As districts such as New York City’s Department of Education and Providence (R.I.) Public Schools look at strapped budgets and begin layoffs, it is important to remember that the impact of these moves comes not so much in number of teachers laid off, but in which ones are lost. Young, talented teachers with less-seniority working in schools serving poor and minority kids are the ones who end up on the streets thanks to reverse-seniority (last hired-first fired or last in-first out) policies. And as studies by The New Teacher Project, University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education, and a recent report in the Yale Law Journal have pointed out, last hired-first fired equals kids dropping out into poverty and crime.

The American Civil Liberties Union made this point in a lawsuit if filed last year against Los Angeles Unified System over layoffs at three of the district’s poorest schools . This lead to a settlement that bans the use of seniority in layoffs in 45 of its schools serving its poorest kids. But as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa points out in this video, the end of reverse seniority layoffs — and by extension, seniority-based privileges — must come to every school in America. The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers should be ashamed of defending these atrocious policies that harms kids and even the young teachers in their rank-and-file. We can’t continue to proverbially (and sometimes, literally) killing our seeds before they grow.

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As important as it is to improve teacher quality and curricula, the need for strong, thoughtful, entrepreneurial and bold leaders — be they teachers, principals, even parents — is critical in reforming American public education. At this moment, as much of the problem lies with abysmal principals, superintendents, ed school deans and other players in education unwilling to do what it takes to improve the quality of instruction and learning children receive each and every day. Although the dearth of strong leadership is evident in pervasive dropout factories such as Detroit, it is sometimes even worse in suburban districts that appear on the surface to be high-performing; more often than not, the unwillingness to challenge long-held assumptions and longstanding practices often sets up generations of kids for mediocrity (if not failure down the road).

Teach For America Founder Wendy Kopp offers some thoughts on the need for leadership in this video from last week’s 20th anniversary summit. Watch, consider and think about what you can do to become the leaders we need to help all children succeed.

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One of the biggest problems in discussing the need for systemic reform of American public education is that so much of the underlying problems can sometimes be hard to see. The impact of state laws and collective bargaining agreements on classroom teaching is tremendous, yet it is easy for those who defend the status quo to declare that the problems lie with poverty, with students or with school reformers supposedly making more of issues than they really are.

But in the past few years, directors such as Davis Guggenheim and Madeleine Sackler have produced films that dramatize why reform is needed more than ever. Defenders of traditional public education may decry the films as propaganda (as if their own polemics couldn’t be declared the same), and some school reformers may bemoan the flicks as over-simplistic (while forgetting that the average person will never read research reports). Yet the capacity of these films to bring new voices into school reform cannot be underestimated; reformers such as Hess should welcome them with open arms. We need more films, more declarations from artists such as John Legend and Will.I.Am, and more people demanding a revolution, not an evolution, in American public education.

One of the films that captured the need for reform is The Cartel, Bob Bowden’s documentary on how the players in traditional public education — including teachers unions and school boards — have poorly served the kids in their care. Watch this trailer, consider what needs to be done to overhaul our schools, and take action.

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As a weather reporter on Seattle television station KCPQ-TV, M.J. McDermott talks more about the Emerald City’s wet weather than about education. But in her spare time, McDermott has been a front-line player in the nation’s battles over the direction of math curriculum and instruction, explaining succinctly to Washington State parents why the curriculum used in the state’s schools is hardly worth paper or the time of students and teachers.

In this excerpt from her 15-minute video for the math reform group Where’s the Math?, McDermott shows why some math curriculum programs fail to show the basic steps kids need to know in order to move from computation to mastery. While real-life examples are important in providing students with relevance so they can get interested in learning math, kids can’t succeed with faulty methods for handling simple computations. Watch, consider and take action. And also, read my latest column for The American Spectator on the math instruction and curriculum aspects of the nation’s education crisis.

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As you listen to this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast on five new questions every parent should ask, also watch this clip from the 2008 independent film Take. Although the film – about how a woman devastated by a murder figures out a way to forgive the death row inmate who caused her and her family so much pain — isn’t all about parent power, its most-poignant scenes feature the struggle she and her husband has with a local school over the placement of their son into special education classes. What they choose to do dramatizes the constant battles so many parents — especially those in our poor and minority communities — have with traditional school systems unwilling to educate what they consider to be their toughest cases. This is especially true for young boys, whose rambunctiousness and struggles with reading end up sending them off to our academic ghettos.

Watch this scene from Take and consider what you would do to assure that your child gets a high-quality education. Then consider how you can help every parent make this a reality for their own kids — including parent trigger laws and school choice options.

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One of the underlying factors behind the nation’s education crisis is the low levels of reading comprehension among students. This is especially tru for young men of all racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds. Thanks to poor reading instruction, the lack of intensive reading remediation and abysmal curricula, young men fall behind and end up being overdiagnosed as special ed cases. The ultomate result: Academic failure. And yet the nation is just beginning to address this issue.

George Mason University professor William Brozo, one of the few studying this crisis, takes time in this video to explain some other factors behind low reading comprehension among young men. Watch, listen, consider and take action.

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