A story we overlooked - Vantage cancels contract in billing dispute but keeps working with state, then its testing system gets overloaded and fails. Bad news for Vantage. Lessons Learned: No good deed goes unpunished? Nobody wins but the lawyers?   more »

This week's review of announcements from organizations researching school improvement and evaluating its programs.   more »

FYI   more »

Testimony of Allan Olson, Co-Founder and Chief Academic Officer, Northwest Evaluation Association, before the House Education Committee. This approach seems quite consistent with NCLB's intent, but may be beyond the capacity of most states and districts for many years. Still worth understanding.   more »

No surprises, but for the record....   more »

From the March 21 House Education Committee Hearings. A start to gutting NCLB's key provisions - the calculation of AYP and the consequences of failure. Complex measures of performance are the fastest route to the return of an unnacountable system. Simple measures - profit for firms, student performance for schools are admittedly harsh, and leave out important values of society, but they do get at "the most important thing." If a company is not profitable, it doesn't matter that it has a great day care program. If a school can't bring all of its kids up to the basic standards of proficiency measured by the low hurdle of most state assessments, it doesn't matter much it has a great schoool climate. Organizations that cover meet the most important measures are in the best position to do the rest.   more »

Perhaps the strangest of bedfellows join forces on literacy.   more »

State rules governing the adoption of instructional resources favor textbooks. As such, they constitute one of the most important barriers to entry facing school improvement providers who deliver their content by other means. Changing the rules in California will go a long way to level a playing field that artificially favors a handful of huge publishers.   more »