I hate to say I told you so. Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Sheldon Berman is already backing off the originally announced plan to close the terribly under-performing Robert Frost Middle School. Now, he says he will just remove the principal and 50 percent of the teachers. There is a MAJOR problem with this new…
I recently wrote about the culture of denial in Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) after six schools in the district were identified for major changes such as staff and principal replacement following an analysis of test results and on site audits to determine exactly how the school staff was performing. In doing some other research,…
I’ve been writing a lot about the poor quality of education research, so it’s worth pointing out that the largest organization for education researchers is the American Educational Research Association (AERA). The operation of this organization may provide insight into why education research is in so much trouble. For years, AERA has been collecting a…
I absolutely agree with the score, but this failing grade didn’t come from me, this time. Newsweek just examined the sorry condition of education research and declared “Education research gets an F.” To be honest, as more and more evidence of the vacuous quality of most education research piles up at places like the Institute…
Fallout from the recent audits of six persistently low-performing schools in Jefferson County continues Yesterday, the Jefferson County Public Schools District staff presented proposals to the local school board on how to deal with the extensive list of findings from the state audits of the district’s six Persistently Low-Performing Schools. It looks like the fallout…
Frost Middle School in Jefferson County closing? WAVE-3 reports that the Frost Middle School, one of the state’s 10 Persistently low-achieving schools, has been recommended for closure. But, wait, the school district is going to move the Phoenix School of Discovery into the same location. That’s not a charter school (we don’t have any), so…
Federal study indicates supplemental reading programs don’t work Education Week reports (subscription) that a second-year follow-up study released yesterday of some supplemental reading programs that are supposed to improve student comprehension – don’t. Certainly, nationwide performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress indicates that reading has made scant improvement since the early 1990s. The…
There has been a lot of talk recently about charter school legislation in Kentucky. One potential candidate bill offered late last week by the Kentucky Department of Education is supposed to be modeled after charter legislation in Colorado. Is Colorado a good choice? You bet! Here is a breakout of the proficiency rates (percent of…
Why did over 4,000 parents apply for just 588 openings in one of New York City’s charter school systems? [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KqT2gR5yLI] Why don’t we have excitement like this in Kentucky?
Charters done right outperform Charter schools in New Orleans will outnumber traditional public schools by two to one next year according to The Times-Picayune. Do you really think this would be happening if charters done right were not better?