(Readers please note: Family circumstances beyond my control extended my August hiatus. Over the next weeks, I'll get the blog back up to speed. Thanks for your patience.)
The pressure to weaken and even gut NCLB’s accountability regime is substantial and might win out in reauthorization.' [...]
Paul Edelman is a former NYC public school teacher and founder of TeachersPayTeachers.com, a division of Scholastic Inc.
With the launch of TeachersPayTeachers.com (TpT) in April of 2006 the big question was: With all that free stuff out there, will teachers be willing to pay other [...]
The historic mission of public schools is a quality education for all students regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, social background, disability, or native language. It has been honored in the breach too often, but at least in my lifetime, the trend has been towards greater inclusion [...]
Kristen Plemon is an Account Executive with the public relations firm, C. Blohm & Associates Inc.
Traditional marketing methods are losing effectiveness as increasing numbers of marketing messages bombard potential buyers on a daily basis. Meanwhile, buyers are connecting with thousands of people instantly, and potentially [...]
A few days ago, I was asked to define “capacity” in the context of school reform. It's an important question to the school improvement industry because building capacity is what it does. My first thought was “that’s pretty obvious, capacity is…..” Before I could open my' [...]
Even in the campaign’s fora for education policy wonks, evaluation has been a very minor topic. Unless No Child Left Behind becomes material to the election, scientifically based research and its siblings (SBR) will remain the most important issue in federal education policy the Presidential candidates [...]
Last week, I suggested that if Presidential candidates McCain and Obama could be forced to take a stand on the concept of program evaluation reflected in the “scientifically based research,” “scientifically based reading research” and “research based” provisions of No Child Left Behind (referred to [...] 
Carol Glenn, who received her B.A. from Cornell University in May of this year, is the developer of Bronze. Ideablob.com is a prize program sponsored by credit card issuer Advanta Bank Corporation. (Edbizbuzz has no business relationships with Advanta or Ms. Glenn.)
Nearly everyone [...]
Last week’s Letter From explained that scientifically based research and its siblings scientifically based reading research and research based (referred to collectively as SBR) in NCLB are important as a matter of consumer protection; that it has not been addressed in the Presidential candidate’s education [...]
RFPs identify business opportunities, but they are also a neglected primary source for research on k-12 policy and operations. Policy is not just what you say, or how you allocate resources, it's what you buy. From Monday's issue of K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report.
Announcement: [...]Policy is not just what you say, or how you allocate resources, it's what you buy. RFPs identify business opportunities, but they are also a neglected primary source for research on k-12 policy and operations.
From Monday's issue of K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report.
Announcement: [...]
Jim Snyder is Director of the Northwest Education Cluster, a regional school improvement industry trade group based in Portland, Oregon.
(Edbizbuzz encourages other regional and national school improvement industry groups with a web-based presence to join our growing community of quarterly guest columnists - contact editor@edbizbuzz.com.)
[...] Despite the hundreds of times scientifically based research (and its variants scientifically based reading research and research based) appears in No Child Left Behind I, it has not been part of the general debate around NCLB II. It has yet to be mentioned by either Presidential [...] RFPs identify business opportunities, but they are also a neglected primary source for research on k-12 policy and operations. From Monday's issue of K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report.
Announcement: E-Rate Eligible Video Over IP Due July 29, Savannah-Chatham County Public School System, Georgia
RFPs identify business opportunities, but they are also a neglected primary source for research on k-12 policy and operations. From Monday's issue of K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report.
Announcement: Design, Develop, and Implement a Decision Support System (DSS) Due August 22 (Jul 17), [...]
My top five press releases from July's School Improvement Industry Announcements – Federal Politics and Policy.
For a well-rounded understanding of current events in school improvement.
• Getting closer to a Department of Education Budget for FY 2009: FY 2009 Congressional Action (Jul 16).
• [...]
John Thompson is a Teacher in Oklahoma Centennial High School, Oklahoma City Public Schools.
The following are my recommendations for NCLB II. I would like to pay special attention to the way that these sorts of proposals could benefit the education providers industry.
1. [...]
An Update. Yesterday, I examined the arguments offered by Jay P. Greene in defense of the Manhattan Institute's release of his unreviewed report (Building on the Basics: The Impact of High-Stakes Testing on Student Proficiency in Low-Stakes Subjects) with the same fanfare that education policy organizations provide for reports [...]
Last week I began an essay prompted by an exchange between left-of-center eduwonkette and right-of-center Jay P. Greene over the Manhattan Institute’s release of Building on the Basics: The Impact of High-Stakes Testing on Student Proficiency in Low-Stakes Subjects by Greene, Marcus Winters, and Julie Trivitt.
Eduwonkette pointed out [...]
RFPs identify business opportunities, but they are also a neglected primary source for research on k-12 policy and operations. From Monday's issue of K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report
Announcement: Active Shooter For Schools Training Due August 5 (Jul 10) Missouri Department Of Public Safety, State [...]
RFPs identify business opportunities, but they are also a neglected primary source for research on k-12 policy and operations. From Monday's issue of K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report
Announcement: State Preschool Program Re-Bid Due August 25 (Jul 11), California Department of Education
Their Description: The California [...]
My top five press releases from July's School Improvement Industry Announcements – Research and Evaluation Organizations
• Basic "must have" data from the Department of Education's Institute for Education Sciences: Characteristics of the 100 Largest Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts in the United States: [...]
Arie Korporaal is the Executive Director of the California Southeast Educational Technology Consortium (SEETC), Meg Jimenez is the District Technology Resource Teacher for El Rancho USD and one of eight district representatives on the SEETC and Norbert Genis is the Superintendent of El Rancho USD.
[...] My top five press releases from July's School Improvement Industry Announcements – Providers
• Now managing 97 schools, the latest chapter in Education Management Organization (EMO) Edison’s continuing search for a viable business model: EdisonLearning™ Acquires Provost Systems®, Inc. - Technology acquisition plus innovative school [...]
What remains relevant from this letter in the March 29, 2004 issue of School Improvement Industry Week (SIIW)?
All industries consist of three parts: supply, demand and government. Meeting objective criteria is necessary to prove the existence of an industry, but not sufficient. Industries must also have [...]
My top five press releases from June's School Improvement Industry Announcements – State Education Policy Organizations
All public education policy does not emanate from Washington. This is not only a function of funding and the Tenth Amendment. It also follows from the fact that - [...] Dorothy Mikuska founded ePen&inc, developer of PaperToolsPro and PaperToolsPro Online.
Imagine my shock when I read the newspaper headlines that a principal of a nearby high school had plagiarized his entire graduation speech and its valedictorian’s speech had eleven instances of plagiarism. Though extensive evidence [...]
The Bottom Line
If you are a school improvement provider…. School Year (SY) 2009 will probably be more like SY 2008 than SY 2010. States and districts will behave much as last year, holding off on difficult decisions with market changing potential until after No Child Left [...]
My top five press releases from June's School Improvement Industry Announcements – Federal Politics and Policy
Many readers do not have the time to identify and read announcements documenting the relationship between federal education policymaking and the business of school improvement.
edbizbuzz can help.
What remains relevant from this letter in the March 1, 2004 issue of School Improvement Industry Week (SIIW)?
Policymakers, analysts and advocates have spent the last two months debating whether NCLB constitutes an “unfunded mandate” – imposing new federal requirements on states without providing commensurate federal resources. [...]
My top five press releases from June's School Improvement Industry Announcements – Research and Evaluation
Every edbizbuzz reader is not an eduwonk. From correspondence, I know that many are working educators, administrators and school board members. Some are parents. Although the internet has given everyone ready [...]
My top five press releases from this month’s School Improvement Industry Announcements – Providers
I have no doubt that edbizbuzz readers know more about Fordham, Ed Trust and the Center for Education Policy than they do about Scientific Learning, JES and Co. and Sopris West. But [...]
Howard Nelson is a senior researcher at the American Federation of Teachers
Redistributing resources from low-poverty schools to high-poverty schools through the reform of Title I’s comparability requirement should contribute to an important national priority: narrowing the achievement gap. This “reform” was suggested by the Aspen [...] 
My editorializing is now confined to edbizbuzz and my weekly podcast SIIW Online, but on April 5, 2004 they were still part of School Improvement Industry Week. The examples may require a modest recollection of the industry's history and the last Presidential election, but I [...]
Alan J Carter is CEO of the tutoring provider University Instructors
There’s an old business adage my grandfather (who lived for 102 years and was always worth listening to) taught me years ago: “When your outflow exceeds your income, your upkeep becomes your downfall.” He wasn’t [...]
Yesterday This Week in Education's Alexander Russo observed:
[M]ajor scientific discoveries often occur at nearly the same time by groups of different people, not by solitary inventors working in isolation as we've been led to believe. Not only that, but you can apparently gather supersmart folks together and come up [...]
Although it joined the edweek.org blog line-up in September of last year, edbizbuzz celebrated its first anniversary on March 7, 2008.
I started the blog for two reasons.
