A top-notch team of researchers from your editor’s former employer find “statistically significant” improvements for students taking advantage of SES. But what is the significance of “significance” in this context? And what of the dogs that didn’t bark? What we have here is “the truth,” “and nothing but the truth,” but not quite “the whole truth.” Statistically significant effects are not necessarily educationally significant - and RAND is close to slient on the latter point. The fault here lies less with RAND, than those who will take advantage of the report's incomplete nature and a naïve public - and a Department of Education that has once again politicized education science.   more »

Blessing a "race to the bottom" or making the case for national standards?   more »

School improvement providers who walk the talk of scientifically based research - reading or otherwise - need to form their own trade group and start lobbying hard for a market based on outcomes rather than marketing budgets. Their investors need to get behind them or push them into it. Absent this, expect to see cultural change at a pace that makes watching paint dry exciting by comparison.   more »

Your editor has no doubt that the academic consultants and Administration officials were engaged in a massive conflict between their duty to carry out NCLB faithfully as office holders or their agents and their personal loyalty to ideology, pedagogy or financial self-interest. Still, when the roles of the officials and the academics are untangled it is possible to see how each might honestly rationalize their actions.   more »

And NCLB changes nothing....   more »

Assignment: Read SES provider spokesperson and Education Industry Association President Steve Pines’ letter to the Chicago Sun Times discussing the poor showing of most local SES providers on state tests. Then read the letter of the law. Identify the gaps and overlaps. Discuss the implications for SES providers and the broader school improvement industry in NCLB reauthorization.....    more »

The legislative intent of No Child Left Behind is to shift the measure of success from what meets the various desires of public education’s principal institutions - constrained only by budgets, to what actually works to improve student performance. Your editor has long argued that the ultimate demonstration of a commitment to student performance is a provider's investment in ongoing research. Many readers know of the nonprofit Success for all Foundation’s years of study behind its interventions. Your editor has pointed readers to ongoing research by privately-held provider Carnegie Learning and ProQuest’s (NYSE:PQE) Voyager Expanded Learning unit. Now consider Scientific Learning (NASDC: SCIL).   more »