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Jim Kohlmoos is President and CEO of Knowledge Alliance

Back in March of 2002 Knowledge Alliance (then known as NEKIA) co-convened a day long policy forum - “Research in Education: On the Leading Edge of School Improvement?” - in Washington DC to explore stronger connections between education research and school improvement efforts nationwide. At the time some folks believed that this topic would not generate more than a passing interest among a few policy wonks. But it was indeed a hot issue.

Just a few months after the passage of No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) there were all sorts of questions surrounding the term “scientifically based research” which had been planted in the statute in over 100 places. And there was a big interest in how the federally supported R&D infrastructure in education could be restructured through the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA - which was up for reauthorization at the time). The forum was "standing room only" (SRO) and the conversations were hot and heavy about quality and relevance and utilization. We produced a summary document of the gathering and eventually an Education Week commentary calling for a “new education knowledge infrastructure”. (Find here.) In the burgeoning era of education reform under NCLB and ESRA, education research seemed to be on the verge of forging a new central function in school improvement.

Continue reading "Friday Guest Column: Is Education Research on the Leading Edge of School Improvement?" »

Posted by Dean Millot at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Once the situations threatening student safety have been identified and prioritized, it’s time to determine the broad categories of activities necessary to meet a school district’s in loco parentis obligations

Perhaps the simplest approach is to consider a time line encompassing what should be accomplished before, during and after each kind of threatening situation. Among other things, this exercise helps to identify activities that are common to all emergencies, or unique to a subset. It also begins to get at particular operational challenges.

Continue reading "Comprehensive Emergency Planning for Public Schools (IV): Operational Requirements" »

Posted by Dean Millot at 2:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My April 5, 2007 “Letter From” was titled “Department of Education Technology Study Says What Every Major Study of Broad Reform Initiatives Says: It Depends and We Don't Know.”

I could replace “Education Technology” with “Reading First” and write the same piece about the Reading First Impact Study: Interim Report conducted by Abt Associates, MDRC and Westat, and released by the Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences on May 1.

Here goes:

Continue reading "Reading First Interim Report Doesn’t Pass the “So What? Test”" »

Posted by Dean Millot at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

School systems have developed their response strategies in the aftermath of events suggesting a more widespread threat to students. The results of this ad hoc approach constitutes the district's current emergency response operation. It's important to remember that this system is based on political history more than policy or analysis.

Ultimately what's in place and how it got there will determine the gap between requirements and capabilities, and say a lot about political, organizational and cultural obstacles to its closure. But it's important not to get caught up in the story too early - and - potentially swayed by its internal logic. Whatever the subject of analysis - from nations to retail stores, I would begin a comprehensive emergency planning assessment by taking out a blank sheet of paper and developing an understanding of the plausible situations that might place students' safety and security at risk.

The simple exercise involves filling in a "threat matrix" with independent research and input from the client's employees - in this case everyone from the superintendent, to teachers, to parents and students, as well as the obvious emergency planning personnel. Not only is their knowledge useful, but this is the time to make them aware of the process and start building the buy-in essential to the success of any planning effort.

Continue reading "Comprehensive Emergency Planning for Public Schools (III): A Threat Matrix" »

Posted by Dean Millot at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Florida District Considers Extra-Curricular Academic Offerings for Extended School Days a Revenue Opportunity

From Monday's issue of K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report

Continue reading "School Improvement RFP of the Week" »

Posted by Dean Millot at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In her post "Why You Should Read the Fine Print in the New Teacher Project Report," eduwonkette suggests that the study of New York public school teachers has been spun by its authors, their allies, and the media so as to suggest that most of the staff made redundant by administrative decisions about teacher positions are also incompetent. Eduwonkette points to several reasons why that might not be the best interpretation, including that fact that 81 percent of excess teachers have never received an unsatisfactory rating.

It is entirely possible that administrators have made some number of incompetent teachers excess baggage rather than going through the performance review process. For all I know most are incompetent. On the other hand, redundancy may also be a way of handling disloyalty to management or managers. What I do fear is that excess and incompetent are becoming interchangeable concepts and, to the extent my fears are justified, this has to be called poor management.

The matter comes down to some simple questions with no easy answers:

Continue reading "Conflating Teacher Incompetence and Redundancy: Management Mistake and/or Ploy?" »

Posted by Dean Millot at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Political activists want change now; those benefiting from the status quo want it to occur as slowly as is required for them to maintain their positions and benefits; politicians triangulate somewhere between what they think is right, what is possible, and what will advance their careers; academics want to do more research; those who have developed products or programs want them to be purchased and used. The media informs the public. The business of public policy analysis is to identify the costs and benefits to society and the allocation of risks and burdens to stakeholders associated with the decisions about different paths that society might take.

As a practical matter, policymaking does not divide up so neatly.

Continue reading "The Letter From: Why Can't We All Just Get Along?" »

Posted by Dean Millot at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My experience with the subject of emergency planning grew out of my work on nuclear strategy, and encompassed the whole range of civilian activities to deal with the aftermath of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, and the federal and state agencies with those responsibilities.

Ironically, nuclear detonations have to be on the list of threats confronting emergency planners responsible for LAUSD. The city and its port are surely attractive to the most capable of international terrorists. But the more compelling problem is that threats to the security of students – or at least the perception of threats – have far outpaced the thinking, processes, organizations, and systems to deal them. It is not sufficient to graft onto schools the technologies, procedures, expertise, and plans developed for malls, universities, hospitals, government buildings, airports, prisons, military bases, police headquarters, etc - that's what we've been doing. We need a distinct strategic concept for public education.

The place to start this discussion is the unique legal responsibility of public schools to assure student safety and the increasing complexity of the task.

Continue reading "Comprehensive Emergency Planning for Public Schools (II): The Evolving Challenge of In Loco Parentis" »

Posted by Dean Millot at 7:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday’s "Lead of the Week" was a Request For Information (RFI) issued by the Los Angeles Unified School District for a District-Wide Strategic Security and Safety Plan. With a million students, dispersed in 1200 sites, over 7100 square miles, in a major international city, drugs, gang violence, industrial accidents, armed homicidal/suicidal students, earthquakes and international terrorism are real possibilities. Los Angeles students face multiple threats to life and limb; the district's reaction has been ad hoc and episodic, resulting in a tangle of policies, systems and activities; and resources are almost certainly being wasted at a time when funds are tight and getting tighter.

Continue reading "Comprehensive Emergency Planning for Public Schools (I): Introduction" »

Posted by Dean Millot at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Offered a day early because I plan to write more on integrated emergency planning for school districts.

From Monday's issue of K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report

Continue reading "School Improvement RFP of the Week" »

Posted by Dean Millot at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)