If there were more Republicans like this, I'd switch

Joshua Dunn provides the necessary background on the Kansas City story.

This guys is uneducated

The Quick and the Ed has been running a five-part series on smarter data systems.  Amusing how the final installment ends: 

We believe that when combined together, data intelligent teachers, data intelligent students, and data intelligent technologies will help us all finally realize the real benefits of all this data.

Oh, yes, we do so believe after spending all that money doing all those things, we will finally (!) start seeing real benefits.  Funny how the article doesn't quote a single teacher on the benefits of ARIS, New York City's student data system, which is featured in the article.  Also most amusing how the authors (and this is a common mistake among the folks who run our education systems, including those most "data-driven") are unaware that "data" is the plural of "datum."

To win in Afghanistan we must get rid of bad soldiers

"Teacher quality" is high on the agenda these days as the key to fixing what ails us in education.  I would submit we need to look at who's running the system.   The blather that comes out of Arne Duncan is so typical of the bloated, pompous promises  that every high-ranking educrat must master if he wishes to advance his career.  For example:

We expect the states that win Race to the Top will lead the way and blaze the path for the future of school reform for years and even decades to come. They will make education reform America's mission.

It's embarrassing to work in a public institution where the highest-ranking person is such a bonehead.   If this is an example of the finest critical thinking skills our nation's top educator has to offer, we are certainly doomed.  Anybody with a shred of common sense can list many reasons why the Race to the Trough may end up a flop.  And for anybody with the least familiarity with all the education policy fads that come and gone over the past 30 years, the handwriting is clearly on the wall.

But put that aside, something interesting here is Duncan's idea of "reform."  When you reform something, you take it and transform it into something else.  Usually, before you get started, you have some idea of where you are heading.  But Duncan has no goal in mind behind perpetual reform, for "decades to come," stretching as far as the eye can see.  "Education reform," not simply good education for all children, should be America's mission.  A ceaseless process of change has become the goal.

Harlem Children's Zone Study

The National Bureau of Economic Research has released a paper on effects of the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) by Willian Dobbie and Roland Fryer.  I haven't read the paper, but the abstract suggests that it confirms what the hated teachers' unions have been saying for quite some time: children from poor families can catch up with their wealthier peers, but it requires intensive (and expensive) extra-academic interventions and supports.  They find that HCZ has good results, but spends 19% more per student than the median New York State school district and 55% more per student than New York City charters to achieve them.  This is pretty much the same (and obvious) conclusion that Richard Rothstein drew several years ago in Class and Schools: additional money, well spent, is required to close the achievement gap.  Of course, the "no excuses" crowd are going to use it as yet another opportunity to pound on teachers for the terrible job they are doing.

In the NBER Digest, Linda Gorman writes:

In Are High Quality Schools Enough to Close the Achievement Gap? Evidence from a Social Experiment in Harlem (NBER Working Paper No. 15473), Will Dobbie and Roland Fryer find that in the fourth and fifth grade, the math test scores of charter school lottery winners and losers are virtually identical to those of a typical black student in the New York City schools. After attending the Promise Academy middle school for three years, black students score as well as comparable white students. They are 11.6 percent more likely to be scoring at grade level in sixth grade, 17.9 percent more likely to be scoring at grade level in seventh grade, and 27.5 percent more likely to be scoring at grade level by eighth grade. Overall, Promise Academy middle school enrollment appears to increase math scores by 1.2 standard deviations in eighth grade, more than the estimated benefits from reductions in class size, Teach for America, or Head Sta rt.

The benefits accrue to all subsets of students in the middle school including those entering above or below median test scores, those eligible for free lunches, and those who were and were not eligible for the Harlem Children's Zone's student-family service bundles of nutritious fruits and vegetables, advice, pre-made meals, and money and travel allowances. The total cost of the Promise Academy charter school was about $19,272 per student including after-school and "wrap-around" programs. The New York Department of Education funded every charter school at $12,443 per student in 2008-9, and the median school district in New York State spent $16,171 per student in 2006.