Time Takes Off

Last night a group of presidential candidates were finally asked a question about learning time in a nationally televised debate!

School of the Future, and International Talk about Ed

I'm off to Helsinki, Finland this week to speak at the Microsoft School of the Future World Summit. This annual conference is attended by participants from over 40 countries to address innovation and accountability in education.

Rockies V Red Sox, Better Baseball than Standards

Fourteen years ago in Colorado we started a baseball team. Tonight, they'll play their first World Series game ever, facing the Boston Red Sox in famed Fenway Park.

As nervous as I am for my team in their competition, I'm much more concerned about how Colorado students will do when competing for jobs against those from Massachusetts.

Keeping the Door Open to Individual Performance Pay

On Friday I offered my take on the New York City bonus plan. I called it a step forward, but was worried about the lack of any up-front requirement to examine and reward the performance of individual classroom teachers.

A Step Forward for Teacher Performance Pay

A hopeful thing happened yesterday in New York City. Union leaders and elected officials came to an agreement on a performance pay plan for teachers based primarily on the test scores of students at schools with large populations of low-income students. Here's what The New York Times has to say on the new plan:

Merit pay programs, which base compensation for teachers on their classroom performance rather than their seniority and academic degrees, have traditionally been opposed by teachers' unions. But those programs, as well as other incentive pay plans, have been gaining ground across the country in recent years, and the movement is likely to get a major boost with this agreement in the nation's largest school system.

J.C. Watts Joins ED in ‘08

Now that I'm back to blogging, I want to tell you about one of the leaders who has partnered with ED in '08. J.C. Watts is a young and thoughtful former congressman from Oklahoma who shares our vision for strong schools for every American student. Some readers may also remember Congressman Watts from his days as a champion quarterback for Oklahoma University, and as a professional football player.

Having Your Cake and Eating It Too

Over the past two weeks several more candidates have released major education proposals with recommendations on standards, teacher quality, or more time and support for students. One specifically pegged education as critical to America's economic health and global competitiveness.

Guest Bloggers for ED in 08 Campaign

I'm going to be out of the office for next week or so.

America's Black Students - Lost Opportunities

I'm in Carolina today speaking to the 66th annual civil rights conference of the South Carolina NAACP. This invitation has made me focus on how well our schools are preparing our young black students for college, for work and for life.

Our Schools Need Another Sputnik Moment

Some of you readers are not old enough to remember Sputnik, but you may have read about the Russian satellite in school. (It blasted into space 50 years ago today.)

By today's standards that primitive spacecraft was tiny, but its impact was enormous. It was a rude shock for a lot of us that America was not ahead in absolutely everything we tried and did.

Fed Chairmen See Need for Strong Schools Too

"Education is the best investment."

That's not my quote, but it easily could be.

South Carolina Tries Different Approaches to Pay

Yesterday I talked about a great review of six performance pay programs around the country.

I will be traveling to South Carolina to speak to the NAACP later this week, and that trip made me think of that state's Teacher Advancement Program. TAP was one of the programs in the study I mentioned yesterday.

Different Approaches to Teacher Pay Are Available

One of the things we want to do with this blog is let people know about new approaches to the problems our schools face and encourage people to try out not-traditional solutions.

Michael J. Podgursky and Matthew G. Springer reviewed six performance pay programs for teachers and produced a long piece on "Teacher Performance Pay: A Review" for the September issue of Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.