A 4th of July Salute to a Courageous Judge: Remembering Paul Egly
My friend Dick Johnson sent along a “what should we celebrate” list for July 4. It includes “the waves of immigrants from all parts of the world who struggled to accept each other and find a place in this country,” escaped slaves and their allies, working people who championed reforms and the right to organize, […]
How To Make the Next LAUSD Superintendent Successful
The Los Angeles Unified School District is—once again—in search of a leader. There have been nine superintendents in the last two decades, much more turnover and change in direction than a thriving organization can withstand. The school board is rightly concerned with more instability. In recent days, the notoriously fractious LAUSD board has been making […]
Retirement, Week 2: Driven to write about Boyle Heights protests
This isn’t going so well. I am having news withdrawal symptoms. I look at some of the Twitter feed and the email subscriptions I get every day and think them boring. But my fingers want to be on a keyboard, and there are ideas out there that need exploring. I’ve been fascinated by the Boyle […]
Annotating the News 11/10/13
Poorer than we thought. Using a calculation that factors in California’s relatively high cost of living, the state has the highest poverty rate in the country. According to Census Bureau, 23.8 percent of Californians live in poverty where the official poverty rate is 16.5 percent. Even using the official calculation, a quarter of the […]
Annotating the News 11/1/13
I’ve been away, so education periodicals have been stacking up on my desk, and on a balmy Friday night I am multitasking as I watch the USC-Oregon State game (Holy Cow! They won. Fight ON!) K12 Inc. saw its stock price tank from a high of $37.85 to $17.60 after criticism by hedge fund manager […]
In “Austerity” Mark Blyth Traces the History and Politics of a Dangerous Idea
Mark Blyth took a career detour to be a co-editor of The Transformation of Great American School Districts. So it was with great anticipation that I read his new book, Austerity. I recommend it to educators as a valuable corrective to the belief that boosting educational standards will increase the life chances of American students […]
In the Orchard of Education Technology
Amending a PACE Policy Brief: I got in trouble at a meeting recently for repeating the opening assertion of the policy brief I wrote for Policy Analysis for California Education. [View or download brief] As the brief says, “education technology has always over-promised and under-delivered.” The assertion, which is reasonably backed up by history and […]
To Make Students Learn, Make Schools Smart First
I learned a thing or three on last Friday, and it’s taken me a week to digest it all. For reasons unknown, I was invited to meet with some very bright teachers who are advisors to the California Council of Science and Technology, the state analogue to the prestigious National Science Academy. The CCST has […]
4-26-13: Annotating the News
Capacity building as a precursor to testing The L.A. Times has seen the elephant in the room. In a switch from its past obsession with test score accountability, the paper editorialized on Monday that we ought to be paying more attention to what students are supposed to be learning and particularly to the roll-out of […]
Higher Education Faces an “Avalanche”
A new report by Sir Michael Barber and his colleagues at Pearson, Katelyn Donnelly and Saad Rizvi, should be on the reading list of everyone thinking about the future of higher education. An Avalanche is Coming describes—somewhat breathlessly—the forces that are about to reshape colleges and universities worldwide. Globalization and technology are game changers, they […]
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