DFER supports higher expectations of our students and teachers. To help create higher expectations, DFER supports a national, internationally-benchmarked standard that each student, teacher, and school is held accountable for meeting. Accountability standards produce real education reform by flushing out which programs and curriculum work, and which do not.
Accountability [...]
DFER believes that every child deserves to receive a quality public education. If a child is not receiving a quality education at their designated public school, DFER supports a parent's right to choose an alternative school that will provide a quality education for their child.
DFER believes that public [...]
DFER believes that children and teachers deserve schools which are competently and effectively managed, so that excellent teaching and learning are supported and rewarded. Many of the counter-productive rules and regulations governing today's schools got there as a result of incompetent school leadership in the past. DFER therefore supports [...]
DFER supports alternative teacher certification programs, such as Teach For America (TFA) and Teaching Fellows. These programs recruit top graduates from top schools, with the goal of molding them into top teachers. Additionally, these recruits are often placed in school districts that have a difficult time attracting teachers.
Programs [...]
DFER supports publicly funded universal pre-kindergarten to improve the standard of education in the United States, and to close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority youth and their affluent peers by granting every child early exposure to literacy and academic instruction.
As DFER board member Sara Mead writes [...]
I live in a state (New York) that just assumes it is at the top of everything. But unless Education Secretary Arne Duncan includes some special criteria requiring sheer arrogance in the Race To The Top sweepstakes, it will be hard to see how we can show we are doing [...]
Michael Bennet's record U.S. Senate fundraising pace is built on out-of-state donations, Colorado donors concentrated in Denver, and well-heeled associates from his past endeavors in politics and business.
It's a tried-and-true formula for neophyte politicians, especially those [...]
Gary Crosby, chief financial officer of the Buffalo Public Schools, misses the point of the lawsuit by charter schools to stop audits by the state comptroller ("Lawsuit to block comptroller's audits is misguided," The News, May [...]
(From Education Week, May 8, 2009)
By ALYSON KLEIN
President Barack Obama’s first budget proposal would boost U.S. Department of Education spending by 2.8 percent and provide substantial resources to turn around low-performing schools, reward effective teachers, and bolster early-childhood programs.
But—not counting massive one-time increases in the [...]
(From the New York Post, May 8, 2009)
By JOE WILLIAMS
CRITICS of the soon-to-expire law that put Mayor Bloomberg in charge of city schools say it allows him to rule with an iron fist, shielding him from true accountability. But there's nothing fundamentally wrong with him or [...]
(From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 5, 2009)
By ALAN J. BORSUK
The stars are aligned for good things to happen for the charter school movement in America, the president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools recently told a couple of hundred leaders of such schools [...]
(From the New York Post, May 7, 2009)
By CARL CAMPANILE
Harlem state Sen. Bill Perkins claimed this week that mayoral school control has been a "failure," but test data tell the real story: Students in his district have improved significantly under City Hall's watch since 2002.
[...](From USA Today, May 4, 2009)
By GREG TOPPO
WASHINGTON — Handing $100 billion to needy public schools in an economic crisis is an unalloyed good thing, right?Depends.
School districts across the USA are gearing up to receive the first payments under the federal economic stimulus. It temporarily [...]
(From the Winston-Salem Journal, May 2, 2009)
By DARRELL ALLISON
An educational report made headlines in March by revealing that black students in North Carolina are being suspended at a staggering rate.
According to the report, black males in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County receive short-term suspensions at nearly four times the [...]
(From The New York Post, April 27, 2009)
By CHUCK BENNETT
Unions Fund Anti-Mayoral Control Groups
Next week, a coalition of advocacy groups will bus an army of parents into Albany for a "lobby day" against mayoral control of the city's schools -- a prime example of how [...]
(From The Denver Post, April 17, 2009)
By JEREMY P. MEYER
Michelle Rhee, a national firebrand for education reform, urged Colorado educators and lawmakers Thursday night to continue their efforts to change the state of education.
Rhee — chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools who closed 23 schools in [...]
(From Education News Colorado, April 17, 2009)
By NANCY MITCHELL
Scores of media reports about Michelle Rhee since she took over the Washington, D.C., school district less than two years ago have focused on some startling statistics. Since June 2007, she had done the following:
Closed 23 schools [...]KMOX News Radio 1120
The Voice of St. Louis
Mark Reardon Show Featuring Joe Williams (April 9, 2009)
Mark talks with Joe Williams, Executive Director of Democrats for Education Reform, about assisting all kinds of schools. Joe feels it is time that the Democratic Party needs to [...]
(From The Denver Post, April 7, 2009)
By JEREMY P. MEYER
By taking the nation's education secretary to visit two Denver schools undertaking significant reforms, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet aims to demonstrate why Colorado's innovation should be rewarded with government cash.
But while Denver schools showed some encouraging [...]
Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, today released the following statement on the nomination of Colorado Sen. Peter Groff (a founding member of the DFER-Colorado steering committee and 2008 recipient of DFER's Education Warrior Award) to serve as director of the U.S. Education Department's Faith-Based and Community [...]
(From The Denver Post, April 5, 2009)
By DAN HALEY
A funny thing happened on the way to the White House: Democrats got religion on education reform.
Not all Democrats, mind you, but the right Democrats. (And yes, some have been there all along.)
Can I get an [...]
(From The Providence Journal, March 12, 2009)
By JENNIFER D. JORDAN
CUMBERLAND — A group of mayors and town administrators, led by Cumberland Mayor Daniel J. McKee, announced yesterday the launch of plans for a novel kind of public charter school.
The mayors hope their proposed Rhode [...]
(From The Valley Breeze, March 11, 2009)
By MARCIA GREEN
CUMBERLAND – State funding and approvals may still be pending, but already at least $4 million in grants and low-interest loans sit waiting to help launch the Rhode Island Mayoral Academies concept, a new school plan that’s boldly [...]
Group to oversee creation of some charter schools
(From WPRI.com, March 11, 2009)
CUMBERLAND, R.I. (WPRI) - Cumberland Mayor Daniel McKee has announced the formation of a nonprofit organization to oversee new, regional charter schools known as Mayoral Academies.
Rhode Island Mayoral Academies (RIMA) will oversee the establishment [...]
Language on Fair Distribution, Effectiveness Offers Policy Clues
(From Education Week, March 9, 2009)
By STEPHEN SAWCHUK
The recently enacted economic-stimulus bill requires every state to take steps to improve teacher effectiveness, as well as to tackle one of the most pervasive problems in K-12 education: inequities in [...]
In response to President Barack Obama's speech at the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, in which he gave his first major address on education policy, Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) championed the plan and the President's willingness to make good on the promises he made while [...]
Sorry for the delay in posting this, but special DFER kudos to freshman Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson for taking such a strong first step toward the hoop and making education a top priority in his new administration.
Johnson hosted a fantastic education summit at the Sacramento Museum on Monday [...]
Or, what if you decided to host a party, but Colorado was the only state that showed up...
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter this week appointed Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien to serve as his hand-picked "Race To The Top" czar, to make sure the state is demonstrating its commitment to [...]
Thompson's Record on Schools
(From The New York Post, March 5, 2009)
By JACOB GERSHMAN
HOW would Mayor Bill Thompson run the city's school system?
The question's been overlooked as Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein plead their case for another four years in charge [...]
Somehow it doesn't sound as sexy when you throw the "Almost" in there, but it is something that Democrats are having to grapple with right now in a few locations.
Writing in the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier, Democratic State Sen. Robert Ford over the weekend explains (along with Rep. Eric Bedington) why [...]
The indispensable Politics K-12 blog at EdWeek did its best to crash yesterday's meeting between Education Secretary Arne Duncan and state education chiefs. They weren't allowed in for the whole thing, but they caught enough to pinpoint where the tension is likely to be in the attempts [...]
(From Education Next, Spring 2009)
By RICHARD COLVIN
Rift in Democratic Party over the nation’s education reform agenda is growing. One side backs strong accountability through reforms, the other looks to augment the current system with social support programs.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s Senate confirmation hearing in January was [...]
(From Education Week, February 23, 2009)
By ALYSON KLEIN
The U.S. Department of Education is supposed to release guidance as soon as this week on how states and districts can tap and use the $100 billion in education funding in the stimulus.
But while you're waiting for [...]
The Manhattan Institute's Pete Peterson offers a snarky view of recent Stimulus House Parties which swept the nation's social and political scene.
But these Stimulus House Parties are nothing new. As a kid growing up in the suburbs in the 1970's, our parents had some LEGENDARY stimulus house parties. Some [...]
The Providence Journal reports this morning that Rhode Island Education Commissioner Peter McWalters has informed Providence Superintendent Tom Brady that city schools may no longer allow seniority "bumping" to push good teachers out of bad schools.
And before anyone can say, "But wait, what about the teachers contract?" [...]
(From The Associated Press, February 17, 2009)
By LIBBY QUAID
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama wants to do more than save teachers' jobs or renovate classrooms with his economic recovery bill. He wants to transform the federal government's role in education.
Public schools will get an unprecedented [...]
Yolanda Hill is a very, very bad woman.
Thankfully she was arrested and had her hands cuffed to a chain around her waist after spending several days in jail last week before appearing before a Rochester (NY) area judge.
People like Hill should not be allowed to roam our streets.
Although [...]
(From The Boston Globe, February 14, 2009)
By KATHLEEN A. MADIGAN
A DEBATE is raging about the future of academic standards in American public education. On one side, University of Virginia Professor E.D. Hirsch and organizations like Democrats for Education Reform are working to extend standards-based reforms. On [...]
The NT Times' Sam Dillon this morning writes up the groundbreaking stimulus bill that Republicans chose to ignore. (Though is seems that governors who actually have to run their states aren't ignoring it.)
Our interest in this bill, due to be signed today by President Obama, [...]
(From The New Republic's blog "The Plank", February 4, 2009)
By SEYWARD DARBY
Thanks to the hefty sum--roughly $140 billion--slated for education funding in the federal stimulus package, heated debate over education reform has hit the news yet again. Although they welcome the attention being paid [...]
Can be found here. You can supersize it with a large drink and fries if you like.
Last week's thoughts can be found by scrolling down.
[...]
If you weren't paying attention during all of the back-and-forth last week on the proposed economic stimulus package as it relates to schools, you might think that the comments that appeared in Saturday's Wall Street Journal from GOP Rep. Buck McKeon's flack-catcher were somehow misquoted.
Republicans are opposed to the [...]
Separated at birth? The Rocky Mountain News looks at Colorado Senate President Peter Groff's thang for American Idol, retelling a story about a request of DFER's Ron Tupa (back when Tupa was a state senator) to do his best Ryan Seacrest impression. You make the call...
Meanwhile, [...]
