- Uber-effective charter leaders Judy Burton and Dacia Toll took to U.S. News this week to argue that charters and standards go hand in hand. Both reforms grew from the same analysis of and frustration over low-performing American schools. Charter advocates understand that we need to set high expectations for teachers and students; we also know that the Common Core does that, allowing American students everywhere to be ready for college and, more importantly, the world beyond. To be sure, the transition will be difficult at times. But, as Theodore Roosevelt said, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.”
- The New York Times editorial board penned an op-ed last week calling for a stronger school turnaround plan for the city. The impetus for and target of the piece was Mayor de Blasio’s long-anticipated blueprint to rescue struggling schools, which the paper deemed imprecise and almost surely doomed to fail. A prominent feature of the plan is to add wraparound services to low-performing schools over the next three years, including mental health and dental treatment. But because these kids are struggling now, a three-year plan seems tone deaf—especially when the solution has a poor track record. Given how strenuously the current administration is trying to roll back and negate the gains of Bloomberg and Klein, the criticism is deserved.
- The Wall Street Journal reports that, because U.S. students’ math scores are so much lower than foreign students’, some high-profile universities are ranking stateside test takers separately on the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), the assessment used for entry to business schools. Out of a possible 51, Asian students have a mean score of 45. U.S. students? A paltry 35. This sort of feels like affirmative action for all American kids. Not all the news this week is bleak, though; The Washington Post separately says that the math scores of our Hispanic students are going up. So, yes, we continue to make progress with our disadvantaged students, but we need to learn to walk and chew gum and make more progress at the top end, too.
- Last week’s huge GOP surge means an altered education-policy landscape, both nationally and in the states, says Education Week. Congressional Republicans, who now have majorities in the House and Senate, announced an aggressive plan to overhaul No Child Left Behind, among other things. And newly elected state Republicans, who are in complete control in almost half of the states in the country, are sure to further conservative ed reforms, especially school choice programs. None of this is new to Gadfly readers, but it’s worth repeating: A strong year for school reform is on the horizon.
