10.19.10 – Sandra Stotsky – A new ALSCW study suggests that fragmented English curricula and neglect of close reading impair reading scores and college readiness despite major increases in funding for elementary and secondary education.

10.18.10 – NEW YORK – The president's ambitious education agenda is in peril, as his allies face firing at the polls in November. Dana Goldstein on the shaky state of school reform.

10.16.10 – Andrew J. Rotherham – Charter schools are all the rage these days. The public is increasingly smitten with them — in this year's Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup education poll, 68% of respondents said they support charter schools, up from 42% in 2000 — but few people know what charters are.

10.14.10 – Michael F. Shaughnessy – Our mantra is, "Learn best practices on Saturday that you can begin to teach on Monday." It is very important to know that our major corporate sponsor is Verizon. Without their support we would not have been able to fund this important literacy initiative.

10.12.10 – Kevin G. Welner – Educator and researcher Kevin G. Welner writes that none of the reforms discussed in a "manifesto" for school reform by Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee and 14 other schools chiefs are grounded in research and are nothing more than fads and gimmicks.

10.11.10 – Asking “Where did chartering start?” is like asking where a river starts. You have to go upstream, where you probably will find no single source, but several little streams flowing together. We've prepared this timeline to trace some of the key milestones.

10.7.10 -CHARLES CHIEPPO AND JAMIE GASS – Tim Cahill’s recent flip-flop over Massachusetts’s decision to adopt national education standards in English and math, and Charlie Baker’s spirited denunciation of this decision in a gubernatorial debate, have thrust national standards into the headlines once again.

10.6.10 – Alain L. Locke’s success has attracted students from all over New York. Some students commute from Brooklyn and the Bronx on a daily basis. These students travel anywhere from half an hour to an hour to get to school every day—all because the parents and the students are pleased with the school.

10.5.10 – Jay P. Greene – The U.S. Department of Education’s “What Works Clearinghouse” (WWC) is supposed to adjudicate the scientific validity of competing education research claims so that policymakers, reporters, practitioners, and others don’t have to strain their brains to do it themselves. It would be much smarter for folks to exert the mental energy themselves rather than trust a government-operated truth committee to sort things out for them.

10.4.10 – "… We're living in the darkest times for teachers that I've ever seen in my life. It's hard to fully understand how the conversation about what makes a robust, vital education for citizens in a democracy has degraded to the point where the frame of the whole discussion is that teachers are the problem.

10.1.10 – Jay Greene – I have no idea why a bunch of ed reformers are so gloomy. Matt has already observed how Rick Hess and Mike Petrilli can’t seem to enjoy the moment when ed reform ideas go mainstream. Now Liam Julian is joining the poopy parade, lamenting that the new crop of naive reformers are doomed to fail just as past ones have, and “it never works out.”

9.29.10 – Chester E. Finn, Jr. – Brockton High School is one of the largest in America and is now producing very strong (not yet stellar) results. More remarkably, it used to produce dreadful results. It exemplifies a successful school turnaround, one of the toughest feats in U.S. education, it exemplifies success in an urban high school attended mainly by poor and minority kids—the other toughest challenge in U.S. education.

9.28.10 – Peter Wood – Learning to frame intelligent opinions is an indispensable part of higher education. And learning to assess the opinions of others—fair-mindedly, respectfully, and at times decisively—is an indispensable wheel within the wheel.

9.27.10 – GERALD LAUBER – More than 50 years ago, the launching of Sputnik by the Soviet Union jarred our national view of science education and provided the impetus for refocusing our nation’s priorities.

9.24.10 – Frederick Hess – In response to my post on the Nashville merit pay study, Gates Foundation research honcho and Harvard professor Tom Kane sent me a really thoughtful, incisive take on the study’s limitations. I thought his take so razor-sharp and succinct that I asked if I could share it, and he genially agreed.

9.23.10 – THE FEDERAL DREAM ACT IS NOW ON COURSE FOR A VOTE by Congress before the November 2010 elections. If Congress passes the Dream Act, President Obama has pledged to sign it.

9.22.0 – Michael Petrilli – What KIPP, and Achievement First, and the other high-flying charter schools are achieving is extraordinary, worth celebrating, and worth replicating. But let me offer three sobering points that we fans of school reform ought to ponder seriously nonetheless.