Chalkbeat

Education news. In context.

Chalkbeat

New Schools Venture Fund

schools of the future

National
May 23, 2018

What does the ‘future of work’ mean for schools? Big claims leave educators with more questions than answers

Dig into common claims about our changing and you end up knee-deep in mixed messages and muddled statistics. What now?
National
May 9, 2018

Does ‘education reform’ now have five camps?

Welcome to Chalkbeat’s national newsletter! We’re Matt Barnum and Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat’s national team. Our goal is to help you make sense of the messy,…

Behind the numbers

National
January 29, 2018

Why ‘personalized learning’ advocates like Mark Zuckerberg keep citing a 1984 study — and why it might not say much about schools today

A close look at the 1984 study often cited by personalized learning supporters raises questions about its relevance to modern education debates.

Dealing with discipline

National
May 25, 2017

Former Newark schools chief Cami Anderson’s new mission: getting schools to rethink student discipline

After a rocky tenure as superintendent of the Newark Public Schools, Cami Anderson is now working with charter networks and school districts to reform school…

schools of the future

National
May 22, 2017

As ed reformers urge a ‘big bet’ on personalized learning, research points to potential rewards — and risks

Proponents say the push for personalized learning is based on a deep understanding of how kids learn. Others worry it's just the latest fad.

On the Agenda

National
May 12, 2017

Four things to watch for at New Schools Venture Fund Summit, this week’s big education reform confab

Last year's conference sparked a heated debate about the role of race and politics in education reform.

keeping tabs

National
Updated June 1, 2016

Does Black Lives Matter belong in education reform? A private debate bursts into public view

A private debate about the role of race in the community of people who call themselves “education reformers” lept into public view this week.
New York
September 14, 2011

To transform failing schools, new teachers take up residence

A Bank of America employee, a fashion industry veteran, and a 311 operator are among the newest additions to the city's teaching corps. They are among 26 people being eased into the classroom through a new city program designed to train – and retain – high-quality teachers specifically for the city's worst-performing schools. Launched with little fanfare this summer, the NYC Teaching Residency for School Turnaround is the city's latest effort to attract talent using an alternative certification program. But unlike the city's NYC Teaching Fellows program, the residency isn't throwing its trainees straight into the classroom. Nor is it quickly relieving them from their obligation to the city. Instead, the program requires them to make a lengthier commitment, but only after they've spent a year working as assistants to in the classroom. The teachers-in-training have been dispersed into two schools undergoing federally-funded "transformation" — Queens Vocational and Technical High School and J.H.S. 22 Jordan L. Mott — and are part of an experimental effort to overhaul schools deemed "persistently low-achieving" by the state. Borrowing heavily from models that preceeded it in recent years, the program comes amid a growing nationwide focus on improving both the teacher quality and retention rates in high-needs urban schools.
New York
July 9, 2009

Obama official to New York: Change your tenure law or else

PHOTO: Kayleigh SkinnerJoanne Weiss The Obama administration official in charge of an educational innovation fund yesterday issued a warning to a New York audience: Unless the state legislature revises a law now on the books about teacher tenure, the state could lose out on the $4.35 billion fund she controls. Joanne Weiss said the Obama administration aims to reward states that use student achievement as a "predominant" part of teacher evaluations with the extra stimulus funds — and pass over those that don't. New York state law currently bans using student data as a factor in tenure decisions. Test scores aren't everything, Weiss said. "But it seems illogical and indefensible to assume that those aren't part of the solution at all," she said, echoing nearly word-for-word Education Secretary Arne Duncan's remarks last week to the National Education Association. The pessimism about New York's policies is a departure from Duncan's tone during a visit to New York City in February, when he was cheery about the state's chances in the competition. Duncan also briefly mentioned New York as one of several states whose firewalls around student and teacher data need to come down in a recent speech, and he indicated that New York's cap on charter schools may also hurt the state's chances at a slice of the stimulus pie. Weiss, who worked at the New Schools Venture Fund before heading to Washington, said the "disadvantage" of the tenure law to New York could be counterbalanced by efforts here that the Obama administration admires. She praised a New York City program that is evaluating individual teachers based on their students' test scores.  One strength of the program, Weiss said, is that city teachers generally accept the evaluations as an accurate and fair assessment of their performance.
New York
November 26, 2008

What they talk about when they talk about expectations

Andy Rotherham at Eduwonk highlights two writing assignments, both given to seventh-graders, with widely different levels of difficulty. As Rotherham says, this is what wonks mean when they worry about an "expectations gap." I'm highlighting this because we would like to collect similar comparisons from New York City. What does student work look like at your school? What do the assignments look like? Send us your stuff so we can start comparing. We're happy to keep you and your students anonymous, as long as you give some identifying information (grade, district, public/private, charter/traditional public, large/small). The first seventh-grade assignment: