Contributor
Eliza Krigman, NationalJournal.com
Biography provided by participant
Eliza Krigman joined National Journal in January of 2009 and has reported on the lobbying and advocacy industry. She looks forward to writing about education as part of this new endeavor. Previous to National Journal, she worked at the Center for Responsive Politics where she wrote for Capital Eye, the organization's money-in-politics blog. Krigman received her bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and grew up in Newton, Massachusetts.
Recent Responses
March 17, 2010 04:53 PM
Principal of an ECHS Responds Fred Crawford, Principal of the Greenville Technical Charter High School in South Carolina, submitted the following: editor's note - Greenville Technical is an early college high shool. Thanks to Nelson Smith for bringing Mr. Crawford into the conversation. The traditional one size fits all approach of public education does not do enough- “if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got”. If current high graduation rates continue, the percentage of workers without a high school diploma in 2020 will be 40%. In addition, 45% of the job openings in the next…
Read moreMarch 15, 2010 06:14 PM
Nancy Hoffman Responds Nancy Hoffman, vice president of pathways through postsecondary at Jobs for the Future, submitted the following: Early colleges are not only a good idea, but are proving successful. Over the last 7 years, Jobs for the Future and the partner organizations that began the Gates Foundation-funded Early College High School Initiative have dealt with persistent doubts about whether young people at risk of not going to college could and would take up what seemed a daunting challenge— get from being behind in high school to moving at an accelerated pace into college. Now with over 42,000 students…
Read moreMarch 9, 2010 06:04 PM
Letters From Lawmakers And Finalists Bloggers and readers, permit me a slight departure from the focus of this week's question. The Education Department provided me with a list of lawmakers that sent Secretary Arne Duncan letters of support for their state's Race to the Top application. With all of the scrutiny over how the finalists were selected, and the emphasis on achieving stakeholder buy-in, I thought it would be interesting to gauge the relationship between lawmakers' letter writing and the finalists. It appears that written support from members of Congress did not have a big impact one way or the…
Read moreMarch 5, 2010 12:05 PM
Sattler on College & Career Stds Cheryl L. Sattler, Senior Partner at Ethica, LLC, submitted the following: College and career-ready are two different goals, and essentially require two different sets of standards. Some students will go on to four-year colleges and become professionals, while other students will pursue post-high school technical training. The skill sets for these are different, as are the course and prerequisite requirements. It’s important to acknowledge that there are different paths; students who pursue vocational training have long been neglected in public policy discussions. One report named them “the forgotten half.” I don’t consider college-ready…
Read moreMarch 4, 2010 10:48 AM
Cheryl Sattler, Title I expert, Responds Cheryl L. Sattler, Senior Partner at Ethica, LLC, submitted the following: There's an interesting historical inaccuracy in week's National Journal education experts question, which asks in regards to the proposed college and career-ready standards , "Would it be problematic to change Title I funding in this fashion? Is the federal government reaching too far with this proposal?" Truth is, the feds have been linking money to state standards for years, in response to low or even nonexistent standards for poor minority students. But not everyone seems to remember that, and some of the NJ…
Read moreMarch 1, 2010 01:05 PM
college and career stds seen as 'norm' College and career ready standards now seen as the norm, among states, according to a new report released by Achieve today. In “Closing the Expectations Gap,” Achieve found that 31 states have adopted high school academic standards in English and mathematics that are aligned with CCR standards. “We applaud state leaders for spearheading what will benefit the future of our children and our nation,” said Mike Cohen, president of Achieve, in a press release. The report concludes that states, in large part, are responsible for the shift to the CCR standard. A key…
Read moreFebruary 24, 2010 07:53 AM
New Middle School Study All, I wanted to direct your attention to a new study on Middle Schools by EdSource released today, Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades: Why Some Schools Do Better Trish Wiliams, executive director of EdSource, has already joined the conversation Here is a link to the narrative summary of the study. Check out page three of the summary (p 5 on scribd); there is a scatter plot graph that suggests school practices are a more important factor for performance than socioeconomic status.…
Read moreFebruary 24, 2010 07:36 AM
Trish Williams of EdSource Responds Trish Williams, executive director of EdSource, submitted the following to this week's question: Excellent and timely question! In 2008 there were several studies released (Kurleander, Reardon, et al; Zau and Betts) indicating that student failure in high school could be predicted as early as late elementary school by student test scores, course grades, attendance records, and behavior reports. EdSource read these with interest and thought, “If the middle grades are the last best chance to get all students on track, why isn’t there more focus on reform at this level, on finding out what practices make…
Read moreFebruary 23, 2010 05:50 PM
Patti Kinney of NASSP Responds Patti Kinney, associate director of Middle Level Services for the National Association of Secondary Schools Principals, submitted the following: Gayle does a thorough and eloquent job of stating the case that more attention needs to be directed at the middle grades and I couldn’t agree more with her analysis. The sad truth is that while high schools bear the brunt of the drop-out statistics, students become disengaged from school far earlier than that and waiting to address these issues in high school is far too late. We know what constitutes quality middle grades education for young…
Read moreFebruary 22, 2010 08:45 AM
Yes, Middle Schools Are Often Overlooked Gayle Andrews, president-elect, National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform, submitted the following: Has the nation overlooked middle schools in the dialogue about college and career ready standards? In a word, “yes.” The education of students in grades 5-8 is too often overlooked, underserved on nearly all policy levels, and under-resourced while policy and resources flow to the “bookends” of education P-16: high school/college on one end and early learning on the other. ACT’s recent report, The Forgotten Middle, underscores the reality that is lost in the shadows between the bookends: far too many students…
Read moreFebruary 16, 2010 11:10 AM
Houston School Board Member Responds Harvin Moore, Trustee of District VII, Houston Independent School District, submitted the following: I am very pleased that the HISD Board of Education voted unanimously to approve new policies that ensure that measureable student achievement growth is considered in all pertinent district decisions, including teacher evaluations. Prior to last week, HISD was like all other US public school districts, in that teachers were evaluated on many, many things - but not measurable student achievement. We were living on Lake Wobegon, where every teacher is above average - even though we know all the…
Read moreFebruary 12, 2010 01:25 PM
Wrong: Reframing segregation as a choice Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project and professor at UCLA, submitted the following: Why does describing a one-race institution or neighborhood as segregated arouse such fury from critics of the Civil Rights Project’s charter school report? Segregation is simply a description of the degree of isolation of one group from another or from several others—it is a fact and the term has been used that way for generations by researchers to describe conditions of housing, schooling, workplaces, etc. and it can be white segregation or any other group. We have used…
Read moreFebruary 11, 2010 06:54 PM
An Orfield-Petrilli exchange Mike Petrilli at the Fordham Foundation had a back-and-forth with Gary Orfield, head of the UCLA Civil Rights Project. Petrilli writes that he thinks they uncovered some common ground. Read the exchange here.…
Read moreFebruary 10, 2010 10:24 PM
The Authors Respond Updated at 8:39 p.m. on Feb. 11. Erica Frankenberg and Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, co-authors of the study at hand, submitted the following: Last week, the Civil Rights Project released “Choice without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards.” Reports by the Civil Rights Project and others have long documented the rise of segregation in our nation’s public schools, by race and class. This report documents persistent and severe racial isolation for charter school students across the nation. We find particularly high levels of segregation for black students, a full 70% of whom attend intensely…
Read moreFebruary 10, 2010 07:45 PM
Kevin Welner Defends CRP Kevin Welner, professor and director of the Education and the Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, submitted the following: So let me get this straight. The collective response of charter school supporters to powerful evidence that charters are even more segregated than conventional public schools is not to say, “This is a problem that those of us within the charter community should promptly address.” It wasn’t even, “Wow, if this is true, it’s something we should seriously address, but we should study it further.” Instead, the response is to attack Gary Orfield…
Read moreFebruary 10, 2010 05:54 PM
Mike Petrilli Weighs In Mike Petrilli over at the Fordham Foundation muses over the two sides to 'elitism' behind the discussion about this report: In the brouhaha over last week’s UCLA Civil Rights Project report on charter school “segregation,” one talking point seems unimpeachable: that it’s paternalistic or worse for Gary Orfield and his team at UCLA to want to keep minority parents from choosing their preferred schools because they serve “too many” black or brown children to see the full comment, go here…
Read moreFebruary 9, 2010 11:52 AM
Gary Orfield Responds Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project and professor at UCLA, submitted the following in response to this week's question: When you are in a debate if you have the facts, you use the facts, if you have the law, you use the law, if you have the logic, you use that, if you have none of these you use the lowest forms of argument—systematic distortion of the argument you are attacking and ad hominum personal attacks on those on the other side. In civil rights research this lowest form of argument is all too common. …
Read moreFebruary 8, 2010 08:59 AM
Equity Doesn't Equal Integration Ross Wiener, executive director of the Education and Society Program at the Aspen Institute, submitted the following response to this week's question: The Choices Without Equity report from the Civil Rights Project mischaracterizes charters as civil rights failures by equating “equity” with “integration.” This is overly simplistic and misguided. The report’s blithe embrace of integration as the paramount concern is oblivious to serious inequities often found in integrated schools. And it’s dismissive of the priorities of black parents – 80% of whom told Public Agenda that raising academic achievement is their top priority for schools,…
Read moreJanuary 28, 2010 10:06 AM
Transparency Update In a press conference call yesterday, Secretary Duncan made the following statement about Race to the Top and transparency: Our new competitive grant programs like Race to the Top and the Investing in Innovation fund include greater transparency than ever before including publishing winning and losing applications, reviewer comments, and applicant’s presentations. …
Read moreJanuary 14, 2010 03:19 PM
union calls it "lynch mob provision" The California Federation of Teachers referred to the parent trigger as the 'lynch mob provision' inciting anger from civil rights groups. See the wording in a recent issue of Inside CFT here Calling this description of the legislation racially charged and offensive, a handful of groups sent this letter to Randi Weingarten asking her to officially denounce this language. …
Read moreJanuary 12, 2010 10:16 AM
Chicago Has Better Model Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education, submitted the following in response to this week's question: There are other strategies to improve schools that do not use parents as “terminators” of schools and school staff but instead involve parents deeply and respectfully, are pro-active and supportive, and have a proven track record of success. The best model for this approach is the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Local School Council (LSC). These elected, parent-majority bodies make critical decisions about school programs, budgets, and leadership at most CPS schools. They are the engine for…
Read moreJanuary 5, 2010 03:46 PM
Spotlight On Teachers: New Data The Atlantic just came out with an interesting and insightful article about teachers that dissects new teacher quality data from Teach for America, link here As one of the four key areas of reform required by the RttT competition, boosting teacher effectiveness will be a big part of the education discussion in 2010.…
Read moreJanuary 4, 2010 05:01 PM
More Quality STEM Teachers Dean Garfield, president and CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council, submitted the following: With the winter break behind us, over 50 million people—nearly one quarter of our nation’s population—will be streaming back onto campuses across the country. Even putting aside the sheer number of students attending school, the training of the next generation of leaders should be cause for excitement about America’s future. Unfortunately, based on today’s realities these students are more likely to want to play a scientist on TV rather than actually become one. Clearly, there is a pressing need to inspire our nation’s…
Read moreDecember 14, 2009 11:06 AM
Business Roundtable Responds John Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable, submitted the following in response to the question: At Business Roundtable, our member companies employ nearly 12 million people and are committed to finding new approaches to address America’s job concerns. That’s why we created The Springboard Project and why we believe it’s so critical that government, business and educators work together to keep America’s workforce competitive throughout the 21st-Century. From a business perspective, there are things our companies are doing to prepare workers for rewarding, high-paying careers. One of our members, Convergys, started a unique program this past…
Read moreDecember 9, 2009 04:03 PM
New Tool to Track Charters If you haven't already caught wind of this, the Center for Education Reform created an online charter directory. It's useful if you are interested in learning more about charter demographics or charters in your state.…
Read moreDecember 1, 2009 10:51 AM
Let’s broaden the question to address the appropriate role for government in promoting or regulating educational content in new media. Think of the Children’s Television Act as an example, rather than the focus. Is the wild west of new media too challenging for the government to play an effective role in either regulating educational content or promoting it? If not, what steps should the government take to ensure educational content in the digital age is helpful and not hurtful to children? …
Read moreNovember 12, 2009 12:41 PM
Libby Doggett, deputy director of the Pew Center on the States, submitted the following: A winning majority will be difficult, but might be more likely if ESEA reauthorization focuses intensively on education reform strategies that work. Policy makers want to invest in programs proven to improve children’s cognitive, social and emotional skills; increase their educational attainment; close the achievement gap; and enhance the quality and productivity of the nation’s workforce. High-quality pre-kindergarten is one such strategy. In fact, it is the first step to school reform and an indispensable part of our education system. In New Jersey’s low-income Abbott…
Read moreNovember 4, 2009 02:58 PM
James B. Hunt Jr., former Governor of North Carolina and founder of the Hunt Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy, on turnarounds. I interviewed him this week and this is what he had to say about turnarounds: Turnarounds can work. The first thing you have to do is get new leadership. That certainly will mean a new principal and it probably means a lot of new teachers. But it also means upgrading and changing the ones that you have. In North Carolina we're trying to do it in a way that I think is going to be…
Read moreNovember 3, 2009 03:21 PM
Justin C. Cohen, President of The School Turnaround Strategy Group at Mass Insight Education & Research Institute submitted the following in response to this week's question: “Because the problem of fixing failing schools is so vast and complex, the only “fundamental flaw” in a strategy to fix failing schools would be to search for and implement a magic bullet cure, which is what Andy Smarick suggests when he proposes that we close all low performing schools. I am huge supporter of starting new schools and chartering, but we need an inside strategy that deals aggressively with failure where…
Read moreNovember 2, 2009 06:16 PM
Chad P. Wick, President & CEO, KnowledgeWorks, submitted the following in response to this week's question: There is little doubt that taking on large, chronically low-performing high schools is difficult, messy work. But we must do it. In many already devastated communities, closure is not a viable option. We must remember there are contextual differences to the communities where schools are located. Closing a school in a large district and replacing or reconstituting it may be possible. However, how do you close a low- performing school in a rural area or a small town where only one school…
Read moreOctober 28, 2009 03:49 PM
Marty Strange, policy director of the Rural School and Community Trust, submitted the following: Of course the private sector should fund public education – equitably and adequately, through a tax system that is stable, fair, and progressive. Any other role for private funding creates a quasi-public, and therefore quasi-private, education system. The only way the private sector can put money into schools without a quid pro quo is to pay their taxes. …
Read moreOctober 5, 2009 08:51 AM
Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of external relations, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers, submitted the following: Ideally, public policy would be developed on the basis of robust data. In practice, data are more often only an afterthought used to rationalize positions that have been arrived at through other means. In reality, most of our political discourse is eerily independent of facts, having more to do with a priori ideology and judgments about the expedient. Indeed, the trajectory of the “State Longitudinal Data Systems” that are now included in the House and Senate versions of student loan…
Read moreSeptember 18, 2009 09:53 AM
Jim Kohlmoos, president and CEO of Knowledge Alliance www.nekia.org/, submitted the following in relation to the college-readiness question: After sifting through studies, executive summaries, research and data, there exists little empirical evidence supporting a confident answer. Of course, there will ultimately be many answers based upon the varying characteristics of universities as well as the makeup and needs of a student body. But, in fact, there is meager research looking into the reasons why young adults are entering, but not graduating from college. Crossing the Finish Line not only provides statistics, but offers an in-depth analysis regarding how this phenomenon exists,…
Read moreSeptember 10, 2009 11:45 AM
Lynne Munson, President and Executive Director, Common Core, submitted the following: We and other critics of P21 agree, and have stated repeatedly, that the skills P21 promotes are important. What we take issue with is P21’s unserious treatment of subject matter content. Consider these examples of recommended lessons from P21’s website: 12th grade English students “translate a piece of dialogue from a Shakespearean play into a text message exchange and analyze the effect of the writing mode on the tone or meaning of the dialogue. Students then discuss audience and purpose in relation to communication media.” P. 6 8th grade science…
Read moreSeptember 9, 2009 11:08 AM
Paige Johnson, Global K12 manager at Intel and former Partnership for 21st Century Skills chair, submitted the following: The Partnership for 21st Century Skills was created to garner deeper understanding of and support for the connection of content knowledge and performance skills. Why? Because currently too many of our students are no longer seen as potential winners in a workforce that demands more of them than just factual knowledge. If others truly believe that this work is not important or that the issue is not a significant one – I ask that they please direct me to evidence that proves all…
Read moreSeptember 3, 2009 02:32 PM
George Wood, principal of Federal Hocking High and Middle School in Stewart, Ohio and executive director, the Forum for Education and Democracy, submitted the following: Everyone wants a ‘silver bullet’ when it comes to school improvement, but there just isn’t one. What works in one school won’t necessarily work in another, as it is translated through local culture, history, and the differing populations of children our public schools educate. Having said that, there are a few keys that can be shaped to fit any school that seem to me to have the greatest potential for helping a school improve. Here are…
Read moreAugust 28, 2009 03:59 PM
Jim Kohlmoos, president and CEO of Knowledge Alliance www.nekia.org/, submitted the following in relation to the college-readiness question: Right now, we don’t know. Little data, and therefore no significant knowledge base, exists to address the lack of college ready students. If college readiness is a public priority, the government should quickly mobilize the national research and development initiative to find research-based, innovative solutions to this pressing problem. Other sectors do it. Why not education? To date, the issue has not been a focus of the What Works Clearinghouse or research centers. Federal and state governments have not adequately invested in research to uncover…
Read moreAugust 24, 2009 11:38 AM
Susan Traiman, public policy director at Business Roundtable who manages the Education, Innovation and Workforce Initiative, submitted the following: After the Washington Redskins lost their preseason opening football game, head coach Jim Zorn said the Redskins played soft. Despite the fact that preseason games don’t count, Zorn’s frustration at the 23-0 loss and lack of effort by the players was palpable. But ultimately it’s just a game (although fervent fans might disagree). What does it have to do with the recent release of ACT test scores that once again make clear that far too many students are graduating from…
Read moreAugust 18, 2009 12:58 PM
Jim Kohlmoos, President and CEO of Knowledge Alliance (www.knowledgeall.net/), submitted the following: Requiring data-driven standards simply means finding out what works through research. Currently, benchmarks like oral language and print awareness can be examined at early growth stages, and are thus appropriate. Seen as a part of the greater context of education research, the Early Learning Challenge Fund builds not only a system based on outcomes, but a culture of innovation and exploration where programs can be tried, assessed, dismissed, or reinvented based upon the very data in question. In coordination with Race to the Top, which aims to improve student outcomes,…
Read moreAugust 10, 2009 02:59 PM
Alfie Kohn (www.alfiekohn.org), author of Punished by Rewards and The Schools Our Children Deserve, submitted the following: Rewards, like punishments, can produce only one thing: temporary obedience. What they can never do is help kids become more effective or enthusiastic learners. In fact, a huge body of research demonstrates that exactly the opposite is true: Dangling carrots in front of people is actually counterproductive. What the data show, more specifically, is that the more you reward people for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward. To understand why, it helps to realize that…
Read moreAugust 6, 2009 12:05 PM
Ted Hershberg, Professor of Public Policy and History, University of Pennsylvania, submitted the following: The requirements are fair, rational and long overdue. The long-standing legitimate argument against using student achievement data has been successfully addressed by using student growth data. Achievement (a point on a vertical scale at a single moment time) is best predicted by family income. But this bias is eliminated by the use of growth data (the annual progress of individual students or schools), which is best predicted by the quality of instruction. More rigorous standards and better assessments are both necessary and welcome, but recent research…
Read moreAugust 5, 2009 01:48 PM
In our discussion of Race to the Top eligibility requirements, one area we have only touched upon lightly is evidence for or against the effectiveness of linking student performance data to teacher and principal evaluation. In an article for the Teacher’s College Record, education professor Kevin Welner states, “little or no research actually supports policies linking teacher compensation to student test scores.” Is this true?…
Read moreJuly 29, 2009 05:52 PM
Steve Peha, President of his own Education Consulting Company, Teaching That Makes Sense, submitted the following: No matter what gains we seem to make in education, the Achievement Gap still haunts us. If the Gap seems intractable, it’s primarily because of the way we perceive it as a single phenomenon applying broadly to large groups within our society. In reality, academic achievement is more meaningful in individual contexts, and the Achievement Gap results from other gaps representing individual differences in how children experience school. The key to closing the Gap is closing those gaps. Start with the Instruction Gap. The…
Read moreJuly 27, 2009 09:26 AM
Hugh B. Price, former president of the National Urban League and visiting professor at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, submitted the following: America’s well-being and global competitiveness hinge on how well prepared our children are. Our children are the human infrastructure in today’s knowledge economy. The U.S. economy relies increasingly upon Latinos and African Americans. Minority students surged to 42 percent of public school enrollment nationally, up from 22 percent merely three decades ago. Yet these economically indispensable students, along with low-income youngsters generally, consistently lag farthest behind academically. The “Achievement Gaps” report released on July 14th by the…
Read moreJuly 22, 2009 02:28 PM
Steve Peha, President of his own Education Consulting Company, Teaching That Makes Sense, submitted the following: Do schools need independent auditors? Past history suggests they do. But even a crack team of our country’s best psychometricians won’t improve education. Yes, the data we get is bad. But it’s bad in two ways, only one of which an auditor can deal with. While an auditor can certify accuracy, he or she can’t certify that the data is put to proper use. And that’s where the real problem in the education data stream lies. Here’s something that has bugged me about…
Read moreJuly 21, 2009 10:11 AM
Apropos to our conversation this week, the Wall Street Journal reported recently on the ability of states, like Illinois, to create the illusion of achievement by tinkering with tests. The article points out that No Child Left Behind resulted in Illinois public officials creating new tests that made it easier for students to obtain higher marks. Evidence for this claim came from the report by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago (the same one linked to in our question.) The story does a good job of teasing out the issue of self-evaluation and Secretary Duncan's involvement.…
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