Posted under School Choice
Today is 1-11-11… 5 straight ones. I’m 5 years old, 5 years of number 1. Now that you’ve had a chance to let that not-too-eerie coincidence sink in, I only have time today to bring your attention to an important document. My edu-crush Michelle Rhee’s new super-fab education transformer group, Students First, has released its official policy agenda.
No, it contains nothing terribly profound. But it’s a good statement of principles with which my friends at the Education Policy Center closely agree, under the three main headings of:
- Elevate the teaching profession by valuing teachers’ impact on students
- Empower parents with real choices and real information (hey, that sounds like School Choice for Kids!)
- Shift spending taxpayers’ money to get better results for students (anyone read the Citizens’ Budget?)
You’ve got to read the actual document to get a more detailed picture of what the group is proposing to do. But trust me, it’s not only a worthwhile agenda but also a very ambitious one. I’ll continue to wish the best to Students First, even if it is selfish for me to do so.
Blinded by the hype on 18 Jan 2011 at 4:39 am #
Calling someone Superman doesn’t make it so. Perhaps a more honest name would be privateer. How is a person who pushes strategies into classrooms that research has proven ineffective?
(merit pay and vouchers) Sh ehas no background in education but does have a history of meeting with Gates and Broad. She taped shut the mouths of her class. She fired 266 teachers and then found a budget surplus. Her test scores include erasure questions and others.
Quit watching Rhee’s fiction and return to the reality of high poverty rates in the US, bad policies, and some bad teachers. Rhee’s Superman tactics will get our dtudents nowhere but some corporations will have alot more in their wallets, right off our students’ back. Profits First may be a more acccurate title for her efforts.
Eddie on 18 Jan 2011 at 11:35 am #
Dear Blinded by the Propaganda,
1. Research has proven neither merit pay (one study on an incentive pay program in Nashville is hardly conclusive) nor vouchers (95% of gold-standard research show voucher programs have statistically significant positive impacts on learning for one or more groups of students) to be ineffective. Expand your reading horizons.
2. If by “no background in education,” you must mean Rhee wasn’t trained in a school of education you may have a point, since you imply knowledge of Rhee’s work with Teach for America. But I hardly see that as a negative.
3. I spend a lot of time addressing bad policies in K-12 education. I pay attention to high relative rates of poverty, too, and marvel at schools that achieve remarkable results with these populations. Bad teachers? Yes. Did you ever stop to consider that we may employ too many teachers? That the strategy of increasing K-12 employment far faster than student enrollment has been costly and largely ineffective?
4. I’m not even sure what is meant by the semi-coherent thought: “Her test scores include erasure questions and others.”
5. “Rhee’s Superman tactics will get our dtudents [sic] nowhere but some corporations will have alot more in their wallets” and “Profits First may be a more acccurate [sic] title for her efforts” are clever talking points. However, attacking someone’s motives doesn’t address the items on the Students First policy agenda — which aren’t perfect, but as a whole a lot more promising and cost-effective than the current dominant approach in K-12 education.
blinded by the hype on 02 Apr 2011 at 6:50 am #
OOPS, Ed. At least you can blame your incorrect opinion on being five. Children are easily deceived at that age. Apparently you find erasing the way to improve education. Well , that is cheap as well Perhaps that is why some have coined the term Erase to the top in reference to your fallen hero. There is NO wind beneath her cape, only eraser shavings. Sorry to shatter your young innocence. While you are at it, please post all this research you mentioned backing merit pay and vouchers.
Ben on 04 Apr 2011 at 10:33 am #
Blinded, Forget the 5-year-old. You are the one who mentioned “that research has proven ineffective (merit pay and vouchers)”. I would ask you to produce it, but wouldn’t want you to waste your time.
You can go here to review a summary of the best empirical evidence on vouchers:
http://www.edchoice.org/Research/Reports/A-Win-Win-Solution–The-Empirical-Evidence-on-School-Vouchers.aspx
“Nine studies find that vouchers improve student outcomes, six that all students benefit and three that some benefit and some are not affected. One study finds no visible impact. None of these studies finds a negative impact.”
“Nineteen empirical studies have examined how vouchers affect outcomes in public schools. Of these studies, 18 find that vouchers improved public schools and one finds no visible impact. No empirical studies find that vouchers harm public schools.”
Pay reforms show a more mixed result, and that’s largely because many people confuse “incentive pay” with “merit pay” or “performance pay,” because the details of these systems matter, etc. What we do know across the board is the traditional pay scale is ineffective and unsustainable. Look for more on this front very soon.