December 2, 2009
When is a charter law not a charter law? When is a charter school not a charter school? Ask Mississippi. Like a thief in the night, July 1st of this year came and went, slipping out the back door with the Magnolia State’s charter law as legislators allowed it to sunset without even a word. […]
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November 24, 2009
Despite the adage that you get more bees with honey, I will not sit idly by and allow Congressman Jose Serrano, Democrat from Bronx, NY, write an opinion for The Washington Post that is layered with obfuscation and misperceptions, without calling him on it. Serrano is suddenly the focus of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program‘s […]
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September 28, 2009
Tomorrow, on his continuing education tour, Education Secretary Arne Duncan will be joined in Philadelphia by two gentlemen who because of their obvious differences on many levels are called the Odd Couple of education. I applaud strange bedfellows – when they make things happen for kids. With this one, I’m not so sure. The first […]
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September 24, 2009
“Explosive” results of a comprehensive, multi-year analysis of charter schools in New York City find students in charters more poor, more disadvantaged and from homes with lesser educational background, but closing the achievement gap by as much as 86 percent in math and 66 percent in reading. So why is that news relegated to Page […]
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September 17, 2009
Senator Durbin used Wednesday’s hearing on Washington, DC public schools to broadcast what feels like a last ditch effort on his part to remove continuation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program from consideration, and frankly, making thinly veiled accusations of mismanagement and fraud when he himself admits to lacking all of the details speaks of […]
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September 4, 2009
(This post originally appeared on Politico‘s The Arena) The noise about President Obama’s impending speech to schoolchildren Tuesday is muffling the real issues. While the President has every right to address any segment of the nation on any subject – and we all have the right to voluntarily listen or not – it’s both the […]
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August 4, 2009
If the Race to the Top is to have an influence on making sure schools get better, someone has got to figure out how districts can be held accountable directly for their behavior when it comes to reform. Nowhere is this more clear than in South Carolina’s Richland School District – an area where the […]
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July 21, 2009
It looks like RNC Chariman Michael Steele beat us to the punch and hit one out of the park for DC kids on last night’s Hardball when he pointed out the disconnect between President Obama’s incredible speech to the NAACP and his near sweeping under the rug of the successful DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. “You […]
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July 17, 2009
A challenge to the NAACP, African-American parents and all Americans… To rousing applause, the president gave what was perhaps his best education speech to date last night, making it clear that “government programs alone…” won’t solve our problems, instead asking this community in particular to adopt “a new mind set”, one that doesn’t tolerate failure. […]
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