Education

The Union’s Value-Add

By Justin Katz | August 28, 2008 |

Congratulations to the National Education Association’s Pat Crowley for managing to push his story about Governor Carcieri’s Florida condos onto (astonishingly) the front page of the Providence Journal, which used it as a contextual gotcha against the backdrop of the union healthcare story. (Gee, I didn’t realize that the governor is rich!) Normally, I wouldn’t…

Reaction to the Caruolo Dismissal in Cranston

By Carroll Andrew Morse | August 28, 2008 |

Cranston Mayoral candidate Allan Fung has issued a statement on Judge Judith Savage’s dismissal of the school committee’s Caruolo Act lawsuit…“Judge Judith Savage’s arguments for denying the School Committee’s request are quite alarming,” said Fung. “It shows that the School Department made no serious attempt to live within the money appropriated to it by the…

Judge Savage to the Cranston School Committee: The Caruolo Act Was Not Meant to Let You Ignore the Taxpayers and the Rest of Municipal Government

By Carroll Andrew Morse | August 27, 2008 |

In her ruling dismissing the Cranston School Committee’s Caruolo Act lawsuit, Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Judith Savage reminds the CSC that the Caruolo Act is not intended as an alternative appropriations mechanism for school committees who decide they don’t want to bother with the due-diligence necessary to inform and persuade the public that increased…

Democrat Mayor Corey Booker: “[We] have to admit as Democrats we have been wrong on education.”

By Marc Comtois | August 25, 2008 |

Mickey Kaus is at the Democratic convention and reports on the Ed Challenge for Change Meeting he attended. I went to the Ed Challenge for Change event mainly to schmooze. I almost didn’t stay for the panels, being in no mood for what I expected would, even among these reformers, be an hour of vague…

Foreclosures Versus Student Enrollment II

By Carroll Andrew Morse | August 22, 2008 |

There is at least one glitch in the comprehensive municipality-by-municipality data that the Projo has been providing on foreclosures. According to a John Castellucci story that appeared in the April 15 Projo, there were 108 foreclosures in Pawtucket between January and mid-March of 2008 and 172 in all of 2007. That calls into question the…

Nix the Union

By Justin Katz | August 22, 2008 |

According to the Sakonnet Times, the Tiverton teachers’ union is softening its demands in the face of fiscal reality. I note, also, that according to an RI Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education table published in the Providence Journal, not a single Tiverton school had sufficient performance or progress to merit commendation after the last…

Foreclosures Versus Student Enrollment

By Carroll Andrew Morse | August 21, 2008 |

Matt Jerzyk of RI Future believes that declines in student population in Central Falls and Providence are due to foreclosures…Speaking of questionable analysis, it is absolutely outrageous to me that anyone can get away with saying that significant drops in school enrollment in Central Falls and Providence are a result of the right-wing’s anti-immigrant activism…

Teach the Children

By Justin Katz | August 19, 2008 |

Obviously, the two articles aren’t in direct opposition, and I’m not suggesting that one presents anything nearing an argument against the other, but the two felt related, so perhaps they’re worth juxtaposing. First, AP education writer Nancy Zuckerbrod’s memoirish piece comparing early childhood education in the England versus the United States: The head teacher and…

Circling the Wagons

By Justin Katz | August 18, 2008 |

No doubt it’s healthy and productive for schools to seek to mimic those fading opportunities for group gatherings and discussion, but Julia Steiny’s column on “circles” at the Paul Cuffee Charter School carries a hint of the “war on boys.” This part is particularly creepy: The power of circles to reintegrate wrongdoers back into the…

No Mystery to Contract Resolution

By Justin Katz | August 10, 2008 |

Ah, the magic of the Lincoln compromise: Despite these tensions, Lincoln is an example of what a community can accomplish, even when money is scarce, says [Larry] Purtill, president of NEARI. “What Lincoln shows is that both sides were willing, in a tough financial environment, to find a way to make sure that they reach…