- Michigan Governor Rick Snyder isn’t likely to set any Iowa cornfields flame with his kinda-sorta candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination (though Fordham’s Brandon Wright will be ready to give him the Eduwatch 2016 treatment if and when he throws his hat in). But he’s continuing to bolster an interesting policy profile with his new proposal to divide the Detroit school district, Solomon-like, in two. The system is both a ghastly failure of public education (just 6 percent of its high schoolers are rated proficient in math) and a sinkhole of red ink, and Snyder’s initiative could help clear some of the $2 billion in bond and operating debt off its books. Reformers are already working to reshape the city’s worst-performing schools, and more such innovation might be necessary in the coming years.
- When we imagine a child plagued by a lack of educational choice and opportunity, it’s probably one living in a city like Detroit. But while the woes of the urban school district can’t be ignored, kids living far from the bright lights might have it just as bad. Of the fifty counties in the United States with the greatest percentages of child poverty, forty-eight are rural, according to a new piece in Education Next. The schools serving those children are too often understaffed and under-resourced, helping contribute to a cycle of deprivation that can be hard to break. The article offers some hope in the form of digital learning (which can help provide students in remote areas with otherwise-inaccessible courses and instruction) and apprenticeships (a fixture of Fordham’s own program for upward mobility). Mostly, the article demonstrates that rural education reform needs to be on the nation’s agenda, too.
- “I want to modify the sentence so that I can live with it,” said Judge Jerry W. Baxter last week, explaining his decision to reduce the jail terms of three Atlanta Public Schools administrators who were convicted in connection with the largest cheating scandal in American history. The original sentence of seven years imprisonment, along with the entire notion of penalizing academic dishonesty so severely, struck many as troubling. Those disturbed included, eventually, Baxter himself, who remarked at resentencing that “when a judge goes home and he keeps thinking over and over that something’s wrong, something is usually wrong.” In dealing humbly with the disgraced educators, he has proven an excellent teacher himself, handing out vitally needed lessons in both accountability and the quality of mercy.
- It’s said that many a true word is spoken in jest, and John Oliver’s certainly a funny guy. His tirade against the excesses of standardized testing, in which he eviscerates dancing school mascots and the weird Common Core logo (which none of us will ever look at the same way again), is undoubtedly a masterful and hilarious piece of performance art. As public commentary, though, it’s mostly bunk. Obviously, it’s too much to expect the new Common Core-aligned assessments—or, let’s face it, any assessments—to be greeted with roses by students and teachers. But while we’ve been blustering about them, the tests have already shown measurable gains in math and reading among states that began implementation early. If kids are tied up in knots at the prospect of filling out bubbles on a page, it’s time to ask what adults can do to help alleviate their anxiety. But if Oliver wants to compose a pithy, fifteen-minute rant about the persistently failing schools that have consigned generations of American students to lousy educations and blighted futures, we’ll be waiting.
