We produced a piece on PBS NewsHour last night, about the Rocketship Education model currently out of San Jose, CA.

Rocketship Schools -- currently seven in all -- are among the top performing low income schools in the state. The dream, when founded, was replication. Although others...

I haven't blogged a good deal recently on Huffington Post, so first off, thanks to those of you who've written me about the McGraw Prize in Education. I was actually struck speechless when I got the call, because I knew that no journalist had ever received the award. My brilliant wife persuaded me that we should make the celebration a family reunion, using the prize money as needed, and we did: 14 family members, including all but one of our children and all but one of my siblings, came from Barcelona, Texas, Kentucky, Florida and so on for a glorious two-day celebration in mid-October.

However, I have a second motive for writing. I want to offer you the opportunity to be a part of history. You may, if you choose, help us finish an important and compelling film, the story of what has happened to public education in the seven years since Katrina and the flooding destroyed much of New Orleans. Wynton Marsalis loves the film so much that he has given us his music, and I think you will love it too once you watch the trailer, which is embedded above.

When I began reporting just weeks after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, I had no idea that such a remarkable story would emerge. In the seven years since the devastation, the city's public schools have been transformed -- from a failing system where not even one-third of 8th graders in New Orleans could pass a state reading test, to a school district composed mostly of charter schools that outpaces every other district in Louisiana.

Our documentary, "REBIRTH: New Orleans," draws upon years of reporting to weave the stories of students, teachers, parents, education leaders, activists and critics into a human saga of what happened when a city's education system was turned upside down. We've edited six years of video into a compelling 1-hour film.

"REBIRTH: New Orleans" introduces viewers to people they will quickly grow to care about, particularly two students: Will Brittne Jackson, the 19-year-old senior, be able to pass the state graduation test, the one she has failed multiple times, now that a dedicated Teach for America teacher is pushing and pulling her? Will Bobby Calvin, an engaging high school junior, be able to adapt to his charter school's incredibly rigid discipline code , or will the young principal adjust his own world view?.

I have no doubt that, when you watch REBIRTH: New Orleans, you are going to fall in love with some of the people (particularly the kids) in the film. You may find yourself rooting for the young principal of a charter high school, hoping that he will see the light. Or you'll be crossing your fingers that Daniel, Kady and Colleston, the three young teachers from Teach for America, will not only survive -- but prosper.

Who knows: you might find yourself yelling at the screen because you empathize with the frustration of a parent with a special needs child, or cheering with the mom of a KIPP student who finally gets it.

But it's my bet that Bobby and Brittne will grab your heartstrings. When you meet Bobby, an engaging young man with a smile that lights up the room, he's on the verge of being suspended or expelled from New Orleans' top performing charter high school. He can't seem to get with the program, meaning he's always violating the school's very strict dress code(socks must match!) and code of behavior. The school's principal brings in a 'tough love' team to try to help the kids adapt, but you may find yourself hoping the principal will change his ways instead!

The resolutions to those stories - and more - are in the film, but I won't spoil the ending.

This is the most important story I have ever covered, and I've been at this game for 35 years. It's a fascinating story about community, leadership and educational access that has national significance. The city is 80% on its way to becoming the nation's first all charter school district; that's a development that could change our country's public education system as we know it. New Orleans set high standards from day one, and it has closed down six charter schools that didn't live up to their promises.

Other districts could emulate New Orleans, but--spoiler alert--not simply by adopting charter schools. What New Orleans did was commit to a set of virtues that will be familiar to everyone who knows and loves our "small college": high standards, integrity, hard work, time, resources and more.

You may know that Learning Matters is a non-profit company. That means we still need finishing funds to complete the film. We've set up a Kickstarter project to raise the $50,000 we need. We're 65% of the way to our goal and would appreciate your help. Joining our team not only provides tangible rewards - from DVDs to exclusive screenings - but also will give you the satisfaction of knowing that you've helped produce this important story.

But Kickstarter plays by tough rules: if we don't make it all the way to our goal of $50,000, we do not get a dime! We have two weeks to raise the remaining $18,000 and change.

Please click to learn more about the film and the context. Making a tax-deductible contribution is a simple one-two-three process, and...

Maybe it takes a crisis to remind us of what should be obvious -- and certainly that was my own take-away from the PBS NewsHour report about the elementary school in Belmar, New Jersey, that my colleagues John Tulenko and David Wald produced. In that short and powerful segment, you...

I just wanted to drop in and "blog" -- it's mostly a showcasing of videos, hence it being in quotes -- about two of our recent pieces for PBS NewsHour.

In late June, my colleague John Tulenko reported about remedial classes at the community college level, which...

Lately, I have been living a bipolar life. Here's why: Our production company, Learning Matters, has two editing rooms, and the sounds emanating from them couldn't be more different.

You want to become a civil rights leader? Become a teacher. You want to get involved in the greatest chapter...

Remember pot-luck suppers, when everyone brought a dish or two? What follows is the the equivalent -- although substituting ideas for food. Because the last few entries on this blog have been pretty grim, this week I want to share some good stuff that has come across my...

Last week I wrote about a grim reality: the murder of young students in New Orleans. This week I turn to what is probably a fantasy: the idea that our most influential educators would speak out against this stain on our culture and threat to our future.

"I want to be a veterinarian, and I want to go to Princeton University," a smiling 15-year-old girl told us when we were filming at KIPP: Believe, a high-performing charter school in New Orleans. Tell us more, we said. "I want to finish college because I want to have that...

Can April be the cruelest month, as T. S. Eliot declares in his bitterly pessimistic "The Waste Land?" For Eliot, April's inherent cruelty is -- ironically -- precisely because of its vitality. April's burgeoning life force engenders hope in a world that is both dark and hopeless.

But...

Question: You moderate a lot of panel discussions at education meetings, and you have a reputation for doing a pretty good job at it. In fact, some of those appearances are embedded below in this post. Can you pass along some tips to the rest of us?

John: Sure, but...

In one of his always interesting "Disruptions" column in the New York Times, Nick Bilton held forth on how robots are replacing workers at Amazon and elsewhere. These robots, a researcher at Johns Hopkins told Bilton, "will help augment people's abilities, allowing us to use robots for things humans...

A comprehensive report in late March by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution provides strong evidence that adults in as many as 200 school systems have been cheating on their students' standardized tests.

We looked at this for NewsHour in 2011:

Because I spent three years chronicling the tenure of Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C. -- another city with a spate of thus-far-unexplained 'wrong to right' erasures on standardized tests -- I am interested in this story. I'd like to know if anyone cheated in the D.C. schools. If so, who and why?

But a teacher I correspond with occasionally brought me up short recently. My focus on actual, literal cheating -- physically changing answers or giving kids answers in advance -- is too narrow, this teacher wrote.

Here's part of a recent letter:

While I know that the cheating scandals may be considered important, I'm frankly a bit disappointed that this is the focus because the cheating scandal doesn't really matter in terms of the students and their futures, which should always be the focus of anything related to education. What matters is the lasting damage that is being done to them as a result of the increased pressures being put on the school system over these tests. The lasting damage is the closing of schools with no thoughts as to the repercussions on the community, the constant rotating principals, the removal of teachers connected with the community, the privatization of public schools and property, the fact that schools budgets are getting slashed while the administrative central office expands and gives money to private contractors in huge quantities that accomplish nothing, the constant lack of knowledge about our future in the schools, the increasing class sizes and removal of resources from our neediest schools, etc. The cheating scandal is next to nothing; that is a product of the testing obsession as a whole, something that Michelle Rhee certainly fed, but it is far from the worst part of her tenure. Those test scores mean nothing about how prepared our children are for their futures--whether or not there was cheating.

Supporting her argument that the real issue is preparing kids for their futures is a new report about the arts in our schools, hard data confirming what most reporters have known for a long time: for at least 10 years, the arts have been disappearing from schools populated largely by low-income kids. The report is from the U. S. Department of Education. It tells us that fewer public elementary schools today offer visual arts, dance and drama classes, a decline many attribute to budget cuts and an increased focus on math and reading. Most high schools with large numbers of low income students do not offer music. Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, told reporters that cuts are likely to continue into the next two years because education funding has been slow to pick back up. "We haven't hit bottom yet," he said.

In other words, we're cheating kids on their tests and stealing essential courses like art and music from them! Add to that, we are lying -- because when kids get phony scores telling them they are proficient when they need help, that's an out-and-out lie.

At what point does this trifecta -- lying, cheating and stealing -- become a felony? Seriously!

In the face of this disheartening news, one has to ask, "who benefits?" I'm stumped. Certainly not children, parents and teachers. Could it be the testing companies? Perhaps it's the bevy of expert 'consultants' who advise school systems on how to raise test scores, how to calculate the 'value added' that individual teachers provide, and how to make education more 'businesslike' and efficient?

A far more important question than 'who benefits?' is: What are we going to do about it?...

The young teacher started right off making a rookie mistake in the opening minutes of his first class, on his very first day. "How many of you know what a liter is?" he asked his high school math class. "Give me a thumbs up if you know, thumbs down if...

Friends: I also encourage you to check out our newest blog, Why I Teach, and its debut entry from Esther Wojcicki, who also has a HuffPo presence.

"My son can't sleep at night," his mother (and a friend of mine) said.

If you are reading this during daylight hours in March, chances are that millions of our children are now engaged in what's called "test prep." Just yesterday someone showed me the March calendar for a high-achieving public elementary school: two solid weeks of the month were blocked off for "TEST...

I often hear adults describing today's young people as 'digital natives,' usually with a tone of resignation or acceptance: "They are so far ahead of us, but we can turn to them for help," is the general message I hear.

My reaction is "Whoa there, Nellie," because to me...

"The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people."

Surely everyone recognizes the 5-word phrase. Some of you may have garbled the phrase on occasion -- I have -- into something like,...

After 37 years with NPR and PBS, I've finally come to my senses. I have had it with the non-profit world. It's my turn to make the big bucks.

Because education is what I know, that's where I intend to set up shop. I am going into...

The New York Times has made official what most of us have known for years: the children of the privileged do better in school than the children of the underprivileged. This matters because the rich-poor gap is growing wider, and so (therefore) is the educational outcomes gap,...

If you live in New York, John will be appearing in discussion with former NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein on February 15th. You can purchase tickets here.

Last night over dinner, a retired educator -- still very involved -- suggested that the job of a...