President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have made it clear that expanding charter schools is a critical part of successful education reform. “States that do not have public charter laws or put artificial caps on the growth of charter schools will jeopardize their applications under the Race to the Top Fund,” Duncan said in June. But two major studies on charter schools released this year had dramatically different findings.

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Do Charter Schools Deserve The Spotlight?

New Tool to Track Charters If you haven’t already caught wind of this, the Center for Education Reform created an online charter directory. It’s useful if you are interested in learning more about charter demographics or charters in your state….

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Eliza Krigman responded to Do Charter Schools Deserve The Spotlight? on December 9, 2009 04:03 PM

In my mind, charters have not lived up to their billing Put the Spotlight Where it Belongs The charter school issue must poke at some dark place in the American psyche because we love to argue about it with so much passion – and so little logic.

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Steve Peha responded to Do Charter Schools Deserve The Spotlight? on December 9, 2009 02:20 PM

FROM SIDESHOW TO CENTER STAGE Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:”"; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Not so long ago it was easy for critics to dismiss charter schools as a sideshow in urban education. But the movement has come of age.

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David L. Kirp responded to Do Charter Schools Deserve The Spotlight? on December 8, 2009 12:34 PM

Charter promote choice for disadvantaged Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:”"; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Charter schools absolutely deserve the attention of the Obama Administration.

The answer is an emphatic yes. Expansion of high-quality charter schooling is well worth the attention it’s getting from Obama and Duncan. But let’s understand what that “attention” actually is, and why it’s justified.

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Nelson Smith responded to Do Charter Schools Deserve The Spotlight? on December 7, 2009 08:01 AM

The parents of nearly 60,000 students in Los Angeles have taken their children out of traditional public schools and put them into public charter schools-a clear sign that the public is not confused about the promise that charter schools hold for their children, despite the recent release of two studies that appear to have conflicting results. Ten years ago in Los Angeles, there were fewer than 5,000 children in public charter schools. Twelve years ago only four or five charter management organizations (CMOs) existed, and today there are over 20 high-performing CMOs in the country.

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Michael D. Piscal responded to Do Charter Schools Deserve The Spotlight? on December 7, 2009 08:00 AM

a recent report by Education Sector raised questions about the ability of successful charter schools and charter management organizations to replicate their success on a large scale The Administration has been absolutely correct to emphasize innovation in education – but wrong to equate innovation with charter schools. We all know there are some great charter schools

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Dennis Van Roekel responded to Do Charter Schools Deserve The Spotlight? on December 7, 2009 07:59 AM

Recently the Federal Communications Commission asked for public comment on whether the Children’s Television Act has been effective in bringing useful educational programming to television. The notice of inquiry, about protecting children and empowering parents in an evolving media landscape, goes even further and asks whether the government should have some role in encouraging educational programming on the Web.

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Education In New Media: What’s The Right Role For Government?

Forty years ago when Sesame Street was created to help disadvantaged preschool children prepare for school it was a groundbreaking experiment, proving that the power of television could be harnessed to educate our nation’s children. While in some ways the world of children’s media has changed completely since the creation of Sesame Street four decades ago and passage of the Children’s Television Act in 1990, in many other ways, it’s exactly the same. Media content—whether it’s delivered through the television screen, a hand-held device or in a video game—can play a powerful role in children’s education

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Gary Knell responded to Education In New Media: What’s The Right Role For Government? on November 30, 2009 07:29 AM

Perhaps, one of the most useful features on WiZiQ is the ‘Class Recordings’. And we understand that our users were expecting improvements in the quality of the recordings and the addition of a few drops like inclusion of screen sharing, and audio/video files in the recordings too.

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New and Improved Recordings for WiZiQ Premium Members

Bridesmaids Gift Ideas That Will Sure Please BridesmaidsHappy, enthusiastic and supportive, your bridesmaids have helped in making your big day a momentous one. As active as wedding planners, your bridesmaids have set aside their personal things they need to do just to help you get through from all your wedding planning and preparation. Thus, thanking them through giving bridesmaids gifts is the least thing you could do show that you really appreciate their time and effort in participating on th

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Bridesmaids Gift Ideas That Will Sure Please Bridesmaids

Whether you are taking advantage of the economic times to make a career move or if you have been laid off from your job, by many accounts, this is a great time to reevaluate your options and move ahead toward a career that will provide you with the fulfillment you seek. The following list offers resources for career changing, career and skill assessments, tools to help you create awesome resumes and cover letters, information on changing careers later in life, moving into a non-profit job, and o

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100 Places to Plan & Research Your Next Career Move

In the times before the Web, if you sought to hire computer games, you had to go out to the shop, roam round interminable displays to come across the right one, and then dash it back the day after to avoid having to pay late fees. With the new convenience of web computer game rental, this is finally a thing of the past. We do suggest you go to our awesome website for rent games online products! This new type of facility grants you the freedom to have fun playing your favored choices avoidi

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Make the Most at that Web Computer Game Leasing Service

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!There are a lot of very effective oils and Home remedies for stretch marks that both reduce their effect and their appearance over time. You can make them virtually invisible and very hard to see to the naked eye and there is a lot that you can do, especially in the suitable and privacy of your own house, to limit the impact that they will have on your life with natural solutions and Home remedies for stretch marks

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How To Remove Stretch Marks Using Home Remedies

‘Crowdsourcing,’ the notion of using the wisdom of the crowd for sites like Wikipedia, could be making its way into academe as a grading method that holds students more accountable. A professor at Duke University plans to test just that this fall, when she leaves the evaluation of class assignments up to her students, using crowdsourcing to make students responsible for grading each other.

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Duke Professor Uses ‘Crowdsourcing’ to Grade – Erica Hendry, Chronicle of Higher Education

The question is not fairness (it is of course fair to require something of states for signficant resources), the question is whether states will have the political will to aggresively implement bold reforms which offend some keepers of the status quo. Today, there is lots of rhetoric around the primacy of the interests of kids but still too little action in that regard.

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Margaret Spellings responded to Are The ‘Race To The Top’ Requirements Fair? on August 3, 2009 03:37 PM

Over and over, education policy has been decided not on the basis of what’s best for kids, but what’s “fair” for adults. It’s the chief symptom of a system that always seems to have its priorities backwards. The Race to the Top requirements, on the other hand, mark an ambitious and frankly courageous effort to knock some sense back into the education system.

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Ariela Rozman responded to Are The ‘Race To The Top’ Requirements Fair? on August 3, 2009 02:59 PM

President Obama already has demonstrated his knowledge that a state’s laws on the use of student data do not always determine what occurs in practice at the school district level. He demonstrated this knowledge when, in his first major policy speech on education, he singled out the Long Beach Unified School District in California for its effective use of data to improve instruction and close achievement gaps.

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Christopher J. Steinhauser responded to Are The ‘Race To The Top’ Requirements Fair? on August 3, 2009 08:03 AM

Blackboard has launched a service for student identity verification, powered by technology from Acxiom, a company that specializes in interactive marketing and risk mitigation services. The Acxiom Identify-X service allows institutions to deploy an enhanced verification program that integrates with Blackboard’s course management system, Blackboard Learn. After students log into the Blackboard platform and access a course assessment, Acxiom’s technology will periodically and randomly present real-time challenge questions that only the enrolled student will know how to answer.

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Blackboard Releases Student Identification Tool Using Acxiom Technology – Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal