Latest Articles
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Rhee Engineering Education
Has D.C.’s radical experiment in school reform really worked? A review of The Bee Eater: Michelle Rhee Takes on the Nation’s Worst School District, by Richard Whitmire
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Education Entrepreneurs on the Potomac
A new generation of social entrepreneurs is moving into public education–and the Obama administration is cheering.
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How Public School Teaching Got Cool
Teach for America’s 20th anniversary bash in Washington, DC, proved that public education is increasingly a destination for the best-and-brightest.
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High Schools: Small is Still Beautiful
Breaking up big, dysfunctional high schools into smaller units looked like a reform that failed. Look again.
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Raising Standards? Raising Dropout Rates?
President Obama wants to lower the dropout rate. He also wants to raise academic standards. But does one come at the expense of the other?
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The Testing Industry Under Common Core Standards
The new common core standards could be a boon to public school students. But will the standardized testing industry–and the states that employ it–create new tests to that support the standards?
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Sweating the Big Stuff: Scaling Up Charter Management Organizations
The extraordinary demands of educating disadvantaged students to higher standards, the challenges of attracting the talent required to do that work, the burden of finding and financing facilities, and often aggressive opposition from the traditional public education system have made the trifecta of scale, quality, and financial sustainability hard for charter management organizations to hit.
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Five Myths About Teacher Merit Pay
Originally appeared in The Washington Post. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says paying public school teachers based on their performance is his “highest priority,” and he plans to dole out hundreds of millions of dollars to states and school systems that embrace the idea. In the District, Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has made such reform a…
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(Mandatory) School Choice in New York and Boston
By requiring many students to choice the public schools they attend, New York and Boston have redefined the school choice debate, to the benefit of students and their families