM ET, 02/01/2011 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  Guest Bloggers, Guest Bloggers, Guest Bloggers, Guest Bloggers, Guest Bloggers | Tags:  china and india and education, china education, chinese schools, education, education policy, education reform, indian schools, international competitiveness, obama speech, president obama, president obama school reform, public schools, race to the top, school reform, schools, state of the union, u.s. education

Posted at 10:15 PM ET, 01/25/2011

Obama’s faulty education logic: What he said and failed to say
By Valerie Strauss
Someone should have told President Obama that there were important contradictions in the education portion of his State of the Union address before he delivered it to Congress.

By Valerie Strauss  |  10:15 PM ET, 01/25/2011 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  Poverty, Poverty, Poverty | Tags:  education reform, no child left behind, obama, obama education initiative, obama education reform, obama race to the top, obama speech, obama state of the union, president obama, public school reform, public schools, race to the top, state of the union, state of the union speech

Posted at 05:00 AM ET, 12/08/2010

A primer on (and problems with) market-based reform
By Valerie Strauss
Here's a primer on market-based school reform, the vision of its proponents and why their agenda is not the best thing for children.

By Valerie Strauss  |  05:00 AM ET, 12/08/2010 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  Guest Bloggers, Guest Bloggers | Tags:  andy smarick, arne duncan, checker finn, chester finn, democrats for education reform, dfer, fordham institute, geoffrey canada, green dot charter schools, harlem children's zone, jeb bush, joel klein, kipp, kipp schools, market-based reform, michael bloomberg, michelle rhee, richard barth, rick hess, rick scott, school reform, steve barr, wendy kopp, whitney tilson

Posted at 06:00 AM ET, 11/09/2010

Harvard’s strange ‘Strange Bedfellows’ education event
By Valerie Strauss
You might think, or at least I would, that a ticketed discussion at the Harvard University Institute of Politics on education would include people with different views. But with Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush and John Podesta as the panel, the "discussion" will sound more like an echo chamber.

By Valerie Strauss  |  06:00 AM ET, 11/09/2010 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  School turnarounds/reform, School turnarounds/reform, School turnarounds/reform, School turnarounds/reform, School turnarounds/reform | Tags:  arne duncan, charter schools, education department, harvard, harvard university, institute of politics, iop, jeb bush, john podesta, margaret spellings, michelle rhee, no child left behind, obama education reform, president obama, race to the top, school reform

Posted at 01:30 PM ET, 09/23/2010

Ravitch: Why Fenty, Rhee really lost
By Valerie Strauss
Diane Ravitch, writing about Mayor Adrian Fenty's loss, says: "Journalists attributed Fenty’s loss to the power of the teachers’ union, but such an explanation implies that black voters, even in the privacy of the voting booth, lack the capacity to make an informed choice. When the Tea Party wins a race, journalists don’t write about who controlled their vote, but about a voter revolt; they acknowledge that those who turned out to vote had made a conscious decision."

By Valerie Strauss  |  01:30 PM ET, 09/23/2010 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  Diane Ravitch, Diane Ravitch, Diane Ravitch, Diane Ravitch | Tags:  D.C. schools, Diane Ravitch, adrian fenty, bill perkins, democrats for education reform, dfer, fenty loses, gray rhee, gray rhee summit, michelle rhee, school reform, tea party, teacher unions, vincent gray

Posted at 11:00 AM ET, 09/08/2010

School board president: Ed reformers ‘just don’t get it’
By Valerie Strauss
A school board president blasts current education reformers, saying "They simply just don’t get it. They don’t realize what true education is and they have no clue the challenges we face in helping students engage in it."

By Valerie Strauss  |  11:00 AM ET, 09/08/2010 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  School turnarounds/reform | Tags:  charlotte hummel, education reform, school reform, william penn school district

Posted at 06:00 AM ET, 08/06/2010

Principal: Not the change I had in mind
By Valerie Strauss
A principal writes: "I am still not over the sadness and anger I feel over what happened to my colleague, [principal] Joyce Irvine.... Parents are grateful for her leadership, she knows all of her students, she launched innovative programs, her teachers and her superintendent give her high marks, and even her U.S. senator has praised her work. And she has been fired."

By Valerie Strauss  |  06:00 AM ET, 08/06/2010 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  George Wood, George Wood, George Wood, George Wood | Tags:  George Wood, Joyce Irvine, Race to the top, education reform, principal fired, race to the top policies, school reform, vermont principal

Posted at 06:30 AM ET, 06/21/2010

Christian churches oppose Race to the Top, Obama blueprint
By Valerie Strauss
An extraordinary letter sent to President Obama and U.S. lawmakers by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA -- which represents churches that have a combined membership of 45 million people -- should erase any doubt that the opposition to the Obama administration's education policies is wide and deep.

By Valerie Strauss  |  06:30 AM ET, 06/21/2010 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  No Child Left Behind, No Child Left Behind, No Child Left Behind | Tags:  arne duncan and school reform, charter schools and pastoral letter, churches of christ, education reform, elementary and secondary school act and reauthorization, esea reauthorization, national council of the churches of christ, national council of the churches of christ in the usa, obama and blueprint and education reform, obama and school reform, pastoral letter, pastoral letter and obama and education, president obama's blueprint for education reform, race to the top, reauthorization of no child left behind

Posted at 11:30 AM ET, 06/10/2010

Reformers: Stop doing these 4 things
By Valerie Strauss
An expert on classroom instruction explains the four things school leaders have to stop doing immediately to improve teaching and student achievement.

By Valerie Strauss  |  11:30 AM ET, 06/10/2010 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  Learning | Tags:  block scheduling, great instruction, improving classroom instructions, john o'connor, mistakes in education reform, school reformers

Posted at 12:00 PM ET, 06/03/2010

Movies and School Reform: Lessons from ‘An Inconvenient Truth’
By Valerie Strauss
By Frederick M. Hess. I can’t recall how many times over the years I’ve heard from school reformers, "We need our own ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ " You know, a cinematic indictment of the educational status quo jarring enough to stir a lethargic public. Well, all of a sudden, we’ve got a whole bunch of them, and we’re about to see how much they matter.

By Valerie Strauss  |  12:00 PM ET, 06/03/2010 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  Guest Bloggers | Tags:  documentaries on education, education movies, education reform, frederick hess, guest bloggers, movies and school reform, the cartel and movie, the lottery and movie, waiting for superman

Posted at 08:00 AM ET, 04/29/2010

What does being “college and career ready” mean?
By Valerie Strauss
It is one of President Obama’s key education reform goals: Ensuring that all students who graduate high school are “college and career ready” by 2020 is one of President Obama's key education reform goals. But what does that mean?

By Valerie Strauss  |  08:00 AM ET, 04/29/2010 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  No Child Left Behind | Tags:  ESEA reauthorization, NCLB, Obama and education reform, college and career ready and obama, college and career ready,, what does "college and career ready mean"

Posted at 06:30 AM ET, 04/22/2010

Bill Gates's college tour
By Valerie Strauss
Bill Gates just finished his three-day 2010 College Tour, during which he went five of the country's most elite schools and urged the brightest minds to work on overcoming the world's biggest problems. In the United States, urban education is one of those problems, but Gates's own record on school reform is hardly stellar.

By Valerie Strauss  |  06:30 AM ET, 04/22/2010 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Tags:  Bill Gates, Bill Gates and college tour, gates foundation, gates foundation and education reform

Posted at 05:07 PM ET, 04/09/2010

Sorry Geoffrey Canada, but failure IS an option, a reality, and even a boon
By Valerie Strauss
By Diana Senechal. Calling for more school choice, Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, began a recent newspaper op-ed with the following: "Visitors to my public charter school often ask how the students feel about the signs on the walls that say: ’Failure is not an option.’ They are surprised to hear that the signs are really for the staff." There are two ethical problems with declaring that failure is not an option.

By Valerie Strauss  |  05:07 PM ET, 04/09/2010 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  Guest Bloggers | Tags:  Diana Senechal, Harlem Children's Zone, Harlem zone, education reform, guest bloggers, hcz, reform in Harlem

Posted at 11:19 PM ET, 03/18/2010

School restructuring and AYP
By Valerie Strauss
It’s a good thing that President Obama wants to eliminate the requirement in No Child Left Behind that required schools to prove that students were making “adequate yearly progress.” A new report shows one-third of the nation’s public schools failed to meet AYP targets in the 2008-09 school year. But Obama's faith in restructuring of schools that don't meet AYP is misplaced. An article by Alexander Russo explains some unexpected consequences of restructuring.

By Valerie Strauss  |  11:19 PM ET, 03/18/2010 |  Permalink  |  Comments ( 0)
Categories:  No Child Left Behind | Tags:  NCLB, No Child Left Behind, President Obama, restructuring schools; education reform