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Florida’s Online Option
Education reform often appears a zero-sum battle , one that pits crusaders demanding accountability and choice against much of the traditional education establishment, including teachers unions. The...
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Race to the Test Due Today — What’s Needed Going Forward
(This post also appears on The Quick and the Ed.) Today is the deadline for the $350 million “Race to the Test” competition. Proposals for a $320 million fund for comprehensive assessment systems (two...
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Seven Reasons Why the Assessment Consortia Will Matter More than Race to the Top
(This post also appears on The Quick and the Ed.) Four years from now it will be clear that while the Race to the Top competition drove important state-level policy changes, the work of the assessment...
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What K-12 Can Learn from For-Profit Higher Ed
(This post also appears on The Quick and the Ed.) Good Education Week overview on the growth of for-profit virtual learning companies in K-12 education. Predictably, the article quotes a detractor...
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Texas Tackles the Data Problem
Terry Driscoll, executive director of information systems at Lubbock Independent School District, says he’s hardwired to resist government intrusion. And when the Texas Education Agency (TEA), along...
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Digital Learning Council Recommendations Missing Details on Quality
(This post also appears on The Quick and the Ed.) This morning, Digital Learning Now, a new advocacy effort led by former Governors Jeb Bush (R-FL) and Bob Wise (D-WV), published 10 Elements of High...
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Lessons for Online Learning
Advocates for virtual education say that it has the power to transform an archaic K–12 system of schooling. Instead of blackboards, schoolhouses, and a six-hour school day, interactive technology will...
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Three Things the NY Times Article on Florida Virtual School Missed
The recent New York Times article, In Florida, Virtual Classrooms with No Teachers, takes us to Miami, where schools are using a blended learning approach: Students use school computer labs to take...
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Bottom Line Goal for Blended Learning: Better Student Outcomes
Lots of buzz around blended learning — the idea that we shouldn’t limit ourselves to a forced choice between teachers and technology, but can strive to find the right combination of high tech and high...
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Cheating and Other Deceptions About Students’ Learning
We’re learning that there are many ways to cheat. The legitimacy of test score increases in District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), in particular those at Crosby S. Noyes Education Campus, are the...
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Learning from Data on Ohio E-Schools
While online learning is still new to the vast majority of K-12 students and schools, Ohio has operated “e-schools,” public charter schools that operate entirely online and which students “attend” on a...
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Five National Policy Implications from Ohio’s E-Schools
While online learning is still new to the vast majority of K-12 students and schools, Ohio has operated “e-schools,” public charter schools that operate entirely online and which students “attend” on a...
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One Way to Make Teaching a More Manageable Job
Atul Gawande, surgeon and well-known author, tells a story in his book, The Checklist Manifesto, about how the famed World War II B-17 bomber almost ended up never flying. It crashed on its maiden...
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A Better Conversation Around Data Use in California
California Governor Jerry Brown’s recent proposal to kill funding for California’s troubled longitudinal data system is sparking a renewed debate about the value of data among California policymakers...
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Teachers Swap Recipes
Video: Watch Bill Tucker discuss his article. In every school in America, in three-ring binders and file folders, sit lesson plans—the recipes that guide everyday teaching in the classroom. Like the...
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Think Tank vs Academic Work?
Holly Yettick’s paper, The Research that Reaches the Public: Who Produces the Educational Research Mentioned in the News Media?, is an interesting look at the sources of mentions on educational issues...
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My Visit to School of One (Part I)
Yesterday morning, I took the long “F” train ride from Manhattan to Brooklyn’s David A. Boody Intermediate School (IS 228), one of New York City’s three School of One pilot schools. I walked away...
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School of One: Thoughts on Expansion (Part II)
This is the second part of a two-post series reflecting on my visit to Brooklyn’s David A. Boody Intermediate School (IS 228), one of New York City’s three School of One pilot schools. With national...
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The Bruce Randolph Rorschach Test
Poor Bruce Randolph School. First, President Obama praises the school in his 2011 State of the Union address. Then Diane Ravitch, in a New York Times op-ed, cited the school as an example of...
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Five Ideas for Quality Control in K-12 Digital Learning
On Wednesday, the Fordham Institute released “Quality Control in K-12 Digital Learning: Three (Imperfect) Approaches,” the first in a series of six papers exploring critical issues in digital learning....
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