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Teachers College doctoral student Alexander Hoffman thought he was finished writing about national standards and their drawbacks. But then he thought again. National standards do have potential, he writes in a new post in the Community section:

I have absolutely no doubt that education in our schools happens in the interactions between children and educators, children and each other, children and themselves, and children and the materials, activities and environments that educators set up. If someone can explain to me how new standards will impact those interactions, in spite of all the obstacles I have previously laid out, I might get on board with a serious push for new standards.

Don’t read Hoffman’s post if you’re hungry: It contains an analogy comparing standards to chocolate chip cookies.

Having three members of the Absent Teacher Reserve assigned to her school has been a challenge, writes Ariel Sacks, a Brooklyn middle school teacher, in the community section.

She writes:

These three teachers, all middle aged, have 10-15 years of experience and get paid much more than I do. However, they do not want to be at my school, and they know they are not wanted either. In the classroom, they behave like incompetent substitutes. No order, no real planning, no real teaching. Some have been rude to students on occasion. Students get rude right back to them (and you know how middle schoolers can be when they feel disrespected). It’s not good. 

Over in the Community Section, Gifted Gazette author Michael McCurdy is riffing off an article in the New York Times earlier this week about the Speyer Legacy School, a new private school that only admits “gifted” children, to ask big questions about how we define giftedness and whether gifted students should have their own schools.

McCurdy writes:

I’d like to hear from other GothamSchools readers on how they define (or despise) the label “gifted and talented.” Should we use another name? Should NYC have yet another private school that caters to the gifted and talented like Speyer Legacy School?

For the last two weeks, Teachers College doctoral student Alexander Hoffman has been enumerating the problems with national standards. Today, he arrives at his big finish: If standards are unrealistic, disconnected from the classroom, and necessarily limited in scope, why bother with them at all?

Here’s one explanation Hoffman suggests:

Politicians and public leaders want to do something, and probably want to be seen as doing something, so they do what they can, even if what they can do is worthless.

Read more here, and find the whole series here.

It’s never a dull day at Tweed Courthouse: This afternoon, the French ambassador will visit to knight four city principals.

The four principals — Gisele Gault McGee of PS 58 in Brooklyn, Jean-Victor Mirvil of PS 73 in the Bronx, Robin Sundick of PS 84 in Manhattan, and Shimon Waronker of IS 22 in the Bronx — all head schools that have French-English dual-language programs. They’re being inducted at 3 p.m. into the Order of Academic Palms, which Napoleon founded to honor educators. The official insignia of the order is at right.

A press release from the French Embassy is below the jump: (more…)

A quarter of a million education jobs were saved by federal stimulus funds, according to a new report released today by the White House and the U.S. Department of Education.

But the real trouble is yet to come, said AFT president Randi Weingarten in a statement: “The trick now is to find ways to ensure schools get help next year, when we expect public education’s financial challenges to peak.”

Weingarten’s full statement, complete with examples of how some school districts (but not New York City) have used their stimulus funds, is below the jump. (more…)

We just received an e-mail from Trevor Cobbold, the Australian who has been keeping close tabs on Australia’s deputy education minister, Julia Gillard, as she tries to bring Joel Klein-style initiatives to the land down under. The head of the group Save our Schools, Cobbold is no fan of Gillard, especially her push for school report cards like New York City’s. He reports:

You may be interested to know that Australia’s Federal Minister for Education has signed a memorandum of understanding with Arne Duncan to foster policy collaboration between Oz and the US on education reform. It also appears that Gillard is now taking advice from Michelle Rhee as well as Joel Klein. Heaven help Oz.

News accounts of Gillard’s newest stateside edu-relationships can be found here, here, and here.

Up in Albany, Governor Paterson just proposed “painful” midyear budget cuts to deal with the state’s $3 billion shortfall. If the legislature approves his plan, cuts to school aid would total about $480 million over the rest of the state’s fiscal year, which ends in March. A further $200 million would come out of the 2010-2011 education budget.

If the cuts are approved, they would be the first midyear cuts from the state’s school aid in nearly 20 years. Much more here, here, and here.

In the community section, Teachers College sociologist Aaron Pallas suggests reasons why scores on state math tests have increased in recent years while the state’s NAEP scores have remained flat.

But first, he writes: 

Today’s New York Daily News published a bold editorial on the progress of New York City schoolchildren under the administration of Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein.  “You would be better off arguing that the world is flat, or that the sun revolves around the Earth, than to dispute that New York City kids are performing better and better in school,” writes the Daily News …

They might have wanted to wait a day.

Over in the community section, Teachers College doctoral student Alexander Hoffman is laying out his case against national standards like the ones drafted recently by education officials representing 48 states. Today, Hoffman is explaining just what people mean when they talk about standards.

Over the next week, he’ll go deeper into the problems with national and local education standards. Look forward to posts on these topics:

• Problem #1: Which Bar to Raise?
• Problem #2: An Unrealistic Bar (more…)