This is a guest post by my friend and colleague Lane Wright, Director of Policy Analysis at Education Post. He is focused on telling stories that help families understand how their schools are doing, how to make them better, and how policy plays a role. He’s a former journalist and former press secretary to Florida’s governor.… Continue reading Teachers, Can You Explain This Survey to Me? Because I’m Really Confused.
(This is a guest post by Pete Cook which originally appeared on his blog, “Retort: Correcting the Record on Education Reform.” Pete became involved in education reform in New Orleans Public Schools as a 2002 Teach For America corps member and has worked in various capacities at Teach For America, KIPP, TNTP and the Recovery School District.)… Continue reading UFT: Black Lives (Kinda) Matter
(This is a guest post by Pete Cook which originally appeared on his blog, “Retort: Correcting the Record on Education Reform.” Pete became involved in education reform in New Orleans Public Schools as a 2002 Teach For America corps member and has worked in various capacities at Teach For America, KIPP, TNTP and the Recovery School District.)… Continue reading A “Polite Cousin” of Hypocrisy
In response to my November 6 post, a reader wrote: If we want to see all schools get better, why keep steering people to “The Best” ones, thereby depriving them, and their locally zoned schools, the opportunity to truly flourish? Case in point, PS 191. With the amount of investment that will go into that… Continue reading Can Parents Really “Change” a School? Should They?
A consortium of 100 private schools, including New York City elites Dalton and Spence, have banded together to create a new kind of transcript for applying to college. Their proposed format would eschew grades and standardized test scores in favor of “different levels of mastery. Instead of a grade in algebra or geometry, the mastery… Continue reading Would a No-Grades Transcript Hurt or Help NYC College-Bound Students?
Analysts at the Fordham Foundation created a rubric for gauging the difficulty of firing ineffective teachers based on these three metrics: Does tenure protect veteran teachers from performance-based dismissal? How long does it take to dismiss an ineffective veteran teacher? How vulnerable is an ineffective veteran teacher’s dismissal to challenge? Look below (way below) to… Continue reading How Hard Is it To Dismiss Poorly-Performing Teachers?
Sometimes people ask me why I’m so passionate about education reform and I stumble through some cerebral gobbledygook about politics and policy. I should know better. The answer’s easy. It’s how my parents raised me and it’s why I’m writing for New York School Talk. Mom and Dad would laugh now if I labeled them… Continue reading Why I Write for a Blog Called ‘New York School Talk’
Let me explain. I am a single mom raising an intelligent radical-thinking boy. For me there were two factors in choosing the best school for my son. The first was location and the second was resources and supportive services. In 2011 the UFT and charter schools, let’s just say to my understanding at the time, were… Continue reading Why Did I Choose KIPP Infinity Elementary School in Harlem?
