Michelle Rhee, the public schools chancellor of the District of Columbia who drew attacks from unions for firing more than 200 teachers, mostly over student performance, has resigned, effective at the end of the month.

Full story @

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-13/michelle-rhee-resigns-as-d-c-schools-chancellor.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/education/13schools.html

“It’s time we take a broad look at the state of education in America today. What are our graduation rates? How are our standardized test scores? How well paid are our teachers? Let’s take the pulse of our country’s education system — all the way from its kindergartens to its universities. Comparing and contrasting with statistics from other countries, we can see where we fit in on the international scene…and we can begin to think about how to repair education in America.” -

GOOD Magazine

“The price of a college education, compared to the CPI, has risen dramatically since 1980. It has outpaced the housing bubble, and has many of the same characteristics, including a government sponsored credit bubble.

And with competitive quality now in question compared to emerging economies like China, the value per dollar spent for that American college tuition may be even lower.”

Here is a great lesson from Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon.com) – students and parents come first.  Period.

• Part 1: Effective Teaching and Leadership examines views about responsibility and accountability; what collaboration looks like in schools, and if and to what degree it is currently practiced.
• Part 2: Student Achievement examines views on student goals, teacher expectations, and what educators believe would increase student achievement.
• Part 3: Teaching as a Career examines collaboration in the context of teacher professional growth, experience level and career path.

Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick has pledged to nearly triple online course revenue — from $20.5 million to $60 million — over five years.

Just a few months into the effort, the university is ahead of schedule. Online enrollments in 2010 project to be 80 percent higher than in 2009, said Raphael Caprio, vice president of continuing education.

“It took us 10 years to get to 500 students,” Caprio said. “And three semesters to get to 5,000.”" – Brian Whitley/The Star-Ledger, 02.21.10

For full article, click here

“At the heart of the reauthorization debate over the “No Child Left Behind” law is a fundamental question about how we best educate our children to prepare them and our country to meet the dual challenges of the new century and of competitor nations seeking to knock America off the pedestal of world leader. As we have struggled to answer this question, one key lesson we have already learned is that education is about more than K-12 or post-secondary, it’s about the lifelong process of educating our continuum of citizens to be on the cutting edge of knowledge.

Throughout our history, as we moved from voluntary to mandatory to universal education we have introduced new ideas and concepts to meet the changing nature of who we were trying to educate: the immigrant (both then and now); the farmer, the suburbanite; the city dweller; the poor. Each time a new idea was introduced — compulsory education (and the taxes to pay for them), land grant colleges, community schools, all day kindergarten, charter schools, federal loans — the established authority has resisted…” – William G. Tierney, Huffington Post, 03.01.10

For the full article, click here