Testing Testing
TAP
Beneath the feel-good press releases about national education standards lie unresolved policy differences.

New plans for schools Economist
TO HEAR Ed Balls, the schools secretary, tell it, the saga of
British education since the Labour Party came to power in 1997 is a
rousing one of derring-do…Another version is that the government has blown £2 billion on
micro-managing teachers, and to little effect.

Private schools in the recession Economist
There
is little sign of a recession-induced meltdown in private schooling.

The secret life of an American schoolteacher.The New Yorker
The
title of the new HBO Sunday-night series “Hung” isn’t meant to be a
double entendre of the kind that induces snickers–it’s straightforward
descriptive slang, a reference to the physical endowments of the show’s
main character, Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane).

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What does really matter? Aristotle’s answer, happiness, and his road to getting there by the steady exercise of intellectual and moral virtue–has been replaced by a detour that would seem to have us decidedly lost. From The Guardian:

Costa Rica is the greenest and happiest country in the world, according to a new list that ranks nations by combining measures of their ecological footprint with the happiness of their citizens.

Britain is only halfway up the Happy Planet Index (HPI), calculated by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), in 74th place of 143 nations surveyed. The United States features in the 114th slot in the table. The top 10 is dominated by countries from Latin America, while African countries bulk out the bottom of the table.

The HPI measures how much of the Earth’s resources nations use and how long and happy a life their citizens enjoy as a result. First calculated in 2006, the second edition adds data on almost all the world’s countries and now covers 99% of the world’s population.

NEF says the HPI is a much better way of looking the success of countries than through standard measures of economic growth. The HPI shows, for example, that fast-growing economies such as the US, China and India were all greener and happier 20 years ago than they are today.

“The HPI suggests that the path we have been following is, without exception, unable to deliver all three goals: high life satisfaction, high life expectancy and ‘one-planet living’,” says Saamah Abdallah, NEF researcher and the report’s lead author. “Instead we need a new development model that delivers good lives that don’t cost the Earth for all.”

Costa Ricans top the list because they report the highest life satisfaction in the world, they live slightly longer than Americans, yet have an ecological footprint that is less than a quarter the size. The country only narrowly fails to achieve the goal of what NEF calls “one-planet living”: consuming its fair share of the Earth’s natural resources.

The report says the differences between nations show that it is possible to live long, happy lives with much smaller ecological footprints than the highest-consuming nations.

The new HPI also provides the first ever analysis of trends over time for what are supposedly the world’s most developed nations, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

OECD nations’ HPI scores plummeted between 1960 and the late 1970s. Although there have been some gains since then, HPI scores were still higher in 1961 than in 2005.

Life satisfaction and life expectancy combined have increased 15% over the 45-year period for those living in the rich nations, but it has come at the cost of a 72% rise in their ecological footprint. And the three largest countries in the world – China, India and the US, which are aggressively pursuing growth-based development models – have all seen their HPI scores drop in that time.

The highest placed western nation is the Netherlands. People there live on average over a year longer than people in the US, and have similar levels of life satisfaction – yet their per capita ecological footprint is less than half the size. The Netherlands is therefore over twice as environmentally efficient at achieving good lives as the US, Nef says.

The report sets out a “Happy Planet Charter” calling for an unprecedented collective global effort to develop a “new narrative” of human progress, encourage good lives that don’t cost the earth, and to reduce consumption in the highest-consuming nations – which it says is the biggest barrier to sustainable wellbeing.

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In theory, the new stimulus funding will have a new level of fiscal transparency that will tell us where and how the money was spent. Time will tell whether this actually happens and whether we will learn about how the funding was used. Given that we will not know a lot about how the base funding may have been reallocated, it will be difficult know how the stimulus funds were really used. But at least in theory, we will know more about how this funding is used than prior federal investments. Perhaps it is time to shed a little more light on how union funding is used. As union dues go up, what is the additional funding being spent on? Does the public have a right to know? Are union dues going up to compenate for all of the teachers that are being lost to job cuts, or are unions increasing salaries and expanding their influence. It would be interesting to know. (here)

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Happy holiday weekend to everyone.

What should be done with the stimulus money for education? Teacher Ken
"Matches can be purchased to burn all standardized tests, ending the
absurd notion that these exams have anything to do with educating a
child and preparing him or her for life."

New Idea for Stemming Summer Learning Loss? LFA
"Hunger can be a positive motivator." — Missouri State Representative Cynthia Smith, who opposes free school lunches for children during summer months.

Studies Show Pupils Benefit from Tutoring–A Little Inside Research
A
trio of recent studies evaluating the impact of the No Child Left
Behind Act's tutoring provision show that students in some districts
are making small, but not great, learning gains.

Boy Banned From School For Moustache Detention Slip

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Oklahoma’s "bubble" or gap between soaring NCLB test scores and flat NAEP scores has been one of the worst in the nation, but Secretary of Education Sandy Garrett just announced that scores are being recalibrated for this spring’s data. We can expect Reading scores, for instance, to drop from passing rates of 77 to 92% to 63 and 70%.

Oklahoma acted because we listened to social scientists, and to Robert Balfanz’s Everyone Graduates Center which just published the brilliant study, "Keeping Middle Grades Students on the Path to Graduate." Sandy Garrett is in the tradition of heroic progressives who have "used smoke and mirrors" to keep Oklahoma from being another Mississippi. State educational leaders mostly have to rely of "the bully pulpit." Garrett has used her pulpit to promote universal pre-school, graduation coaches, and "the Gift of Time." - John Thompson

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It is done! As Albany continued to wallow on Tuesday without a decision on renewing Bloomberg’s choke hold on NYC Schools, the Little Dictator declared that if his reign were to end, parents would be in the streets with torches. The rantings of another Billion Dollar Bubble Boy:

. . . .The effect of the inaction on school governance is harder to predict. For the past few months, Bloomberg has sought to portray the expiration of mayoral control of the school system in its most apocalyptic terms: riots in the streets, a return to the Soviet Union and so on. But in a press briefing yesterday, Bloomberg said his administration “will work hard to shield New York’s children and their parents from the chaos.” Schools, he said, “will not be padlocked” and summer school will open as scheduled today.

Instead of invoking images of angry mobs on the Grand Concourse, Bloomberg said the confusion over how to run the system would bring in lawyers — and litigation. “Every decision — from personnel decisions to policy decisions — will be subject to litigation and uncertainty,” Bloomberg continued.

That confusion arises partly because, as Philissa Cramer observed in Gotham Schools, the school governance law passed in 2002 calls for the law to sunset after seven years but “doesn’t include instructions for reconstituting the old school board or dismantling the current system.”

The mayor foresees “a nightmare flashback to the days when politics ruled the schools.” But some experts believe he may be overstating the effects of the current law’s expiration. While the city would have to reconstitute a Board of Education, they say, that board could decide to continue most school policies and practices while waiting for the legislature to pass a school governance bill.

“If the mayor acts… at least changing the structure on top, then I think it’s wrong to foresee any potential litigation,” Udi Ofer, the policy director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, has said.

David Bloomfield, an expert on education law who teaches at Brooklyn College, has said the state education law provides for clear lines of authority. Bloomfield sees only two credible circumstances that could lead to litigation: The mayor could file suit against a Board of Education or suits could be filed against the administration if he decides to ignore the resurrected board. . . .

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"I told him that the best
way to raise standards was to pay teachers more but require them to get
a graduate degree similar to the of a lawyer or doctor." (Arne Duncan Really Does Listen PK12)

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All Stimulus, (nearly) all the time:

Stimulus Spending, Breakdown by States WSJ via ProPublica
Mouse over a state for details, or sort the rows in
the chart below the map.

Another Year, Another NEA Convention Intercepts
The
signature media event appears to be U.S. Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan’s “town hall” meeting with the delegates tomorrow morning.

Women on Par With Men in Principalship, Says Report Inside Research
More
than half the nation's principals are now women, according to one of
five statistical reports released yesterday by the National Center for
Education Statistics.

State Budget Troubles Worsen CBPP via TAPPED
Federal stimulus funding is closing 30 to 40 percent of state budget shortfalls, thanks to its timing and flexibility.

States Get $2.7 Billion in Early Stimulus Aid PK12
This chunk of the stabilization fund is meant to help out states as they face increasing budget pressures.

Hidden curriculum Joanne Jacobs

Parents
can’t check out Baltimore County Public Schools curriculum, complains
BaltoNorth. It’s password protected on an intranet.

National Journal’s Ed Insider Petting Zoo TCKB
National Journal…tear down this wall!

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Via Swift And Changeable.

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