By the Company It Keeps: Tim Daly

yes Andy Smarick / May 22, 2013

Our first guest on By the Company It Keeps is Tim Daly, President of TNTP. I’m a huge fan of Tim and his organization. In addition to being a highly talented and endlessly affable guy, he’s helped lead TNTP into rarified air. It is as influential on policy and practice as any education-reform organization around.

Tim was a guiding force behind the seminal publication The Widget Effect and played a major role in the production of other top-flight TNTP reports like The Irreplaceables and Leap Year.

Earlier in his career he was a TFA corps member (having taught in Baltimore) and helped establish and expand the New York City Teaching Fellows program. With TNTP CEO Ariela Rozman (another total star), he received the 2012 Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education.

If future interviews turn out half as well as Tim’s, I’ll be thrilled. We learn a great deal, and the subject’s smarts, curiosity, and humility shine through. He even enlightens us about Garry Wills and Stan Musial.

As a matter of fact, the totality is so good that I’m willing to look past his grievous error about Sandy Koufax (he only had 165 career wins!).

Ladies and gentlemen, Tim Daly.

1.   How would you summarize

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By the Company It Keeps: Tim Daly

First Bell 5-21-13

yes Pamela Tatz / May 21, 2013

A first look at today's most important education news:

On Monday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced that three more states—Alaska, Hawaii, and West Virginia—will be granted NCLB waivers, bringing the total to thirty-seven. (Politics K–12 and Associated Press)

Chiefs for Change, a group of state education leaders, are pushing back against calls for a moratorium on the use of standardized tests in student or teacher evaluations. (Curriculum Matters, Washington Post, and Education Gadfly Show Podcast)

Khan Academy—with a little help from a $2.2 million Helmsley grant—plans to develop online, Common Core–aligned mathematics tools for teachers and students. (Curriculum Matters)

The D.C. charter board has approved two new schools and rejected seven more. (Washington Post)

Today, most New York residents will vote on their school districts’ budgets. (Wall Street Journal)  

With the successes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and David Karp on the mind, the Wall Street Journal wonders: When is it okay for a high flyer to drop out of

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First Bell 5-21-13

Keep charter achievement in perspective

yes Chester E. Finn, Jr. / May 20, 2013

How satisfied should education reformers and charter enthusiasts be when studies show charter students outperforming those in the local district schools? Sure, it’s a lot better than underperforming, and yes, it’s a fine thing for the girls and boys who benefit from this value-add (as well as from the safety, variety, intimacy, family engagement, and other pluses that typically accompany charter school attendance). But observe what a low achievement bar this kind of comparison generally sets. The “virtual-twin” district school that is generally the basis for comparison is usually a miserable excuse for an educational institution, and the kids who shifted into the charter school had ample reason to want out. Their parents had ample reason to want better opportunities for their children. But is “better than” good enough at a time when college and career readiness is the goal of the larger K–12 enterprise and when preparation for international competitiveness is the country’s education target? Would you be satisfied with your golf score if it were a few points lower than someone who shoots 100? Would you be satisfied with your weight loss if you were now at 300 pounds compared with the other guy’s 320? Would you be pleased with your child’s medical outlook if his doctor bungled fewer cases than the next one but was still on the verge of malpractice? I think not. Let's understand that charter schools, too, need to produce strong educational

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Keep charter achievement in perspective

First Bell 5-20-13

yes Pamela Tatz / May 20, 2013

A first look at today's most important education news:

In response to Democratic mayoral candidates’ bashing of Mayor Bloomberg’s education agenda, Dennis Walcott, New York City’s schools chancellor, has begun a campaign to remind voters of the administration’s accomplishments. (New York Times)

CREDO found that 42 percent of Michigan’s charters are outperforming traditional public schools in math, with similar results in reading, while just 6 percent of the charters underperform their traditional counterparts in math. (Wall Street Journal)

Anger has erupted in New York City and beyond over “field tests,” standardized exams intended to assess not students but future tests. (New York Times)

The Hechinger Report profiles a virtual classroom simulator that allows teachers-in-training to practice managing a classroom.

Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’s widow, has quietly begun to assert philanthropy goals in education, global conservation, nutrition, and immigration policy. (New York Times)

A federal report finds that forty states have looked into allegations of cheating by school officials on tests in the last two years. (Curriculum Matters)

A Pew study

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First Bell 5-20-13