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Edwize goes after a Brooklyn charter school with a pipe wrench over the firing of teacher Nichole Byrne Lau, allegedly for questioning the school’s pay practices.  (This came, by the way, after Lau received overwhelming praise from her principal, other faculty members and students.)  The school founder and CEO, who apparently never learned the first […] Read more »

Alexander Russo thinks out loud about the Gates/Buffett philanthropic leviathan: I wonder — as many others probably do — how the new money is going to be divided between education and health. Whatever the division, I wonder whether an even bigger amount of money to give away every year will help the program folks at […] Read more »

From time to time I’ve mentioned the disastrous Kansas City experiment, which tends to be a rallying point for those who dare to contradict the Kozol doctrine that increased spending will cure all that ails American education.  Looks like somebody didn’t get the memo, because we have a Kansas City for the new millennium: Sausalito […] Read more »

The colorful minds behind School Me! are still off vacationing, so we haven’t heard a lot of commentary from them yet on the progress of the takeover plan.  But one thing is clear: Villaraigosa has lost the LA Times editorial board on the idea. United Teachers Los Angeles opposes merit pay for top-performing teachers. It […] Read more »

Taking remedial classes in college is pretty typical for most high school graduates.  The Dallas Morning News explains why: The answer lies partly in the unique history of American education, according to Michael Kirst, an education professor at Stanford University. "We built two mass, disconnected systems. The K-12 system built up on its own, and […] Read more »

Get Schooled has a pretty interesting blog discussion on this subject.  Check out the comment thread for some entertaining thoughts on both sides of the debate.  Read more »

If there ever was a time to expect the unexpected, it was last week when Governor Napolitano (D-Arizona) signed three new school choice programs into law, and when the overwhelmingly Democratic Rhode Island General Assembly approved a scholarship tax credit program for low income families.  It was a banner week for school choice advocates, and […] Read more »

So last week I put together a lengthy post on how the spread of technology can help resolve the ongoing problems in textbook selection.  What timing!  Melissa Wiley, who wrote here, here and here on the related issue of selecting a homeschool curriculum, also has an Edspresso article out today on the same subject.  (Side […] Read more »

We recently reported that high schools may start to resemble universities before long.  More evidence of this can be found here: Now that Wildcat Secondary School has a building and a staff, it’s ready for the most important part: students. Enrollment has begun for the only charter school in Arizona sponsored by a state university, […] Read more »

The San Juan Unified School District northeast of Sacramento is making some noteworthy changes to its public school choice program: The San Juan Unified School District board unanimously approved major changes to its open enrollment policy Tuesday night, likely affecting how many students will win admission each year to the most popular schools. The new […] Read more »