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The National Association of Secondary School Principals has just released a new position statement on "Professional Compensation for Teachers."  Though the statement's authors carefully avoid openly endorsing such systems, they describe their statement as "a template for states and districts considering the implementation of such systems."

The statement's guiding principles are too numerous to list here, but at least three warrant special notice...

News of the Institute for Education Sciences' recent finding that Reading First does not aid students' comprehension has triggered volleys of argument between Reading First partisans and detractors.

Anyone reading the IES report the day it appeared could have predicted the response. Opponents of Reading First felt vindicated and called for its termination. Supporters objected that the findings revealed more about the shortcomings of the IES evaluation design--or the program's poor implementation--than about the Program's intrinsic merits.

I'll stay out of the crossfire for the time being, if only to make a larger point about the conflict...

Our friends at ASCD's Whole Child Initiative just fired off an email newsletter describing the astonishing success of Thomas Edison Elementary School in Port Chester, New York.  (School success seems to be contagious in Port Chester, whose middle school has won national acclaim for similar strides in the past 10 years.)

Edison owes its achievements to an education approach that addresses the social, physical and academic needs of its largely poor student body.  To quote ASCD's newsletter:

In 1999 only 19 percent of 4th graders at Edison passed the state English Language Arts assessment, and fewer than 23 percent of students had health insurance....

 Yesterday, the Council of Chief State School Officers named Michael Geison the 2008 Teacher of the Year. We at Public School Insights are quite happy with the choice, because Geison personifies the best of 21st-century education. He tailors his instruction to individual students' interests and needs, he engages them in hands-on work, and he promotes greater collaboration among members of the school community. 

CCSSO executive director Gene Wilhoit clearly agrees...

Rounding out Public School Insights' three-week celebration of Earth Day is our interview with Milken Award-winning educator Tamala Newsome, principal of the revolutionary Rosa Parks Elementary School in Portland, Oregon.  The Rosa Parks School has garnered national attention for its eco-friendly building, its thoughtful incorporation of environmental science into the curriculum, and its integral place in the low-income Portland community it serves.

[Hear five minutes of highlights from my conversation with Newsome]

As a central part of Oregon's largest-ever low-income housing revitalization initiative, Rosa Parks plays an essential role in a larger project to offer community members integrated educational and social services from 6 am to 11 pm every day...

We've received and published four new public school and district success stories in the past two weeks. Be sure to take a look at these excellent descriptions of what's working in American public schools and schools districts:

• Southside Elementary School, Alabama:  Empowering Educators to Improve Outcomes, April 30
• Georgia Matthews Elementary School, Kansas:  A Focus on Literacy Spells Success, April 24
• Penn Alexander School, Pennsylvania: The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, The Philadelphia Schools and UPenn Team Up for Success, April 22
• Miami-Dade Schools, Florida: Getting Into "The Zone": Transforming Low-Performing Miami-Dade Schools, April 18

The National School Boards Association's Council of Urban Schools of Education (CUBE) has teamed up with the National PTA on a new survey examining parents' perceptions of urban school climate:  What We Think.  The survey's results are generally encouraging:  Parents believe their children's schools are safe; They report that they are actively involved in their children's schools; They trust and feel respected by teachers and administrators; and they believe their children capable of high academic achievement. 

These findings challenge common depictions of urban schools as dangerous places struggling with disaffected students, disgruntled or disengaged parents, and dispirited staff...

On this 25th anniversary of Nation at Risk, a chorus of education commentators has lamented that serious problems persist even after a quarter century of education reform. Rather than allow such gloomy assessments to stifle faith in reform, we should consider this oddly reassuring point: We've sooner pantomimed than truly enacted the most promising reforms.  Many of our best systemic reform ideas have yet to be thoroughly tested on a large scale.

The American Federation of Teachers' new review of state content standards bears out this point...

Just last week, the Forum for Education and Democracy issued an important report on the federal role in K-12 education:  Democracy at Risk: The Need for a New Federal Policy in Education.  With its obvious nod to Nation at Risk, the publication joins a long line of reports that raise the alarm over American students' declining standing in international assessments. Unlike many of those reports, however, Democracy at Risk strongly criticizes recent reform efforts' almost exclusive focus on "mandates and sanctions."

Instead, the report argues, the federal government should support schools' capacity to succeed...

As a third-year Interactive Media teacher at McKinley Technology High School in Washington, DC, I've learned an essential lesson:  Students will do boring old math, and will even learn math on their own, if they do it for a purpose they find meaningful--such as creating a computer game, computer graphics or computer animation....