Thomas B Fordham Institute - Advancing Educational Excellence

Agitating, standards, charters, teachers, and widgets

yes Andy Smarick / April 4, 2013

• Just got back from a great trip to Kansas City (part of my National Agitation Tour). The Kauffman Foundation is doing very important work (check out these videos), and their team members were terrific hosts. You can scroll through the audience’s take on my book talk here. Per my pushing for the replacement of the failed urban district, Marc Porter Magee, temporarily at the helm of the SS Hess-blog, turns in a good piece about the need for cage-busting leaders to change the system, not just break its rules.
• Common Core (and assessments!) guru KPM teamed up with Sol Stern on National Review Online to explain to conservatives why the new common standards aren’t to be feared or pilloried. Tom Friedman’s column explains why the U.S. needs tougher standards and expectations, even (especially?) in our more comfortable (complacent?) middle-class communities.
• If you care about urban schooling, charters, and/or governance reform, you ought to give the latest report from Fordham and Public Impact a read. It looks into charter performance in five cities and offers lots of reason for encouragement and sound advice for improving policy and practice. Its prescription (smart authorizing, closures, replications, strong support environment, etc.) mirrors that of my book. When you combine these lessons with recent findings from CREDO’s many city-

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  Category: Charters & Choice / Curriculum & Instruction / Standards, Testing, & Accountability / Teachers

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  Agitating, standards, charters, teachers, and widgets

The good news from Pakistan

yes Chester E. Finn, Jr. / April 2, 2013

Sir Michael Barber is no stranger to education reform—indeed, he is well known to serious policy reformers, education leaders, and wonks in the U.S. and around the globe, thanks to his key roles in British reforms under Tony Blair, his penetrating analyses of diverse systems while at McKinsey, his writings on “deliverology” and other education topics, and—most recently—his work as “chief education adviser” at Pearson.

What practically nobody (outside Pakistan) knew about Barber until a week or two ago is that he has also served these past three years as “special representative on education in Pakistan” for Britain’s Department for International Development (the U.K. counterpart to USAID). In that capacity, he has spearheaded a remarkable ed-reform initiative—indeed, an education transformation, albeit just getting beyond the pilot stage—in Punjab, the largest province in Pakistan with 94 million people. Considering that nearly all the news about Pakistan that reaches American eyes and ears is so grim—political upheavals, terrorism, assassinations, floods, poverty, corruption, illiteracy—I was blown away to learn that Michael and his team of change-agents in the Punjab government, with help from several international donors, have been successfully beavering away at this hugely ambitious endeavor to bring a decent education to children throughout that vast chunk of south Asia.

Now he’s described that project in a short, readable book that is informative and

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The good news from Pakistan

Quixote, jobs, innovation, and Catholic schools

yes Andy Smarick / April 2, 2013

Another effort is afoot to turn Title I, at least partially, into a scholarship program for low-income kids. I’d love to see this happen. Anything we can do to create more accessible high-quality seats for disadvantaged kids gets my vote. But this windmill has seen tilting knights since the 1970s. Someday we’ll get our Dulcinea del Toboso. But the Galicians of this administration would sooner leave such plans bruised and battered.

Three very interesting job-related items!

• The very cool, very influential TNTP is looking for a VP of Strategy, Systems, and Policy. The person would lead the organization’s educator evaluation and other human capital systems design and implementation work. They’re looking for a bold, innovative leader with a breadth of experience who can quickly build credibility with high-level clients.
• New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO) is looking for a Managing Director of Human Capital Investments. This person will manage NSNO’s relationship with the nation’s leading human-capital organizations and will direct a $13 million grant program related to educator evaluation and compensation. If you’re interested or know someone who might be, contact HR Director, Jenny Katz, jenny@nsno.org.
• NSNO’s Neerav Kingsland is also involved with a terrific brand-new human-capital organization called Hackstack EDU. The group, which just launched, uses an online platform and some innovative methods to match amazing teachers with amazing schools. It’s a free service allowing each interested teacher to create a personal profile, find schools that

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  Category: Additional Topics / Charters & Choice / Governance

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  Quixote, jobs, innovation, and Catholic schools

SIG, tests, and state legislative proposals

yes Andy Smarick / March 20, 2013

• The U.S. Department of Education just announced more SIG money going out the door. At a TBFI event late last year, the Department and I tussled about the results to date, which showed that more than a third of participating schools (already among the lowest performing in the nation) had gotten worse despite this multi-BILLION dollar program. I sadly predicted these grim results several years ago—not because I’m clairvoyant but because stacks of research over decades showed that turnarounds aren’t a reliable or scalable strategy for generating more high-quality seats. But the Department remains bullish; the release says, “Early findings show positive momentum and progress in many SIG schools.”
  
  Many of us are looking forward to thoroughly analyzing the program’s effects, but we’ve been in a holding pattern. The Department still hasn’t released school-level results from Year 1 yet (even though those tests were given two years ago), and we’ve not yet received any results from Year 2 (even though those tests were given a year ago). Forgive the quick snark, but maybe we just have to wait until close of business on the Friday before Thanksgiving week again to get results.
  
  
• If you follow the common-assessments consortia, make sure to read this post by Catherine Gewertz about PARCC’s and SB’s plans to maintain financial sustainability when federal dollars run out. This is just one of the

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  Category: Charters & Choice / Curriculum & Instruction / Governance / Standards, Testing, & Accountability

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  SIG, tests, and state legislative proposals