Replication, rural, resistance, reauthorization, and revamping

yes Andy Smarick / May 2, 2013

Philly’s Schools Phuture?

During the research for my book, one of the most interesting and depressing tidbits I uncovered was that the handful of high-performing, high-poverty traditional public schools described in No Excuses had not been grown by their districts. The central recommendation of my book is that the “four principles of chartering” should be applied across all three sectors; that includes growing great schools of all types (charter, private, and district). Charter growth has been happening via CMOs for more than a decade now, but the Philadelphia Schools Partnership has found a number of district schools to expand. Interesting development.

Addressing Non-urban Poverty

It appears that, slowly but surely, the education-reform community is paying more and more attention to the needs of low-income kids in rural areas (more on this from Bellwether soon). For years now, the primary focus has been on America’s cities. Maybe it should come as no surprise that Teach for America is stepping forward; TFA has long had a number of non-urban outposts. Its new program is designed to train TFA alum for school leadership positions in rural America. This is a tiny program, at least initially, but it’s a start.  Good luck, and well done.

Impervious to Competition?

Probably the bitterest pill I’ve had to swallow as a conservative ed reformer is that competition (from charters and choice programs) has had a positive but negligible influence on

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Replication, rural, resistance, reauthorization, and revamping

Pell grants shouldn’t pay for remedial college

yes Michael J. Petrilli / May 1, 2013

Everyone from President Barack Obama to U.S. Representative Paul Ryan to Bill Gates seems to have a plan for improving the Federal Pell Grant Program for higher education.

Worthy though some of these efforts may be, none get to the crux of the problem: A huge proportion of this $40 billion annual federal investment is flowing to people who simply aren’t prepared to do college-level work. And this is perverting higher education’s mission, suppressing completion rates, and warping the country’s K–12 system.

About two-thirds of low-income community-college students—and one-third of poor students at four-year colleges—need remedial (a.k.a. “developmental”) education, according to Complete College America, a nonprofit group. But it’s not working: Less than 10 percent of low-income students who start in remedial education graduate from community college within three years, and just 35 percent of such students earn a four-year degree within six years.

What if the government decreed that, starting three years hence, students would only be eligible for Pell aid if enrolled in credit-bearing college courses, thus disqualifying remedial education for support?

One could foresee various possible outcomes. Let’s start with the positive. Ambitious,

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Pell grants shouldn’t pay for remedial college

First Bell 5-1-13

yes Pamela Tatz / May 1, 2013

A first look at today's most important education news:

Yesterday, the parent-trigger bill failed in the Florida Senate for the second year in a row. (Education Week)

The Walton Family Foundation has furnished StudentsFirst with $8 million. (Los Angeles Times and Charters & Choice)

The nonprofit NewSchools venture fund, which directs donations to charters and other education groups, has teamed up with a for-profit venture fund. (New York Times)

The final Next Generation Science Standards are attracting criticism. (Curriculum Matters)

The MOOC provider Coursera will offer teacher-education courses for K–12 instructors. (All Things D)

Technology tools and applications to teach students “grittiness” are emerging. (Digital)

Online testing problems have frozen Indiana’s statewide standardized testing for a second straight day. (Digital Education)

A new survey finds that the Department of Education is the fifteenth-most innovative mid-size agency, out of twenty; NASA topped the list. (Politics K–12)

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First Bell 5-1-13

Bill Bennett on the state of American education

yes Michelle Gininger / April 30, 2013

Dr. Bennett recently spoke at the Fordham Institute on the state of American education. Photo by Gage Skidmore

William J. Bennett, former U.S. education secretary (and former NEH chairman, drug czar, widely published author, radio host, and political commentator) recently spoke at the Fordham Institute on the state of American education.

On the thirtieth anniversary of A Nation at Risk (watch our video retrospective on the paper here), Dr. Bennett talked about where we’ve come with NAEP scores and other indicators—with real gains in fourth grade, modest improvement in eighth, and none whatsoever in twelfth. (That’s true of other high school indicators, too.)

Bennett noted, too, that school choice has made great strides, technology is playing a promising (but as yet unfulfilled) role in education, and Americans now know the difference between teachers and teachers unions. Mostly good news—but not all. Our worst subject, he made clear, is history (U.S. history in particular), as well as civics—and offered the excellent work of E.D. Hirsch and the Core Knowledge Foundation as at least a partial solution to this acute problem.

When moderator Chester Finn asked whether the Common Core standards are good for the country (despite some federal entanglement), Bennett answered in the affirmative: “

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Bill Bennett on the state of American education