The Politics of the PTA

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George Clowes (2003) The national PTA has a long history of public policy advocacy and close ties with the National Education Association.  Charlene Harr’s book discusses her discovery of that history. Intended or not, local PTAs have served as education and political subsidiaries of the NEA. Harr’s discovery eventually led to the emergence of independent, local, grassroot Parent Teacher Organizations. https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/taking-the-parent-out-of-the-national-ptaan-exclusive-interview-with-charlene-k-haar

Can you know the score without looking at the scoreboard?

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From Reversing American Decline by J. E. Stone (2013) Everyone says they want excellent schools, but do we encourage those that are doing the best?  We recognize that coaches and players are encouraged when we complement them for good games and good seasons, but most people most people can’t even find the scoreboard for their favorite school.  If you want better schools, inform yourself, complement the best, and encourage the rest.  The Education Consumers Foundation gives you easy access to basic … Read More

A Nation At Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform

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National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983) Our Nation is at risk. If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.  As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves.We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament. https://edreform.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/A_Nation_At_Risk_1983.pdfhttp://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html

Characteristics of Effective School Boards

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Center for Public Education (2011) Effective school boards are accountability driven and data savvy, and engaged with both the public and school personnel.  Ineffective boards tend to be the opposite.  Rather than being goal setters and drivers of improvement, they leave the academic side of schooling to the educators and take a largely passive role with regard to school performance outcomes.  https://www.nsba.org/-/media/NSBA/File/cpe-eight-characteristics-of-effective-school-boards-report-december-2019.pdf?la=en&hash=1E19C481DAAEE25406008581AE75EB2ABA785930

Parents have their doubts about the state of public schooling but they believe their local schools are fine

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Poll, USA Today (2011) Americans today like their kids’ public schools than at any time in the past 36 years ­ even though they believe U.S. education in general has taken a bit of a dive. Most of what parents and local communities know about their local schools comes from the schools themselves.  Not surprisingly, they have a positive image no matter what the data. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-08-16-public-schools-poll-parents_n.htm

Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms

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Diane Ravitch (2000) For the past one hundred years, Americans have argued and worried about the quality of their schools. Some have charged that students were not learning enough, while others have complained that the schools were not in the forefront of social progress. In this authoritative history of education in the twentieth century, historian Diane Ravitch describes this ongoing battle of ideas and explains why school reform has so often failed. “Left Back” recounts grandiose efforts by … Read More

Visible Learning

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John Hattie (2008) There is a wealth of educational research that shows some schooling and teaching practices (called evidence-based) consistently produce measurably superior learning outcomes. Unfortunately, teachers are rarely trained in the use of them. Instead, teachers are exposed to a variety of theories and prescriptions from which they are expected to pull together a teaching style that best fits their preferences and the classroom circumstances they confront. http://visible-learning.org/

Fighting Fads by Informing Consumers

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George A. Clowes (2004) Ordinary citizens might assume that the “Best Practices” urged by educational researchers are practices that have been proven effective in producing the educational outcomes sought by the public–but they would be wrong. Best Practices are ones that are deemed best suited to the aims of educational theorists and idealists, and are often at odds with the aims of the consuming public. https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/fighting-fads-by-informing-consumers-an-exclusive-interview-with-je-stone

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