The New Catalyst: Too Much Good Stuff For One Sitting

Getting through a new issue of Catalyst is like trying to get through a good issue of the New Yorker. There's lots of good stuff in there, and it's way too much to try and read in one sitting.

I already mentioned the cluster of stories about Uptown, which includes a diverse set of schools including Disney Magnet, Passages Charter, Stockton, Arai/Uplift, Stewart, Brenneman, McCutcheon, and Gowdy.

Gotta love those Catalyst neighborhood maps. They should make posters or Tshirts out of them. Seriously.

The cover story about ditching shows how prevalent the problem is and how Juarez and Farragut and Gage Park are tyring to stem the tide. There's also an interesting sidebar about how small schools don't necessarily have higher attendance rates. Note to small schools folks.

There's also an interesting peek at the new student-based budget system that is being piloted. Among many things, student-based budgeting is supposed to help hard-to-staff and low-performing schools get what they need. Does it?

Of course, there's more: interviews with Boston's Tom Payzant and author Jonathan Kozol (Shame of a Nation), etc. etc.