Quote of the Month

Bill Gates
Founder of Microsoft

GATES CHAMPIONS CHARTER SCHOOLS

In a speech given at the National School Conference in Chicago, Bill Gates put forth his position that charter schools are education’s best bet for improving student achievement. He opined that the majority of traditional public schools are just not working and that high-performing charter schools offer the best approach to innovation. Gates called for the elimination of state caps on charter schools, more equitable public funding for charters, and better partnerships with school districts. He lobbied for more risk taking, especially with creating new evaluation structures for teachers and using technology (no surprise!) to make sure students have a firm grasp of what content they have and have not mastered.

THE LATEST ON COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS

The final version of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Math were released on June 2. They reflect the feedback of more than 10,000 comments that the public sent to the committee on the initial standards released in March. Not all reaction has been positive. Some states that had originally agreed to comply with the Common Core State Standards are now taking a second look. One concern raised by several states is that their current standards are more demanding and that they don’t want to “dumb down” their existing standards. Virginia, for one, has already announced that it is opting out of the new standards, even though that means they will no longer be eligible for any Race to the Top funds—the $4 billion federal economic stimulus funding that will be administered by the U.S. Department of Education. The Department has stated that it will favor making grants to states that adopt the standards by August 2. It will be interesting to see how many states sign on by then. Incidentally, the United States is one of only a few developed countries that has lacked national standards for its public schools until now.

FOUR-DAY SCHOOL WEEK

More than 120 school districts across the country have transitioned to a four-day school week as a cost-saving tactic. The four days that students are in school are slightly longer and more crowded with classes and activities. After school, students can get tutoring in subjects where they’re struggling. The trend of a four-day school week started in New Mexico during the oil crisis of the 1970s (as a fuel-saving measure) and has been popular in rural states where students have a long commute to school.

BIAS ALERT: Is our students’ education to be compromised solely for economic reasons? Can we afford to decrease the time students are in school as their challenges to compete in a global 21st-century marketplace increase? Can we trust the future of our children to shortsighted decision makers?

SCHOOLS AS BRANDS?

In a first-of-its-kind-but-probably-not-the-last arrangement, the Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland and publishing giant Pearson Education have announced a combined project called North Star. Under the terms of the agreement, Pearson will pay the school system $2.25 million to develop an integrated elementary school curriculum, which Pearson will then augment and subsequently sell around the world. The school system will also receive a small percentage of sales revenue once the curriculum is completed. Pearson will hold the copyright, market the materials, and help develop the program’s tests and training. The schools, in turn, will open their classrooms to prospective customers. How’s that for an innovative idea?

TEXAS–THE ALONE STAR STATE

Time was when Texas’s curriculum greatly affected the national textbook industry. Not so these days. It appears that the influence of Texas on the $7 billion U.S. textbook market has steadily weakened. And the expressed disapproval by many states of Texas’s recently adopted social studies standards—which espouse conservative positions—dilutes their influence even more. Publishers will most assuredly publish social studies texts that meet Texas’s standards, but, with the help of technology, they can customize the textbooks to meet other states’ standards.