GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Malcolm Gladwell considers teacher quality in this week’s New Yorker.
• Hendrik Hertzberg endorses class size reduction.
• Diane Ravitch asks how to expand accountability beyond test scores.
• My hometown school system gets all-time high scores on Advanced Placement tests.
• Eduwonkette reminds that even the most impressive gap-closer schools are still behind.
• Linda Darling-Hammond tells Alyson Klein to wait until next week.
• Pondiscio and Petrilli school Jonathan Alter for being too casual about how hard it is to improve schools.
• Mike Antonucci finds an internal NEA document showing the union pulled many members to Obama.
• Ed in the Apple says the teachers union is at a crossroads: should it pick an all-out brawl or should it change to match the changing world?

We’re making like the students and taking a Thanksgiving vacation Thursday and Friday. Here are a few morsels to gnaw at when you finish the turkey.

• Inside Higher Ed makes the most complete list ever of Ed Sec possibles. (via Richard Whitmire)
• Diane Ravitch wonders about the distance between Good Intentions, Ignorant Elites, and Scoundrels.
• Did you know that I hurt my foot? Other facts about me are in this Alexander Russo interview.
• Kevin Carey reviews Malcolm Gladwell’s book, and quotes this passage on KIPP: “Schools work. The only problem with school, for the kids who aren’t achieving, is that there isn’t enough of it…”
• Arne Duncan of Chicago is killing in Flypaper’s who-will-be-Education-Secretary poll.
• Liz Willen wonders what we can learn from a school where a tradition of dressing like pilgrims became controversial.
• Ed in the Apple gives four reasons New York City small schools have high graduation rates.