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Data and thoughts on public and private school funding in the U.S.
Browsing All Posts filed under »Uncategorized«
The Glaring Hypocrisy of the NCTQ Teacher Prep Institution Ratings
I’ve already written about this topic in the past. But, given that NCTQ has just come out with their really, really big new ratings of teacher preparation institutions… with their primary objective of declaring teacher prep by traditional colleges and universities in the U.S. a massive failure, I figured I should once again revisit why […]
Revisiting the Chetty, Rockoff & Friedman Molehill
June 9, 2013
My kids and I don’t watch enough Phineas and Ferb anymore. Awesome show. I was reminded just yesterday of this great device! This… is the Mountain-Out-Of-A-Molehill-INATOR! The name is rather self-explanatory – but here’s the official explanation anyway: The Mountain-out-of-a-molehill-inator turns molehills into big mountains. It uses energy pellets to do so. It was created […]
The Disturbing Inequities of the New Normal
June 5, 2013
I wrote a post a while back, providing an overview of the basics of state school finance formulas, reforms and why they matter. I revisit this post having how conducted more extensive analysis of the retreat from school funding equity over the period from 2005 through 2011 (most recent available federal school finance data). Let’s […]
Follow-up: Title I Funding DOES NOT Make Rich States Richer!
May 30, 2013
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In one of my earliest posts, I took on a myth created and shared by many DC Think Tanks that the Title I funding formula inappropriately favors “rich states” and school districts in urban areas. This myth has its origins in a handful of policy papers and poorly constructed analyses, some of which eventually made […]
I don’t know anything about them, but they suck! Reformy thoughts on Ed Schools
May 27, 2013
It all started here, when Ben Riley of NSVF suggested that comments from Finnish Ed Guru Pasi Sahlberg (hero of the anti-reformers) regarding teacher preparation in Finland (and elsewhere) meant that the U.S. really needed to start shutting down teacher preparation programs. Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley 1hDon’t look now, but I think Finnish edu-guru @pasi_sahlberg is […]
Most Screwed Local Public School Districts Update 2009-2011
May 24, 2013
Here it is – my annual update of America’s most screwed school districts. This time, for stability purposes, I’ve used a 3-year average based on 2009-2011 data (2011 data being released earlier this week). As I’ve explained in my previous posts on this topic (from last year’s post on screwed districts)… It’s important to understand […]
The Death of Private Schools is Greatly Exaggerated (& Misrepresented!)
May 21, 2013
As I’ve explained on previous posts, specific to New Jersey, claims of the dying private sector in education are grossly over exaggerated. These days, such claims are often over exaggerated with the purpose of framing some broad policy interest in supporting private schools. That is, some need for immediate public policy attention to the problem […]
Class Size & Funding Inequity in NY State & NY City
May 9, 2013
New York State repeatedly makes the top of our list of most INEQUITABLE state school finance systems in our National Report Card. http://www.schoolfundingfairness.org/National_Report_Card_2012.pdf Further, NY State was acknowledged in a report I prepared last year, with colleague Sean Corcoran of NYU, identifying states that are both generally inequitable and that actually exacerbate those inequities through […]
Civics 101? Center for Ed Reform’s Bizarre Understanding of Civics & the Law
May 7, 2013
PDF of original CER response to LA court ruling: Louisiana High Court Violates Parent Rights (in case they revise/retract) Now I know that the last thing reformy types really want to think about – to bother themselves with – is a basic understanding of law, civics and the structure of American government. All that stuff […]
Follow up Question Guide for Ed Writers (on Teacher Evaluation)
May 3, 2013
I was reviewing the past few days of news coverage on NJ teacher evaluations and came across the following quote, which was not-so-amazingly left unchallenged: Cerf said research shows test scores are “far and away” the best gauge of teacher effectiveness, and to not use test score data would be “very anti-child.” http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/05/state_board_of_education_adjus.html Here’s a […]
June 18, 2013
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