Latest Blog Posts

Newark's Cami Anderson Speaks Some Simple Truths

May 17, 2013 at 7:47 am

I spent yesterday out in Las Vegas at the Southern Nevada Leadership Summit, where the Clark County Public Education Foundation was hosting school, system, and business leaders. (Full disclosure: I'm a senior fellow for the Foundation.) One of the speakers was Newark superintendent Cami Anderson, who drew a warm reception to her thoughts on the need to shift thinking "from what's probable to what's possible."

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The IRS, DOJ Wiretaps, Benghazi, Alms for Sebelius... and Ed Reform

May 15, 2013 at 9:05 am

Second terms are notoriously brutal. Clinton and Lewinsky. Reagan and Iran-Contra. Nixon and Watergate. Bush 43 and New Orleans, the Iraqi insurgency, financial meltdown, and everything else.

It didn't take long for Obama to join the club. His Attorney General has been nailed for wiretapping the Associated Press, bringing condemnation from even Obama-friendly precincts like CBS and the New York Times. We've now learned that the IRS targeted conservative groups on his watch, and lied about it. Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius has been shaking down businesses and charities, asking them to "voluntarily" contribute to help implement Obamacare. And then there's Benghazi...

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Why the "Schools v. Poverty" Debate Feels Aimless: A Twitter Play (in Three Acts)

May 13, 2013 at 9:17 am

I finally joined Twitter the other day. (I'm at "rickhess99," if you care.) I haven't yet actually penned any tweets, and don't know that I will. But I thought I'd practice my tweeting a bit (just in case), by taking a crack at boiling down last week's familiar back-and-forth debate over "is it schools, or is it poverty?" Fordham's Mike Petrilli kicked things off last Tuesday with a letter to Debbie Meier over at "Bridging Differences." That yielded a flurry of back-and-forths in a "reply all" public email exchange. Unsure how much of this was posted anywhere, I thought I'd try to distill it for you, twitter-style, since I thought it fairly illuminating. (Note: I may have taken some liberties in Act 3 when it comes to current or former U.S. Secretaries of Education, and the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut.)

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Common-Core Turbulence: Inevitable or Preventable?

May 10, 2013 at 9:11 am

It's been a turbulent few months for the Common Core, raising real questions about its future. Opposition on the right has stretched well beyond the fringe has now been voiced by the Republican National Committee, with several Republican U.S. Senators speaking out in opposition and legislation to withdraw from the Common Core proposed in seven state legislatures. Meanwhile, in a big blow from the left, Randi Weingarten used a high-profile speech to weaken previous AFT support for the Core and to raise doubts about how the standards are being implemented and used.

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In Which I Interview an Insincere Reformer

May 8, 2013 at 9:05 am

I recently had a fascinating exchange with a smart journalist. He wrote, "I'm looking into the major donors from across the country who tried to influence school board races. Critics have questioned the[ir] motives...To what extent are they sincere in advancing reforms they believe in?"

I was struck by how little the question surprised me. After all, supporters of charter schooling, test-based accountability, mayoral control, overhauling teacher tenure and pay, and the like are routinely denounced as "corporatists" or worse. Given that they haven't yet definitively disproved such charges, they must be true. But why are these foundations assiduously pursuing a malevolent, covert agenda?

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Books by Frederick M. Hess