On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, I explain why school reformers need to reach out to grassroots activists. Inside-the-Beltway policymaking, important as it is, will mean nothing for improving the educational destinies of children if school reformers don’t reach out to urban groups such as the Black Star Project and activists working in suburban and rural communities.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddle’s radio page or download directly to your iPod or MP3 player. Also, subscribe to get the podcasts every week. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Podcast Alley, the Education Podcast Network and Zune Marketplace.

You seen the bird. Do what he says.

Keep up with up-to-the-minute happenings by subscribing to Dropout Nation’s Twtter feed. Here are some of yesterday’s tweets:

• RT @Edubeat @HarvardResearch: Few experts see benefits of performance pay plans http://ow.ly/15TRk #edreform As Jason Kamras points out… #
• Few studies on performance pay and few initiatives have been of any large scale. Most are also watered-down. So the “experts” honestly… #
• Have little on which to base positions. It’s like asking astronomers circa Gallileo era about whether or not the sun rotates around the moon #
• Ask the experts about #meritpay #performancepay when DC, NY, LAUnified engages in a major — and truly well-designed — performance pay plan #
• RT @CharterInsights: Stimulus only delays the pain: The federal gov. put our nation deep in debt http://bit.ly/axbAbN #ARRA #RttT #
• A possible lesson for #edreform out of the debacle at MySpace: RT @mathewi: “turnarounds never really turn.” http://bit.ly/anIL1M [via @om] #
• Or the Smarick argument in tech form. #
• RT @Trace_Urdan @gothamschools @jenny8lee: South African mom to daughter: “Education is the husband who will never let you down.” at #TED #
• RT @ACRIBlog: Charter Schools/Civil Rights: Civil rights industry types worry about the wrong thing, http://bit.ly/aGFOUu #edreform #
• MOre lessons for #edreform #schoolturnarounds from the private-sector: “The Myth of the Silver-Bullet CEO” http://bit.ly/9jWZvg #
• It’s not just about hiring a #MichelleRhee #JoelKlein. There must also be strong political support, talented admins, willingness to change. #
• Or else school district #edreform will fail (see Indianapolis Public Schools/Miami/San Francisco) #
• RT @ELWATERS @EdEquality @gnaeyaert: Ouch!! New study finds MI earns D- grade for policies on teacher quality, http://ow.ly/166oK #edreform #
• RT @Edubeat @EdEquality: RT @charteralliance: Education Week: Concerns Raised About Impact of Stimulus on Equity: http://bit.ly/ajvHKa #
• This, of course, doesn’t include the complaints about #RttT and its focus on #CharterSchools The next stimulus bill will be interesting. #
• Can a reform-minded administration continue its reform and still satisfy key constituencies who oppose elements of the plans? #
• G.W. Bush had similar problems w/#NoChild among conservative “leave us alone” elements and moderate Republicans in suburbia. #
• But it took six years for Bush II to feel the wrath because GOP had election victories. Obama is not so lucky. #
• RT @Harvard_Ed_Pub: Audio Excerpt: Inside Urban Charter Schools by Kay Merseth : Education Next: http://bit.ly/bMEKNp #edreform #
• @avalonsensei Last I checked, nearly all public charter schools accept all students via lottery. The lottery exists because the schools are. in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei small in size. There are very few selective charters. So, in essence, charters accept all students (even if not everyone… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei attends them. By the way, magnet schools w/in districts and selective publics such as Stuyvesant High and Murray Bergtraum… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei (the latter of which I attended in my freshman year of HS) are selective and don’t allow all students either. Even worse, in in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei the case of magnet schools (unlike Stuy, which is test-based/purely meritocratic), the kids either have to be on a certain… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei Track (which is often dependent on whether teachers/guidance counselors favor the kid) or through political will (which… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei favors wealthier parents). Compared to current trad. public ed tracking/pol. meddling… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei I’ll take the charters w/lotteries any day. in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei But magnets rarely work as an integration tool. More often than not, in most parts of the country, they become similar… #
• @avalonsensei to selective public schools (and in Indianapolis, for example, they are all one in the same). In fact, if you look at in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei The charter school stats for 2008-09, whites make up just a third of charter school students (versus 54 percent of trad… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei public schools) while blacks, Latinos and other minorities make up the rest. If anything, charters on a macro… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei are more integrated than traditional public schools. As for the special ed issue: Most charters are too small to accomodate… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei Those populations. Remember, your average charter is about 300-400 students; they don’t have access to all the pools of public in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei dollars (facilities, for example, which they pay for through fundraising and loans), and have only been around for two decades in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei If anything, in many large urban cities, parents w/special ed students choose the trad. system because they have the infra- in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei structure available. Charters are working on this (in Indiana, the charter school association and Ball State have formed a in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei consortium for this very purpose). AS for parental commitment: Well, I believe parents must do their part. AS much as… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei I criticize traditional school districts for their mistreatment of parents, I also think that parents must be active… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei Beyond field trips/homework. Education, in reality, needs to be so individualized for every student (especially SPED), that… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei parental involvement in curricula, etc. is paramount to academic success. Great teachers can improve academic learning, but in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei Great teachers=active parents equals even greater likelihood of success. Again, your experience suggests sometihng different, in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei But experience w/o data is meaningless. If I based my views on ed just on my experiences, I’d have a more pessimistic view of in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei education systems in general, public or private. And, by the way, since magnets and selective schools don’t accept every child in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei (and they are public schools that are part of trad. districts), don’t they violate your view that all public schools should… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei Accept kids no matter their circumstances? in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei I think “public education” should be the system of publicly funding the education of a child, no matter where he or she goes in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei Be it trad. public, charter, private, parochial or homeschool. Or as I call it, the Hollywood model. Traditional in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei districts would be relegated to handling transportation, school lunch, those things they are (somewhat) good at. The same way in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei Warner Bros. /Universal handles distribution of films. The schools would handle the actual education, the same way… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei a Joel Silver handles production. The teachers would be treated like directors a la Warchowski/Hughes Brothers, as the in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei true professionals they should be. And parents would have choice, supported by grassroots groups who can give guidance… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei There wouldn’t be one option, but many options. Because not every kid is the same and not every school can educate every child in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei My goal is to expand all the options for every child to get the best education possible. The current system doesn’t do that… in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei It segments kids based on “ability” when those things can change (IQ, for example, is influenced by environment, not by birth) in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei It does well educating maybe 40 percent of students, but as seen in college remediation rates/H.S. grad rates, it is failing in reply to avalonsensei #
• @avalonsensei To live up to the concept that every child should get a great education at a great school. in reply to avalonsensei #
• EdSector’s Manwaring wonders if new round of adequacy lawsuits is coming: http://bit.ly/bW6gtP The answer is yes… #
• At Nov.’s Schott Foundation conference, ED’s Civil Rights Czar (and former EdTrust exec) Russlyn Ali made it clear that will happen. #
• So did Pa. Congressman Chaka Fattah. Expect Obama administration to be heavily involved in those next round of suits. #

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What’s happening today in the dropout nation:

1. When the National Education Association took control of the Indiana State Teachers Association last year, Association after the collapse of its insurance trust fund, it was more than just a colossal embarrassment of alleged financial mismanagement – and a loss of coverage for its 50,000 rank-and-file members. After decades of winning expensive compensation packages that have made teaching one of the best-paid professions in the public sector, the collapse of ISTA — along with $600 billion in pension deficits and underfunded retirement liabilities — exposes teachers unions to increased scrutiny — especially as taxpayers may end up on the hook for the unions’ failings. Read more about the collapse — and how it could help spur teacher compensation and quality reforms — in my latest Labor Watch report.
2. Tom Vander Ark sums up the problem with the Obama Administration’s decision to essentially gut the No Child Left Behind Act by eliminating its Adequate Yearly Progress provisions: Doing so will abandon the promise of assuring that every child no matter their race or economic status, can attend a great school staffed by high-performing teachers. Of course, as I hinted last week in The American Spectator, the administration may be doing this (along with boosting education spending for FY 2011) in order to placate the NEA and AFT, whose help they will need in order to keep control of Congress.
3. The folks behind The Lottery are rallying folks around an “Education Constitution” demanding teacher quality reforms, expansion of school choice and other reforms. Check it out and sign it.
4. The U.S. Department of Education releases a timely report on an important — if rarely-considered — use of school data: Improving teaching, staffing, student diagnostics and other matters at the district, school and even classroom levels. As I wrote last year in A Byte at the Apple, school data will only be the most useful once the information is delivered and made accessible in ways teachers, administrators and parents find appealing and useful. Right now, however, this is still a problem.
5. Speaking of useful data, the Consortium on Chicago School Research has a series of papers examining the on-time graduation progress of the Windy City’s high school students. Each of Chicago’s high schools are examined in depth. Read them. I am.
6. EducationNews is re-running another one of teaching guru Martin Haberman’s fine essays, this on whether the right people are entering teaching. Given the efforts to reform ed schools and weed out laggards before they even apprentice, the piece is as timely as ever.
7. And, with Gary Orfield’s study of charter school segregation gaining attention from newspapers and school reformers alike, Sonya Sharp of Mother Jones points out the one thing everyone forgets: Traditional school districts are just as segregated (and often, even more segregated) no matter where we go. Joanne Jacobs also offers a compendium of the arguments (including those by your friendly neighborhood editor). And, by the way, here is a piece I wrote a few years ago about diversity and public schools.
8. Intramural Sparring Watch: Big Edreform Andy #1 (also known as Andrew Rotherham) calls out This Week in Education‘s Alexander Russo (and his employer, Scholastic) for for allegedly running “hearsay” claims against Massachusetts’ education secretary, Paul Reveille, for his supposed intervention in the authorizing of a local charter school. Russo, by the way, has taken potshots against Rotherham and his folks at the Education Sector (which Rotherham, by the way, is leaving by the end of March) for years. Most recently, he accused EdSector of allegedly mucking around with a report authored by EdSector’s now-departed cofounder. Yeah, I’m exhausted from just writing about this.

Meanwhile, check out this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast on the reauthorization of No Child, along with my pieces this week on charter schools and segregation. The next podcast, on civil rights activists and education reform, will be available on Sunday before the Super Bowl. And since you are all stuck inside, get your debate on.

More of what’s going on in the dropout nation today:

1. Kevin Carey reviews the decision by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to skip Race to the Top. His thoughts? “. This is just Rick Perry running for re-election against a legitimate primary opponent in Kay Bailey Hutchinson by pandering to the strain of bizarre and archaic separatism that is apparently still alive and well in the Texas body politic.” Ouch.
2. Andy Smarick offers more thoughts on Race to the Top, courtesy of his latest Education Next article. Writes he, the reform effort will only work if the district gets tough. His Fordham cohort, Smooth Mike, hopes that the recent Democrat debacle in the Bay State will force federal ed spending to decline. By the way: The Education Writers Association has just launched its new site tracking federal stimulus spending in education. Check it out.
3. Ed Week reports on U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s first year in office. Predictably, Diane Ravitch, as usual, has few kind words to say. Why? Basically because she shares the same thoughts on Duncan’s focus on charters, standardized testing and teacher quality as Randi Weingarten.
4. A University of California research coalition releases a report detailing how poor families are struggling — both in school and in the economy — courtesy of the recession. Whether schools can actually solve such issues — or should — is questionable. But interesting report nonetheless. (HT-John Fensterwald)
5. Speaking of new stuff, educator Kevin Washburn’s new book is out. (HT-Chad Ratliff)
6. Matthew Ladner goes all off education and writes about the U.S. Supreme Court’s strike down of campaign finance limits on corporate donations. This could become a major factor in education, especially as the NEA and AFT have doubled the number of campaign donations raised from their rank-and-file thusfar. I’ll talk more about this and the impact of Scott Brown’s election on education reform tomorrow in The American Spectator.
7. In the Beltway ed reform world, Big Ed Reform Andy No. 1 and Kim Smith are teaming up to form a consultancy. Rotherham’s former Education Sector colleague, Sara Mead, is joining.
8. Outside the Beltway, L.A. Unified’s reform effort continues. Here are the collection of proposals from the charter school operators, teachers union groups and mayoral offices. Enjoy.
9. And for some thoughts on teacher performance pay, check out Dropout Nation‘s video featuring Jason Kamras of D.C. Public Schools.

What’s happening in the dropout nation:

1. There are children such as this child in this photo (a sufferer from Shaken Baby disorder and blind) who need special education. But why is it that at least ten percent of black, white and Latino boys are routinely labeled as learning disabled and often landing in special ed? Especially when the nature of their “learning disability” is likely specious at best? I lay out the scope of the special ed crisis today in The American Spectator.
   
2. By the way, let’s be real: Special ed, along with alternative schools, is the black hole of public education. It is also the black hole  for the school reform movement; it isn’t as sexy to talk about as charters or vouchers or as dry and yet seemingly meaningful as national standards. The inaction by both traditional public school supporters and many school reformers speaks volumes about what they really think about improving education for every child. Badly.
3. The most-disappointing state competiting for Race to the Top funding? The dubious distinction goes to Maryland, according to Andy Smarick. But Texas — once a leading pioneer in school reform — may end up ranking a close second.
4. Kevin Carey analyzes the NAEP urban math results and notes how far down Detroit has gone.
5. Why the New York City Department of Education remains the gold standard for school reform: A willingness to shut down failing schools such as this one in Harlem, according to the New York Times (via EducationNews).
6. Like stopped clocks, Heather Mac Donald gets one right every now and then. This time, it’s on the decades-old move by California to make full immersion in English the standard for bilingual education.

Rarely seen: Black male teacher such as Brandon George. Also under that list: Teachers with strong subject-matter competency. More of both needed.

What’s happening in the dropout nation:

- The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board sniffs at the Ford Foundation’s school initiative. Given the foundation’s history of getting itself — and the entire philanthropic sector — in trouble in the school philanthropy arena, it may be best for Ford to stick to something more traditional.

- Gotham Schools reports that New York State’s Education Commissioner and Board of Regents Chancellor wants to allow for the use of student test data in measuring teacher performance during the first two years of their careers before they attain tenure. This is essentially a revival of a law passed two years ago during the first year of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s tenure that was kibboshed a year later by the legislature and Gov. David Paterson last year at the behest of the state’s AFT affiliate. Nice idea. At least one study suggests that the teacher performance remains constant before and after tenure. But until tenure is eliminated and school districts actually take time to assess teachers, the proposal is rather meaningless. After all, some of the research so far also shows that teacher performance declines after they reach tenure.

- So far, this week, neither Kevin Carey nor Checker Finn have taken potshots at each other over whether stimulus funds should be used for saving teacher jobs. Unfortunately, neither side is focusing on the real problem: How to improve the quality of teaching in America’s schools. The stimulus debate, like the money, will eventually go away. The  impediments to improving teacher quality –  including woeful training at the ed school level, state policymaking that blocks effective performance management, poor selection of aspiring teachers who are both competent in their subjects and care about the children they teach, human capital policies that encourage teacher absenteeism, and lack of diversity in the teacher ranks — will still remain. It’s time for both of them to go back to their laudable work.

- Maureen Downey takes a look at the Florida ACLU suit and former Sunshine State governor Jeb Bush’s response. Hint: Another example of what happens when education statistics(accurate, maybe) and education statistics (unreliable, definitely) collide in public policy debates.

- The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Brooke Dollens Terry takes a look at teacher quality in the Lone Star State. She isn’t impressed.

- EdSector’s Erin Dillon peruses Teachers College’s report touting desegregation. She not only finds that it lacks rigor, but it uses a “strawman” of free-market school reforms that doesn’t define which form (in the form of charter schools and other school choice measures) at the heart of their discussion. Ultimately, argues Dillon, the need is to ultimately improve the quality of education in every neighborhood in order to achieve true equity between majority-black , majority-Latino and majority white schools.

- The Boston Globe wants Massachusetts legislators to raise the dropout age to 18. Fine. Hopefully, the Globe editorial board will hold state officials accountable for improving curricula, teacher quality and opportunities for engaging students and parents as equal partners with teachers and principals. Increasing the dropout age alone won’t solve much of anything.

- Jay Mathews joins Andy Smarick in advocating for shutting down dropout factories and other poor-performing schools.

- Sara Carr’s fascinating series about school choice in New Orleans offers a point I have been making for some time: School reformers must now focus on developing systems for giving parents the information and guidance they need to make decisions. This means improving the quality and delivery of school data — or simply put, let a thousand SchoolMatches bloom — and fostering grassroots organizations that can help parents make decisions.

A key to stemming dropouts can be found in a series of bound volumes. Read to your children -- and to the kids that aren

Secretary of Education-Designate and finds him lacking. As always. Joanne Jacobs hopes Duncan will actually live up to expectations from the school reform movement.

Darling-Hammond: Still lurking: Mike Petrilli speculates that the Obama adviser may land inside the Department of Education anyway — this time overseeing the National Center for Education Statistics and all important What Works Clearinghouse as head of the Institute of Education Sciences. This is all just guessing. But if true, then putting the wolf in charge of the henhouse may have never been so wrongheaded. After all, Darling-Hammond is no Joe Kennedy and IES is not the SEC.

And more Petrilli: This time, teaming up with the Grand Pubah of the conservative end of the school reform movement to propose another federal path for education reform. One part of this ‘fourth way’ — using federal dollars to encourage states to pursue systemic overhauls and experiments — seems similar in a way to Andy Rotherham’s proposal last month to encourage innovative reforms. On the other side, the proposals to eliminate No Child’s school transfer, teacher quality, school sanctions and testing rules means that Petrilli and Finn are all but calling for a gutting of the law. More analysis later, but one can expect the EdTrust/EdSector/rest of us wing to first think: “With school reform allies like these…”

Dropping out early and often: A third of dropouts leaving the Rowan-Salisbury school district are freshmen, reports the Salisbury Post. Of course, these aren’t 15-year-olds, but 16-year-olds who never earned enough credits to move on to sophomore year. At the same time, the North Carolina school district seems to have another problem: So-called “career and college tech” tracks that allow students to evade a strong, useful college prep education that, by the way, can be used by those who want to go into welding or other skilled trades. The students don’t take Algebra II, even though the course teaches math skills used in manufacturing. High dropouts. Unchallenging curricula. What a formula for success.

Eduwonkette should lighten up: So writes EdSector’s Erin Dillon in response to the blogger’s tirade over the Washington Post’‘s fine series on the performance and governance of the Beltway’s charter schools. Dillon is particularly amazed that Eduwonkette — no pal of school choice or education reform — would use the American Federation of Teachers’ notoriously rubbish 2004 report on charter schools, which attempted to make conclusions that no one could actually reach based on the actual data itelf. Attempting to use broad national data to criticize a news organization’s report on one local school district is, umm, destined to be embarrassing for the person who does so.

And yes, Dropout Nation is back. Check out the sister Web site for some of the work that has kept your occasionally haggard editor away for a while.