school financing and vouchers

Re: school financing
ldh encourages increased and strategic investments in order to get achievment gains; requires a rethinking of how $$ is spent in k-12 schooling. Re: vouchers, suggests looking at this report by IES, which states that vouchers have made no significant difference in student achievement: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pdf/20084023.pdf

some dispute between lgk and ldh about the impact of vouchers on student achievement. when invited by sf to list research that people should read, ldh offers the above IES report as one piece of research. lgk chuckled and said that tc is a school of education and should be able to find it.

editorializing aside, there was disagreement about how to invest in schooling. e.g., investing in the career ladder and support throughout a career vs. merit pay. this led to an interesting back and forth between the impact of alternative teacher certification programs. candidates have differences in how they aim to support and cultivate the teaching profession. Mccain apparently wants to put money – redirected funds from Title 2, prof dev funds – in programs like TFA, which is focused on achievement, and whose graudates go on to become leaders and founders of charter schools, like Michelle Rae (again). ldh disputed claims that TFA teachers stay, and cited research that indicates that alt cert, without any formal or prior support, decreases percentage of teachers who stay, and is counterintuitive to an effort towards cultivating a teaching profession - as she mentioned earlier, investing in a career ladder.

closing thoughts now... more to come...