Often, the first question reporters ask when interviewing me about the PDK/Gallup poll results is, “What did you find most surprising?”That’s a good question because when you create new questions, you always have in your mind how you think Americans will respond. So here is my list of the most surprising results from the 2010 [...]

Who said bipartisanship in Washington was dead?

NCLB’s implementation has been controversial, and the annual PDK/Gallup poll confirms that it has very little public support. So why would the Learning First Alliance (LFA), a partnership of 17-major national education associations, send a letter to President Obama offering support to reauthorize ESEA during the current legislative session?

In a prior life, I was a high school assistant principal and then principal for seven years.  My professional goals as a school administrator were identified using a time-honored evaluation process of mutually establishing objectives with my boss. At the time, I felt everything was as it should be, and that I did a good [...]

Hooray for NCLB! (read on to understand why I wrote that) The hard work of creating rigorous and internationally benchmarked education standards continues (see my October 28 blog post). The Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) is a voluntary effort led by the nation’s governors and their highest-ranking education policymakers, state superintendents and commissioners. It has [...]

Linda Darling-Hammond is one of our nation’s most highly regarded education researchers on various topics including teachers and teaching, and international standards and assessment.  Linda also serves as a member of the Phi Delta Kappan board of editorial consultants. Tuesday, November 17, Edutopia is sponsoring two FREE webinars featuring Linda Darling-Hammond. The first, “What would [...]

In 1997, Checker Finn, a former assistant secretary of education during the Reagan administration observed that Republicans don’t like the word “national,” and Democrats don’t like the word “test,” suggesting that national tests, from a political perspective, were dead on arrival. Fast forward 12 years–politics aside, more rational education leaders recognize that the current patchwork of [...]