Traditionally, the prime purpose of school reform on a federal level has been the improvement of schools serving disadvantaged children. Most debate has centered on whether the contemporary "reform" movement has made student outcomes better or worse, and over the costs of "reformers'" test-driven, market-driven tactics. Being an inner-city teacher,...

Dana Goldstein's "Activist Teachers Targeted for Dismissal" recalls the poet's wisdom that to understand the reconstitution of Los Angeles' Crenshaw High School, you have to understand the entire world of school "reform." Goldstein describes the good work of union activist Alex Caputo-Pearl, and the way...

The accountability-driven school "reform" movement came of age during the ascendancy of the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove scorched earth politics. It was founded on the principle that demonizing opponents is just another means for achieving political ends. Accountability hawks have since characterized teachers and our unions as the enemies of children....

The Washington Post contrasts the positive reinforcement used at some Washington D.C. schools in order to motivate students when taking standardized tests, with the negative reinforcement used at another, Wilson Elementary. It describes pep rallies, student-produced rap videos, and a raffle as incentives to encourage students to do...

John Merrow's article "Michelle Rhee's Reign of Error" produced "the smoking gun," or the confidential memo warning Michelle Rhee of the extent of cheating that may have occurred in Washington D.C. schools in response to her draconian "reforms." It summarizes the evidence of an inexcusable failure to investigate...

John Merrow has found "the smoking gun," or the confidential memo warning Michelle Rhee of the extent of cheating that may have occurred in Washington, D.C. schools in response to her draconian "reforms." He summarizes the evidence of an inexcusable failure to investigate the cheating and recalls the...

Commentator Jim Hightower's metaphor nailed the latest assaults launched by the bubble-in school "reform" movement. The quotable Texan observes that a dog knows the difference between being stumbled over and being kicked.

Over the last 20 years ago, non-educators have stumbled over our troubled inner city schools. These...

School "reformers" complain that the Garfield High School teachers' boycott of testing, and the protests by teachers, parents, and students in Georgia, New York, and Massachusetts, are bringing the backlash against bubble-in accountability to a "crescendo." Perhaps the best education news is that 818 Texas school districts oppose...

The essence of market-driven school "reform" is captured in the wry humor of the classic movie Patton. As "Old Blood and Guts" Patton gave his standard exhortations, a battle-hardened GI responded, "Yeah, his guts, our blood."

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, his "brass-knuckled" edu-philanthropist backers, and the true-believers in accountability-driven "reform" may...

Remember the good old days when Theodore Olson helped found the Federalist Society? Remember when Olson joined with Edwin Meese, Robert Bork, Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, Samuel Alioto, and Clarence Thomas to proclaim, "it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not...

This American Life's brilliant radio documentary, "Harper High School," describes a "turnaround" school as it comes off a year in which 29 current and recent students were shot. Eight died, and there were dozens of other incidents where bullets were thrown.

Reporter Alex Kotlowitz, author of the masterpiece,...

Educators have grown increasingly concerned that the "Billionaires Boys Club's" plan for test-driven "reform" of schools is more than misguided. Basically, it advocates "disruptive innovation" to destroy the "status quo" and so that schools can overcome the legacies of poverty. So many of their theories are so silly that many...

I admit to grasping at straws in the hope that the president I love will stop his teacher-bashing and subsidizing bubble-in educational malpractice for poor children of color. But, still, his State of the Union Address was encouraging. While not apologizing for the "junk science" that informed his administration's Race...

Po Bronson's and Ashley Merryman's New York Times Magazine article "Why Some Kids Handle Pressure while Others Fall Apart?" captures the essence of contemporary test-driven school reform. Their science (probably) is solid. Their education policy dictates, however, are based on no more than their personal preferences. Following the...

Being an Old School liberal, I should welcome Jeffrey Henig's prediction that we are seeing three major "fault lines" in school policy that are culminating in "the end of exceptionalism" in American education. Forty years ago, I would have welcomed his scenario where the federal government would gain...

Sadly, 10 to 15 years after leaving neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, children who participated in the Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing (MTO) program showed no significant educational achievement gains. A study of 4,604 families that moved to a new neighborhood found that adults benefitted modestly,...

This week, two icons of the contemporary school "reform" -- the Gates Foundation and Michelle Rhee -- illustrated the movement's essence. And it wasn't pretty. They exemplify the late Christopher Lasch's concept of the "culture of narcissism."

Lasch was at its best when describing cultural losses due to deindustrialization....

It is sad that technology has been imposed on urban schools in such a dubious way that the New Jersey teachers union had to challenge the legality of Merit Prep charter school in court. It is even sadder that advocates of "blended learning" would fill up a cafeteria full of...

The conservative Fordham Institute's "Turnaround Merry-Go-Round: Is the Music Stopping?" featured a discussion with the Education Department's Carmel Martin, "edu-wonk" Andy Smarick, and former superintendent Jean-Claude Brizzard. No teachers' voices were heard.

Moderator Chester Finn asked if anything good in education is sustainable. He especially doubted the...

I have long argued that value-added might become reliable enough to complement or supplement human observations, but that it never should be used to drive evaluations. We can never allow a statistical model, in the hands of management alone, to indict teachers as ineffective, so that they then have to...