John Merrow and Thomas Toch Debate Michelle Rhee’s Strategy for Running Urban Schools

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A debate about school reform has been raging on the pages of The Washington Monthly—between Thomas Toch, a defender of what is frequently called “corporate school reform” and John Merrow, the retired education reporter for the PBS NewsHour.  The subject: Washington, D.C. school reform as launched by Michelle Rhee and further evolved during the tenure of Kaya Henderson and others whom Henderson hired.  This now-old story about the D.C. public schools still matters, because the theories and practices introduced by Michelle Rhee a decade ago in the nation’s capital continue to drive the operation of urban school districts across the United States.

Thomas Toch formerly led the think tank Education Sector and now serves as the director of FutureEd, an education think tank at Georgetown University. The July-August, Washington Monthly published Toch’s  Hot for Teachers, a paean to what he believes is a decade of public school…

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Eva Moskowitz Likely to Continue Plaguing the Recently Re-Elected NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio

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On the morning after the recent election, POLITICO New York Education reminded us that newly re-elected New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio had delayed important education decisions until after the election.  POLITICO‘s Eliza Shapiro and Keshia Clukey point readers to an upcoming and likely contentious fight about expanding the co-location of charter schools into public schools, a battle NYC’s charter school diva, Eva Moskowitz is ready to launch.

You can read about Eva Moskowitz in a clever and entertaining review in The Nationof Eva’s new memoir, The Education of Eva Moskowitz.  Megan Erickson, a NYC public school teacher and the book’s reviewer quotes Eva describing her own belief in controversy on behalf of her Success Academy Charter Schools: “If the day ever comes when I think something is okay simply because district schools do it, I hope my board fires me… To achieve excellence, one must fight…

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Moving Beyond a Soundbite Analysis of College-for-All vs. Career-Technical Education

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Happy Thanksgiving!  This blog will take the holiday week off.  Look for a new post on Tuesday, November 28.

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This week Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has been talking about (economic) opportunity—the role of education for preparing students eventually to enter the workforce through career and technical education and apprenticeships. Based on numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, DeVos has proposed expanding apprenticeships to help fill openings for 6 million “good” jobs.

Surely students pursuing career and technical paths of study need and deserve better education, but we cannot assume that federal support for a modest expansion of apprenticeships is a solution for a large and complex challenge. Emphasizing individualism as usual, DeVos said, “We need to stop forcing kids into believing a traditional four-year degree is the only pathway to success… We need to expand our thinking on what apprenticeships actually look like… We need to start…

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