Category Archives: top posts

I Taught At The XQ Houston Super School

Posted on September 21, 2017 by

On September 8th Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell-Jobs, purchased a prime time commercial free hour on the four major TV networks to broadcast something called XQ Super School Live.  Reformers were celebrating and tweeting about viewing parties and things like … Continue reading →

Posted in top posts, Uncategorized | 13 Comments

KIPP School Booted From US News Best Schools List

Posted on July 7, 2017 by

U.S. News and World Report publishes an annual list of the best high schools based on a metric involving mostly AP tests.  Two months ago I noticed something strange when examining the data for a KIPP high school in New … Continue reading →

Posted in top posts, Uncategorized | 18 Comments

4th Best High School In New York Is A KIPP School That Doesn’t Exist

Posted on April 28, 2017 by

Yesterday I wrote about the U.S. News and World Report 2017 high school rankings.  I found some suspicious numbers when I noticed that the 29th best high school, and the 4th best in New York, was a KIPP school called KIPP … Continue reading →

Posted in top posts, Uncategorized | 16 Comments

Open Letters to Reformers I DON’T Know. Part IV: Arne Duncan

Posted on April 2, 2015 by

This is the sixteenth in a series of open letters I have written to reformers I know and, more recently, that I don’t know over the past two years.  Go here for links to the other letters and responses. 4/2/15 Dear … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Letters Series, top posts, Uncategorized | 27 Comments

The Death of math

Posted on October 19, 2013 by

Galileo once wrote “Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.”  It is said that over the door of Plato’s Academy were the words “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter.”  Indeed, the word ‘Mathematics’ comes from … Continue reading →

Posted in Teach For America, top posts | 58 Comments

How I teach 2.6 months more of math in a year than the rest of you slackers

Posted on September 20, 2013 by

A report was recently released which according to some TFA defenders “settles the issue” about the effectiveness of Teach For America teachers.  By comparing the standardized test scores of TFA teachers with varying amounts of experience to non-TFA teachers teaching … Continue reading →

Posted in Research, tfa rants, top posts | 25 Comments

Teacher quality at KIPP

Posted on April 10, 2013 by

I’ve written a bunch of posts about my visit to the KIPP high school in New York city over the past few months.  The first was a general summary and, since then, I’ve gotten more deeply into some of the … Continue reading →

Posted in KIPP visit, top posts | 49 Comments

Open Letters To Reformers I Know. Part 8: Wendy Kopp

Posted on December 31, 2012 by

Links to the rest of this series here My ‘open letter’ series culminates with this letter to the founder of Teach For America, Wendy Kopp.  I suppose that I’ve ‘known’ Wendy for twenty-one years as I first spoke to her … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Letters Series, tfa rants, top posts | 41 Comments

Analyzing Released NYC Value-Added Data Part 2

Posted on February 28, 2012 by

In part 1 I demonstrated there was little correlation between how a teacher was rated in 2009 to how that same teacher was rated in 2010.  So what can be more crazy than a teacher being rated highly effective one … Continue reading →

Posted in Research, top posts | 60 Comments

Why I did TFA, and why you shouldn’t

Posted on October 31, 2011 by

There was a time, not very long ago, when I was an active volunteer alumni recruiter for TFA. And, as you might expect, I was great at it. One year, I think it was 1998, I did a recruitment session … Continue reading →

Posted in book proposal, Teach For America, tfa rants, top posts | 218 Comments