- After all the tumult over Wisconsin's recall elections, what has changed? In a word? Nothing. Except, maybe, that confidence in the unions’ abilities to rally forces and gain support has been seriously shaken.
- New York City education officials breathed a tempered sigh of relief on Monday as the state’s 2010-11 test-score data were released. While proficiency rates are lamentably low (44 percent in reading and 57 percent in math across grades three through eight), Gotham’s gains slightly exceeded those across the state. (This is after they recalibrated the difficulty of the test last year—and saw proficiency rates plummet.)
- D.C. schools offer more than a tutorial on how to implement scaled school choice. The district may also provide tracking tips to the illusive secondary-level student improvement. In low-income Ward 7, secondary math rates have tripled since 2007. In Ward 8, they ticked up 4 percentage points (larger gains than seen in the well-off Ward 3).
- A tumultuous year, 2011 is. To date, nineteen states have replaced their school chiefs—with another five states conducting searches for new leaders.
- Bellwether sought to retroactively bestow Colorado with the Ed Reform Idol 2010 award this week. Its newly released report, “Recent Teacher Effectiveness Legislation: How Do the States Stack Up?” ranked the Centennial State’s legislation tops in 2010 (but below Indiana’s 2011 reforms).
- To what extent have Ohio’s leaders met the challenges and opportunities before them in K-12 education? And what needs to happen to ensure they do? Fordham has the answers in our Ohio team’s recent brief “After the Budget, What Next?”
- Inklings of reform can be seen in LAUSD’s stalwart United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). Currently, NewTLA—a progressive group within the union—holds over 25 percent of the elected leadership seats in UTLA’s governing body.
