The article by Michelle R. Davis offers a great opportunity for seeing how others read the tea leaves on NCLB reauthorization. The point (not) made with overwhelming clarity is that the school improvement industry plays no material role in its own legislative future.   more »

Your editor is sympathetic to the idea that school districts might prefer to bargain over wages, salaries and working conditions with the representative of a teachers' union rather than set the rules by fiat or negotiate with every individual teacher. But the extension of bargaining to all variety of management decisions, for example, assigning teachers to schools based on their own choices according to seniority, rather than where managers believe they can do the most good, takes too much authority away from the citizens who elect school boards preceisely to make such high-level policy decisions. The proposal is bad public policy.   more »

It's a summary of the available research on the market that's worth reading. As an "academic weapon" employed by the left in the "SES wars," the study is a failure. Still, that's just politics. From an investor's or buyer's perspective, the report suggests that when it comes to evaluation, most SES providers' management teams have been asleep at the wheel.    more »

Essential weekly reading for the industry professional. Download for free until June 1.   more »