I like this ruling that forces charter schools to disclose their financial documents. It’s public money and I’m curious about how some of these schools set-up their budgets and the decisions they’re making.

I do wonder if it will take a journalist or an attorney to force schools to actually release this information.

Sad story here, detailing how an old school that served as a free source of texts for Philly teachers has closed.

The real tragedy is that most suburban high schools have closets full of texts and materials Philadelphia teachers would happily use. Textbooks aren’t the only answer — I would have happily traded all my textbooks for a high-speed copy machine with a real service contract — but they’re a start.

New study is here.

The researchers are starting to draw connections between dropping test scores and time spent reading. The Times article is here.The Post article is here.

AUSTIN, TX—University of Texas professor Thom Windham once again furthered the cause of human inquiry in a class lecture Monday, as he continued his longtime practice of finding connections between things and other things, pointing out these parallels, and then elaborating on them in detail, campus sources reported.

The Onion

Cool article describing some data that shows that kids with behavior problems do not necessarily remain troubled.

“I think these may become landmark findings, forcing us to ask whether these acting-out kinds of problems are secondary to the inappropriate maturity expectations that some educators place on young children as soon as they enter classrooms,” said Sharon Landesman Ramey, director of the Georgetown University Center on Health and Education, who was not connected with either study.

Especially as elementary classrooms become more academic (smirk) these sorts of studies will be crucial.

The brouhaha about NYC’s “grading” of public schools produces yet another politician describing the ability of students to transfer as a result of a poor performing school.

Just once I’d like a reporter to hold one of these politicos’ feet to the fire and demand direct answers about where these kids might transfer: the well-protected middle-class magnet? The suburban rancher with a carport and low class-sizes?

Sorry, family, these schools are C-L-O-S-E-D to you.