The Gadfly Daily’s week in review

The Education Gadfly / March 3, 2012

Here’s a quick look around at what Fordham’s bloggers had to say this week:

• “Judges simply assume that poor performance implies inadequate funding, and that layering more money on top of failing systems will improve student outcomes,” wrote Stretching the School Dollar’s Chris Tessone in his analysis of a New Hampshire bill to limit the courts’ role in school funding decisions.


• “Unlike many existing scholarship programs that award an attractive dollar tax credit for every dollar in contributions, Virginia would allow individuals and businesses to write off only 65 cents for every dollar they donate to a nonprofit scholarship organization,” noted Adam Emerson in his Choice Words critique of the Old Dominion State’s new tax credit scholarship program.


• “The question is not whether student achievement data should be used as one of several measures of teacher effectiveness, but rather how those data should be used and who is ultimately in the driver’s seat,” argued Kathleen Porter-Magee in her Common Core Watch essay against “principal-proofing” schools.


• “The idea behind gaming is to involve students in the learning process, which is probably teacher’s most difficult challenge,” explained Mike Lafferty on the Ohio Gadfly Daily, in his article on the use of computer games in math instruction.


• “Would you rather have a child you care about in a class of 28 with a highly effective teacher or a class of 23 with a mediocre teacher? Following the President's advice is a recipe for the latter,” warned Checker Finn in his Flypaper post on President Obama’s recommendation that states “get more teachers into our classrooms.”


• “A national curriculum is great; a nationalized one is not. And there’s a difference,” observed Board’s Eye View’s Peter Meyer in his reflection on criticisms of the Common Core.

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Category: Additional Topics