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Data and thoughts on public and private school funding in the U.S.
Browsing All Posts published on »December, 2012«
Thoughts on “Randomized” vs. Randomized Charter School Studies
There’s much talk in education research about Randomized Control Trials and truly “experimental” research being the “gold standard” for determining whether a specific intervention “works” or not. Thus is the basis for the Institute for Education Sciences What Works Clearing House. It is often argued that randomized, or experimental studies are “good” and decisive, and […]
Dumbest “School Finance” Tweet Ever?
December 18, 2012
Critics say only public systems can focus 100% on the children, but vast majority of K-12 $$ goes to employees not kids bit.ly/SLrNUn — AEI Education(@AEIeducation) December 18, 2012
Twisted Truths & Dubious Policies: Comments on the NJDOE/Cerf School Funding Report
December 18, 2012
Yesterday, we were blessed with the release of yet another manifesto (as reported here on NJ Spotlight) from what has become the New Jersey Department of Reformy Propaganda. To be fair, it has become increasingly clear of late, that this is simply the new model for State Education Agencies (see NYSED Propaganda Here), with the […]
How Modern School Finance/Education Policy Works: Lessons from New York
December 14, 2012
I’ll admit that the more I do this stuff, the more I write about today’s education policy environment and especially the environment around school funding, I do get more cynical. And few states have done more to encourage my cynicism than New York, of late. But I suspect that the tales from the trenches in […]
It’s good to be King: More Misguided Rhetoric on the NY State Eval System
December 12, 2012
Very little time to write today, but I must comment on this NY Post article on the bias I’ve been discussing in the NY State teacher/principal growth percentile ratings. Sociologist Aaron Pallas of TC and economist Sean Corcoran of NYU express appropriate concerns about the degrees of bias found and reported in the technical report […]
Forget the $300m Deal! Let’s talk $3.4 billion (or more)!
December 7, 2012
Sometime last week or so, Sockpuppets for Ed Reform marched on City Hall in NY demanding that the city and teachers union come to a deal on a teacher evaluation system compliant with the state’s new regulations for such systems, so that the district could receive an approximately $300 million grant payment associated with the […]
Friday Thoughts on Data, Assessment & Informed Decision Making in Schools
December 7, 2012
Some who read this blog might assume that I am totally opposed, in any/all circumstances to using data in schools to guide decision-making. Despite my frequent public cynicism I assure you that I believe that much of the statistical information we collect on and in schools and school systems can provide useful signals regarding what’s […]
It’s time to just say NO! More thoughts on the NY State Tchr Eval System
December 5, 2012
This post is a follow up on two recent previous posts in which I first criticized consultants to the State of New York for finding substantial patterns of bias in their estimates of principal (correction: School Aggregate) and teacher (correction: Classroom aggregate) median growth percentile scores but still declaring those scores to be fair and […]
When Dummy Variables aren’t Smart Enough: More Comments on the NJ CREDO Study
December 3, 2012
This is a brief follow up on the NJ CREDO study, which I wrote about last week when it was released. The major issues with that study were addressed in my previous post, but here, I raise an additional non-trivial issue that plagues much of our education policy research. The problems I raise today not […]
Ed Schools – The Sequel: Rise of the Intellectually Dead
December 1, 2012
Warning: The following post contains the elitist musings of an ivory tower professor who has only professed at major research universities, who attended a selective liberal arts college & received his doctorate from an Ivy league institution (well… a branch of one… Teachers College at Columbia). A while back, I wrote a post on “ed […]
December 20, 2012
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