Jeb Bush on education reform

yes Chester E. Finn, Jr. / November 28, 2012

Jeb Bush pushed hard for putting the interests of children first. Photo by Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/MCT/Getty Images

I don’t know whether his hat is edging into the 2016 presidential election ring, but I do know that Jeb Bush gave a heck of an education keynote on Tuesday morning at the national summit convened in Washington by his Florida-based Foundation for Excellence in Education.

At this annual bipartisan-but-predominantly-Republican soiree aimed at state legislators and other key ed-policy decision makers—this year’s was by far the largest and grandest of the five they’ve held so far—Bush pushed hard for putting the interests of children first and did so in language plainly intended to appeal across party lines. A later session, which I had the pleasure of “moderating,” brought much the same message from John Podesta of the Center for American Progress. Though nobody expects Podesta to vote Bush for president (or anything else), in practice they agree on about 90 percent of the ed-reform policy agenda and maybe 70 percent of the strategy for attaining and sustaining it.

Bush opened by citing Charles Murray’s new book and lamenting the loss of upward

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Jeb Bush on education reform

The grand slam for New Jersey charter schools

yes Andy Smarick / November 27, 2012

It is difficult to overstate the findings from CREDO’s just-released study of charter schools in New Jersey. The stakes could not have been higher, and the results could not have been better, especially in Newark.

Charter opponents will find these results impossible to dismiss.

But first, consider the forces aligned against the charter sector in the Garden State. Charter schools are frequently under attack across the nation, but the aggression has been particularly acute in New Jersey of late.

Critics of reform in Newark accuse charter supporters of trying to “privatize” education and worse. Nearly as fierce has been the assault from anti-charter forces in the suburbs.

Then there are the many powerful establishment organizations—membership associations and so forth—that oppose charters to the hilt.

I seriously, if unwittingly, raised the stakes in recent days. I pointed out the predictably dismal turnaround results from the federal SIG program, arguing that a charter new-start and replication/explanation strategy was far likelier to lead to more high-performing seats.

Then I wrote a piece for the NY Daily News, in which I put the Newark school district on notice, arguing that charters—which provide far better alternatives for the city’s disadvantaged kids—could replace the district.

Finally, CREDO, a Stanford-based research center, was apparently nearing the conclusion of a long-term study of New Jersey charters.

Several years ago, this organization famously found that nationwide, charter results were

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The grand slam for New Jersey charter schools

Catching up from the break

yes Andy Smarick / November 26, 2012

I had an op-ed run this morning in the New York Daily News about the strengths of the new union contract in Newark and what to do when the district is still unable to generate improved results.  The Economist has interesting thoughts on the contract here.

Evidently, Dr. Ravitch and I agree about something.  Along those lines, you might want to spend a little time on this New Yorker magazine article about Dr. Ravitch’s career development and her current views and activities.

Indiana’s high court looks at the constitutionality of the state’s new scholarship program (I spill a good bit of ink on the history of this subject in Chapter 8 of my book).  IN was serious about accountability, inclusive of private schools, under State Superintendent Tony Bennett.  I hope that the court will take that into account…and that Bennett’s successor is similarly inclined.

BIG aspirations in Cleveland.  The city has very far to go.  I’d love to see city leaders take a new approach.

Great example from Washington, D.C. of how a charter sector can methodically replace an urban district.  Under-enrolled and low-performing district schools are closed and new charters open and expand.  I once read a comprehensive playbook for this…

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Catching up from the break

Picky parents, Nomad Mary, and feelings of cognitive dissonance

yes Terry Ryan / November 19, 2012

My colleague Mike Petrilli has written a fantastic book in The Diverse Schools Dilemma. It chronicles the struggles, tensions, and emotions that he and his wife experienced in trying to find diverse, yet high-performing, elementary schools for their two boys in the D.C. metro area.  Mike’s dilemma is one shared by many socially-conscious middle-class parents: How can we provide a great education for our own kids while at the same time supporting schools that serve a diverse (economically, socially, and racially) group of students? And the greatest show of support you can give a school is to deliberately entrust your own children to it.

As Mike documents, this is not an easy dilemma to resolve; sometimes the chosen path is filled with doubt, even regrets.

As I read Mike’s book, I kept thinking to myself how I wished all parents gave as much thought and concern to choosing where to send their kids to school as did he and his wife. If this were the case, there would be little need for education reformers—which brings me to the cognitive dissonance I have been feeling lately.

Mike’s book came out the same week that my colleagues and I in Ohio released a new report on Student Nomads: Mobility in Ohio’s Schools. For that report, researchers from the Columbus-based 

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Picky parents, Nomad Mary, and feelings of cognitive dissonance