Join the conversation

Few would argue with the notion that public education in America needs to improve to ensure that our country remains prosperous in the coming years. And we should look wherever we can for ideas on how we can increase student achievement for each child in the nation.

One possible source for these ideas: charter schools. Last week, the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution released “Learning from the Successes and Failures of Charter Schools,” in which Roland Fryer discusses his efforts to learn what works in the world of charter schooling and implement it in traditional public schools.

By studying 35 charter schools of varying performance levels in New York City, Fryer and his colleagues identified five practices that are consistently found in higher-achieving schools and that together explain roughly half the difference in effectiveness between charter schools:

• More human capital (how often schools give teachers feedback on their instructional practice)
• Data-driven instruction (whether teachers alter instruction to
  ...

NBC is to be commended for its support of the third annual Education Nation Summit, a gathering of leaders from government, education and business in New York City this week to consider the challenges and future outlook for America’s public education system.  And, to be sure, included in this year’s event were a handful of case studies of real schools and districts that are successfully addressing challenging problems and finding solutions that support student growth and success.  For me, the most impressive and knowledgeable presenters about public schooling, student achievement and local realities were the educators themselves, who displayed a thoughtful, articulate approach to their work and provided practical, solution-oriented initiatives that are proving successful in meeting the needs of an increasingly diverse student population.

So, the good news is that the Summit featured impressive public educators and education researchers who provided real world information and experience to the event.  On the down side, too many of the program presenters were people famous in other walks of life whose contributions to the education conversation provided little value.  This is not to say that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice doesn’t have a compelling personal story about ...

The civic mission of schools has a tendency to get lost in the din of other debates surrounding our nation’s education system. Beyond the uproar over teacher evaluations, standardized testing and the role of government, we must keep in mind the fundamental purposes of public education, the heart and soul of a public system.

This civic purpose of public education seeks to empower our nation’s children, and future leaders, with a deep seated understanding of citizenship, civic duty and societal needs. It aims to provide the very tools needed for future generations to participate in the debates surrounding not just education policy, but other critical issues we as a nation – and member of the global community – face in the twenty first century.  Education is more than just factual knowledge, and civic engagement and participation depend on a deeper understanding of our culture, society and history. ...

It seems everyone has an opinion about the teacher strike currently taking place in Chicago.  I do too, but it’s not about who’s to blame.  There’s plenty of that to go around.  What I do know is that regardless of how this strike ends, nobody will have won—

• Students will have missed valuable learning time
• Teachers and their union will be vilified for selfishness
• The mayor and school board’s judgment will be suspect
• Parents will be disappointed and frazzled with child care challenges
• The President’s “reform” agenda will be questioned
• The citizens of Chicago will be embarrassed and dismayed for their city

While I have followed the events as they’ve unfolded in Chicago between the mayor, the school board he appointed, and the teachers’ union, the facts I’m able to glean from public sources only raise questions in my mind as to what’s really going on.  I do know that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) are under-resourced and that ...