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Building on Success: Educational Strategies that Work
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Greg Anrig,
The Century Foundation,
3/5/2009
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As President Barack Obama continues to shape his domestic agenda, he has indicated that he plans to identify, support and expand programs that work, while eliminating things that don’t work. In a new policy brief from The Century Foundation, Greg Anrig, vice president for policy, looks at three highly successful state education initiatives that are working for children, their families, and their communities.
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In Plain Sight: Simple, Difficult Lessons from New Jersey's Expensive Effort to Close the Achievement Gap
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Gordon MacInnes,
Century Foundation Press,
1/9/2009
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This is a story about what happens when a state education department partners with city school districts in an attempt to close the achievement gap between poor, minority city students and their counterparts in the predominantly white and more affluent suburban districts. It is a story set in New Jersey, but the lessons apply in any American city that has concentrations of poor children in failing school districts. What sets New Jersey apart is the generous level of court-mandated funding available, and the fact that preschool in the state begins at age three.
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What Educators Can Learn from ER
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Gordon MacInnes,
The Century Foundation,
1/29/2010
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Educators could learn a thing or two from the craft of medicine, even medicine practiced on television. Doctors on the popular television series ER, for example, are not surprised to learn that mortality rates are higher at County General Hospital than at Pleasant Valley Community Hospital. Doctors at County see a lot more drug abusers, gunshot victims, obese diabetics, alcoholics, and the homeless, not to mention heart attacks, strokes, and concussions. Pleasant Valley might see more lawn mower and hockey injuries, to go along with heart and cancer problems. Its patients arrive in better overall health, have regular check-ups, and better insurance coverage. These factors make a difference—a huge difference—in outcomes between the two hospitals. Download the Issue Brief (PDF).
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| > All Education Publications | |
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What Educators Should Learn from ER
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Gordon MacInnes,
The Century Foundation,
2/1/2010
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Educators could learn a thing or two from the craft of medicine, even medicine practiced on television. Doctors on the popular television series ER, for example, are not surprised to learn that mortality rates are higher at County General Hospital than at Pleasant Valley Community Hospital. Doctors at County see a lot more drug abusers, gunshot victims, obese diabetics, alcoholics, and the homeless, not to mention heart attacks, strokes, and concussions. Pleasant Valley might see more lawn mower and hockey injuries, to go along with heart and cancer problems. Its patients arrive in better overall health, have regular check-ups, and better insurance coverage. These factors make a difference—a huge difference—in outcomes between the two hospitals. Continue Reading on the Taking Note blog.
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Obama's No Child Left Behind Revisions
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
2/1/2010
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According to today’s New York Times, President Obama will propose a number of important changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which under the Bush Administration was known as No Child Left Behind. The good news is that Obama plans to eliminate some of the most problematic features of NCLB. The bad news is that he may introduce some new problems, drawing on the administration’s current “Race to the Top” education program. Continue Reading on the Taking Note blog.
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SOTU and Education
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
1/28/2010
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On the education front, President Obama's State of the Union address was notable in three respects. First, he adroitly tied his reforms in higher education to his larger message about holding banks accountable. Currently, the government subsidizes banks to make low interest student loans for college. Cutting the banks out and making loans directly will save billions of dollars that Obama directs to increasing Pell Grants and other education programs, such as better pre-K. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Bloomberg’s Flawed Teacher Evaluation Mandate
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Gordon MacInnes,
The Century Foundation,
12/1/2009
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Better a mayor or governor willing to fight for improved teaching and learning than one trapped by the status quo. However, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s newly proposed policies seem destined to out-run the capacity of educators to implement the fair and workable system of teacher evaluation he promises.Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Does Obama Believe in School Integration?
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
11/17/2009
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Over the past 10 months, we’ve heard a great deal about the Obama Administration’s support for charter schools, education standards, and performance pay for teachers. But what does the Administration think of racial and socioeconomic school integration? On Friday, a slew of major civil rights organizations held a national conference at Howard University Law School and invited several key Obama Administration officials to speak, including Carmel Martin, Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development at the Department of Education; Russlynn Ali, the Education Department’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights; and Derek Douglas, Special Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs in the Domestic Policy Council. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Kristof’s Misplaced War on Teacher Unions
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
10/15/2009
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For years, conservatives have routinely denounced teacher unions as the biggest problem in education. Not poverty or segregation, which four decades of research have consistently found to be the number one and number two predictors of low performance. Instead, the democratically-elected representatives of America’s teachers are to blame. For the right wing, these attacks have been wrong-headed but politically rational: teacher unions forcefully oppose the right’s pet ideas (including publicly funded private school vouchers), and work hard to elect liberal candidates who pledge to devote greater resources to public education. More recently, however, we’ve seen the rise of the liberal critic, who oddly regurgitates right wing talking points on teacher unions. Nicholas Kristof’s column in this morning’s New York Times is a prime example. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Avoid Top-down Policies that Disrespect Teaching
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Gordon MacInnes,
The Century Foundation,
10/7/2009
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Education Secretary Arne Duncan has a point--the prevailing system for preparing, recruiting, evaluating, retaining, and compensating teachers does not work well. There is broad agreement that prospective teachers require more clinical experience; that inexperienced teachers need more and better mentoring; that evaluations of classroom teachers are routinized and of little value; that accumulated course credits do not usually pay off in better classroom performance; that seniority doesn’t guarantee quality instruction; and, that it is too cumbersome and expensive to dismiss bad teachers. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Secretary Duncan: Let Charter Schools Be Charter Schools
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Gordon MacInnes,
The Century Foundation,
8/26/2009
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This is the third commentary on Secretary Arne Duncan’s campaign to strengthen charter schools, including an expanded role as turn-around specialists for failed district schools. It is a policy initiative that puts undeserved and unmanageable weight on still-fragile institutions, and deflects attention from more effective alternatives. In his June speech to the national charter school association, Secretary Duncan challenged the evolving charter networks like KIPP, Aspire, and Uncommon Schools to turn their attention to failed district schools, particularly those that make up the bottom 5%. Some may wonder if this modest point is worthy of such expansive commentary, but ill-conceived policies have a way of gaining momentum. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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No Child Left Behind’s Incentive Game
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Marco Basile,
The Century Foundation,
8/17/2009
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At a recent education policy gathering of top social scientists from fifteen universities and several policy research organizations, the best line of the day came from a reporter at the back of the room. Various longitudinal studies of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) had been presented at a conference dedicated to evaluating the 2001 Act by the time a young reporter raised his hand, stood up, and asked with a straight face: “Could any of today’s speakers please tell us whether or not the No Child Left Behind Act is working?” Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Housing Integration in Westchester
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
8/12/2009
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Yesterday’s New York Times brought welcome news that suburban Westchester County New York had agreed to a landmark housing desegregation settlement to create more than 600 homes and apartments for moderate income residents in overwhelmingly white communities. For many people, the idea of integration – of housing and of schools – has a 1970's ring to it, but if we really want to provide equal opportunity for kids, and to fulfill the promise of a single nation, the Westchester agreement must be a harbinger of things to come.Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Secretary Duncan: Keep Charters out of the Muck, Please
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Gordon MacInnes,
The Century Foundation,
7/9/2009
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Secretary Arne Duncan used his speech before the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools to spotlight the “bottom 5%” of America’s public schools. Numbering about 5,000, Duncan urged the charter school community to consider taking on some of these schools and turn them around. He was clear that not every charter school operator is up to this challenge, naming a few multiple-site groups like KIPP and Green Dot as possible candidates.Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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| > All Education News & Commentary | |
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| School Turnaround Strategies: A Debate
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The Century Foundation & The Center for American Progress
- 11/12/2009
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The Obama administration has made it a major priority to turn around the nation's lowest performing schools but there is considerable debate over how to accomplish this goal. Some argue for bringing in new teachers or new organizations such as charter schools to turnaround failing institutions, contending that improved educational opportunities do not require a change in the mix of students in a school. Others argue that it is very difficult to take successful high poverty de facto segregated schools to scale and that magnet approaches can turn around failing institutions by attracting a different mix of students, parents, and faculty.
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| Closing the Achievement Gap Through Additional Funding, High Quality Instruction, and a Focus on Early Literacy: Lessons From New Jersey Districts
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The Century Foundation & The Center for American Progress
- 4/7/2009
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On April 7, The Center for American Progress and The Century Foundation held a discussion of the book In Plain Sight, Simple, Difficult Lessons from New Jersey's Expensive Effort to Close the Achievement Gap by Gordon MacInnes. The author and our expert panelists will discuss the lessons learned by these districts as well as the implications for state and federal policy.
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| 90 Years of Progress
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- 12/1/2009
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This year marked the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of The Century Foundation (which was known for most of its history as the Twentieth Century Fund). Our founder, Edward Filene, created this organization with the goal of supporting studies and analysis that could lead to constructive action on our nation’s public policy. That heritage has compelled us to educate, provoke, and develop better answers when evidence and reason show that public debates are badly off track. Over the past nine decades, we have called attention to facts and analyses to correct widespread misconceptions and provide policymakers with new ideas for addressing the challenges facing the nation.
We have created this video to provide a glimpse into our story and how it is intertwined with America’s story for much of the twentieth century and beyond.
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| > All Education Events | |
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| New Policy Brief from The Century Foundation Makes the Case for the Federal Government to Build on the Success of State and Local Education Initiatives
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3/5/2009
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March 5, 2009 — As President Barack Obama continues to shape his domestic agenda, he has indicated that he plans to identify, support and expand programs that work, while eliminating things that don’t work. In a new policy brief from The Century Foundation, Greg Anrig, vice president for policy, looks at three highly successful state education initiatives that are working for children, their families, and their communities.
Download the Press Release.
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| Eight Reasons Not to Tie Teacher Pay to Standardized Test Results: A New Issue Brief from The Century Foundation
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10/28/2009
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Should teachers be judged by how well their students perform on standardized test? The U.S. Department of Education has determined that the answer is “yes.” In the proposed rules for the Race to the Top Fund—the federal program that is seeking to distribute $4.3 billion in aid to states that are implementing innovative and ambitious plans for increasing student achievement—Education Secretary Arne Duncan insists that in order to receive these funds, states should be ready evaluate and compensate teachers based in part on how well their students perform on standardized tests.
In a new issue brief, Eight Reasons Not to Tie Teacher Pay to Standardized Test Results released today by The Century Foundation, Fellow Gordon MacInnes points out why this plan doesn’t make the grade.
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| Turnaround Schools That Work: Moving Beyond Separate but Equal
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11/12/2009
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Nov. 12, 2009, Washington, DC — Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s far-reaching efforts to transform the country’s lowest-performing schools into successful ones don’t reach far enough, according to a new report from The Century Foundation. In “Turnaround Schools That Work: Moving Beyond Separate but Equal,” TCF Senior Fellow Richard Kahlenberg details why “turnaround” approaches that focus on changing principals and teachers but fail to address issues related to parents and students have fallen short of expectations. In the report, he also looks at charter schools, such as Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) schools and the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) Promise Academies. He finds that, while these schools have been highly successful with low income students, the models would not likely be successfully employed to improve student achievement in the nation’s five thousand lowest-performing public schools, which are the focus of Duncan’s current efforts.
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| Digital Promise Project Reaches Goal for Creation of National Center For Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies
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1/27/2010
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After more than a decade of nationwide effort, the Digital Promise Project has achieved an essential goal the creation of the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies. The Digital Promise Project had its beginnings as a project sponsored by The Century Foundation. This year the Department of Education, as provided by their 2010 appropriations legislation, will make available the initial funding required to launch the National Center. In the words of the Centers authorizing legislation, The purpose of the Center shall be to support a comprehensive research and development program to harness the increasing capability of advanced information and digital technologies to improve all levels of learning and education, formal and informal, in order to provide Americans with the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the global economy
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| > All Education Press Releases | |
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| Visit The Century Foundation's Equality & Education Web site for Education issues in depth |
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Taking Note
