9/10/2005

Back To School Bounty

For what it's worth, a slew of articles and reports that I've written over the past few months all happen to be coming out at around the same time:
For starters, there's a serious-minded piece I wrote for the September issue of the Harvard Education Letter about the phenomenon of "hard to staff" schools -- what they are, how if at all they're different from the old standby descriptor "low-performing schools," and what strategies folks in Virginia and elsewhere are using to try and address the most acute examples of the problem: Where High Turnover Meets Low Performance (Harvard Education Letter).

The current issue of Catalyst magazine includes an update on how the Chicago Board of Education decided to meet the letter if not the spirit of NCLB's "restructuring" requirement, and compares this to other efforts to turn around low-performing schools in Philadelphia, New York, and Miami by taking direct political and logistical responsibility for them. NCLB Restructuring Plans Reveal Familiar Reforms (Catalyst).

The Hechinger Institute has just published a profile of preschool education in Chicago as part of a larger report on preschool education and the media. I don't think that the report is online yet, but there's already lots of good stuff at the site for anyone interested in preschool coverage and media issues.

As you may already know from my incessant self-promotion about it, my profile of DePaul University in the current issue of Chicago Magazine, highlighting the university's massive growth and serious efforts to retain its focus on working-class parents -- even as the surrounding neighborhood has turned into one of the toniest barrios in town and financial pressures to become a research university continue to mount.

Last but not least, there's also a fun little piece on how blogging isn't just for teachers and students anymore -- superintendents, administrators, and even board members are doing it -- in the latest issue of Scholastic Administrator magazine, featuring none other than Mike Lach, head of Chicago's science initiative. Blah, blah, blog (Scholastic Administrator). Thanks, Mike.

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