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	<title>IdeasCategory: School of Thought &#124; Ideas &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: What Everyone&#8217;s Getting Wrong About Special-Ed Sports</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/01/29/viewpoint-what-everyones-getting-wrong-about-special-ed-sports/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/01/29/viewpoint-what-everyones-getting-wrong-about-special-ed-sports/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:45:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sports]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[corollary teams]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[department of education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[disabled]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[murderball]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[office for civil rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rehabilitation act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[special education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[title ix]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wheelchair basketball]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=27857</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When I heard last week that the U.S. Department of Education was releasing new guidelines about what schools must do to provide access to school sports for disabled students, I was in Charlottesville, Va., watching the University of Virginia’s women’s basketball team throttle Boston College. And in a nice bit of coincidence, the halftime show for that game was an exhibition match of adult wheelchair basketball. Conservative pundits fearing federal overreach claim that President Obama is inventing a right to wheelchair basketball, that he&#8217;s forcing schools to start up such teams. He’s not. But the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights is doing something important, and hopefully it will prod more schools to give more students a way to participate in sports. (MORE: For Disabled Athletes, A Right To Compete in School?) Here’s the back story: In 1973 Congress passed the Rehabilitation Act, which protects the rights of disabled students in schools and is the underpinning of today’s special-education programs. Included in its many provisions is one that requires equal opportunity for participation in extracurricular activities. Schools haven’t always met that obligation, and one reason for this, according to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office, is that administrators are confused about what the guidelines expect schools and districts to do. The report also found that special-education students were less likely to participate in sports. (This may seem obvious on its face, but it’s important to note that most students in special education do not have severe physical or mental challenges.) So now, some two years later — this is the government, after all — the Education Department is providing some clarity. In other words, these are not new requirements or mandates, but rather an explanation of existing law and policy. (MORE: Viewpoint: The Presidential Election Compromised Education Reform) Most of it is common sense. Sports teams are competitive entrance activities, and skill matters most in decisions about who gets to play; nothing in the law changes that. But the guidance clarifies that schools can — and should —<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=27857&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/wheelchairbasketball.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: Jeb Bush Wants to Talk About Education</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/07/viewpoint-jeb-bush-wants-to-talk-about-education/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/07/viewpoint-jeb-bush-wants-to-talk-about-education/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Dec 2012 18:32:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arne Duncan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Common Core]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[education reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jeb Bush]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[No Child Left Behind]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poverty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Race to the Top]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[school accountability]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[school reform]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=26254</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Last week was my first time at Jebfest. That’s how some insiders have started referring to the annual education-reform summit Jeb Bush organizes. For five years now, Bush&#8217;s Foundation for Excellence in Education has been gathering current and former governors, superintendents and policymakers, business leaders and educational vendors, nonprofit executives and think-tank types who may disagree on many things but are united in their desire to reform education. (MORE: Viewpoint: Why the 2012 Election Has Compromised Education Reform.) The meeting last week in Washington attracted people from both sides of the aisle, ranging from hard-core adherents of Bush&#8217;s education ideas to reform-minded analysts like me who support some of what his foundation is doing but are skeptical of other aspects. (One area we agree on is the promise of the new Common Core state standards; I’m a partner at a nonprofit that was hired to analyze Common Core implementation for Chiefs for Change, a network of state schools chiefs sponsored by Bush’s foundation.) The conference organizers asked me to moderate a session at the summit with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, where we discussed plans for President Obama’s second term, the challenges facing Hispanic students, and education politics. And I also sat down for a private interview with Bush to talk about his views on education and the current political landscape. Here are some of the highlights from the interview, which includes his thoughts on education and poverty, his discomfort with being called a centrist and a key policy issue where he parts ways with his brother George. Why your emphasis on education? There is now increasing, irrefutable evidence linking our country’s prosperity to education outcomes.  We’ve lost our leadership in education, and now we’re one of the least socially mobile countries in the world. You can directly link it to a variety of factors, but the solution has to include transformational education reform.I’ve believed that for a long while. Combine that with being governor, where we got a chance to implement pretty meaningful broad-based education reform and, seeing the results,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=26254&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/jeb-bush.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Mitt Romney Rally At Bank United Center</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: The Election Has Compromised Education Reform</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/08/viewpoint-the-election-has-compromised-education-reform/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/08/viewpoint-the-election-has-compromised-education-reform/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 08 Nov 2012 16:28:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democrats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama Administration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republicans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[State & Local Governments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[charter schools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Common Core Standards]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DREAM act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[education reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Idaho]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[immigation reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indiana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jeb Bush]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[merit pay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[school reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teacher evaluation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teachers union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tom Luna]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tony Bennett]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=25103</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The 2012 presidential election sidestepped the issue of school reform. Neither candidate spent much time laying out, let alone talking up, an education policy agenda. But around the country, there were ballot referendums and state and local races with big implications for schools. Teachers&#8217; unions had a good night, but so did charter schools. In other words, Nov. 6 left the country with an education mandate as unclear as the electoral mandate overall. Still, what happened in various states will influence what happens in Washington during President Obama’s second term. Here are four key education issues to watch: Standards for teachers and students The biggest omen for the Obama Administration is, ironically, the defeat of a high-profile Republican, Indiana state schools superintendent Tony Bennett. He has been a quiet Obama ally, most notably in the fight to reform teacher evaluations and develop common academic standards in all 50 states. The latter effort didn’t endear him to conservatives, and Bennett’s Democratic opponent said she’d pull the state out of the standards initiative. Bennett also angered teachers&#8217; unions with his blunt talk and his support for one of the toughest teacher-evaluation laws in the country. This left-right convergence led to Bennett’s losing on the same night that a conservative Republican won the governorship, and that doesn’t bode well for Obama’s centrist approach to education reform. Or for that matter, for GOP leaders on these issues, including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who has championed many of the initiatives that got trounced on Tuesday night. (MORE: Why Romney&#8217;s Big School Voucher Idea Was Really Pretty Puny) In other Republican-on-Republican violence, Idaho schools chief Tom Luna wasn’t on the ballot, but all three of his big education-reform measures were roundly defeated by voters in this solidly red state. Luna, who is a Republican and also the president of the Council of Chief State School Officers, the national organization representing state education agencies, had pushed hard for initiatives that would have instituted merit pay for teachers, weakened collective bargaining and mandated more online education and<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=25103&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/1500_id_ed_1108.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Elementary Charter School</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: For-Profit Education is Not Dead Yet</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/25/viewpoint-for-profit-education-is-not-dead-yet/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/25/viewpoint-for-profit-education-is-not-dead-yet/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:58:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Clayton Christensen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[for-profit higher education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kaplan Higher Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[massive open online courses]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[student loans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[University of Phoenix]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=24484</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Last week the for-profit behemoth University of Phoenix said it would close 115 locations. The move comes on the heels of a late September decision by Kaplan Higher Education to stop new enrollment at nine of its sites and consolidate four campuses. Critics are elated, hoping that these moves signal the death knell of for-profit education. And indeed, the stocks of the for-profits are down almost 50% this year according to the Bloomberg index that follows the industry. But love it or hate it, for-profit higher education is unlikely to disappear and is instead shifting to a leaner incarnation online. Before too long, such schools likely will be an accepted part of the landscape alongside traditional public and private universities. (MORE: 8 Ideas to Improve Higher Education) Such a prediction sounds crazy, given what we&#8217;ve been learning about for-profits. Investigations by the federal government and the media have revealed a litany of appalling practices. Among the problems: Misleading recruiting claims aimed at the most economically vulnerable students, frequently low quality and worthless degrees, and low graduation and job placement rates. Student loan default rates are substantially higher for students at these schools. In other words, for-profit colleges are not as bad as you think — many are worse. But policymakers are waking up to the extent of the problems and trying to use regulatory authority to rein in at least the worst schools. Meanwhile, new competitive ventures like MOOCs (massive open online courses) are springing up. and attracting different kinds of students into the online sector. For many students at today&#8217;s for-profits, the choice is between an online option, maybe a class or two at a community college or no further education at all. So these ventures may be shady, or at best unproven, but they are responding to a genuine demand for greater flexibility because of a student&#8217;s work and family obligations that existing institutions are not meeting. This pattern of low-quality products entering a market then evolving and improving while changing an entire sector along the way is an established one. Harvard<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=24484&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Should Teachers Be Allowed to Sell Their Lesson Plans?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/20/should-teachers-be-allowed-to-sell-their-lesson-plans/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/20/should-teachers-be-allowed-to-sell-their-lesson-plans/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:47:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business & Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[betterlesson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Common Core Standards]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[deanna jump]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lesson plans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[randi weingarten]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sharemylesson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teacher pay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teachers pay teachers]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=22407</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You won’t get rich as a teacher, right? That’s no longer true for a small but growing number of educators who are making big bucks selling their lesson plans online. On a peer-to-peer site called TeachersPayTeachers (TPT), Georgia kindergarten teacher Deanna Jump has earned more than $1 million selling lesson plans — with names like “Colorful Cats Math, Science and Literacy Fun!” — for about $9 a pop. Since the site launched in 2006, 26 teachers have each made more than $100,000 on TPT, which takes a 15% commission on most sales. In August, Jump became the first on TPT to reach $1 million. Her success has been aided by the thousands of followers of her personal blog who get notified each time she retails a new lesson. Another reason she thinks her stuff sells so well: “I’ve used it in my classroom,” says Jump, who just kicked off her 16th year of teaching. “I know it works.” (MORE: Why Teachers’ Contracts Should Be Negotiated in Public) Standards and testing may hog the spotlight in education, but they spell out only what students should be able to do, not how to get kids to learn those skills. Lesson plans are teachers’ tools: lend someone a better hammer, and he’ll do a better job. But a lousy carpenter can’t fake it even with the greatest tools money can buy, and the lesson plans that come with textbooks often aren’t very engaging or aren’t in line with the Common Core State Standards that 45 states recently agreed to adopt. There’s a lot of concern among teachers about meeting these standards, particularly since more states have started tying teachers’ evaluations to their students’ performance. And the rising popularity of lesson-sharing sites like BetterLesson, which in June signed up its 100,000th teacher, points to one of education’s most ironic problems: teachers don’t share very much with their colleagues. Yes, there are master teachers who help coach less effective co-workers, but faculty members still get relatively little time with one another. Schools don&#8217;t prioritize it,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=22407&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/teacher-bashing-rotherham.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Teacher Bashing Rotherham</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">julierawe</media:title>
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		<title>Behind the Chicago Teachers&#8217; Strike: Why Talks Must Be Made Public</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/10/chicago-teachers-strike-why-negotiations-must-be-open-to-the-public/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/10/chicago-teachers-strike-why-negotiations-must-be-open-to-the-public/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Sep 2012 18:07:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[American Cities]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chicago]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chicago public schools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chicago teachers strike]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chicago teachers union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[collective bargaining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[douglas county]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[karen lewis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[louis brandeis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Maggie Gyllenhaal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rahm emanuel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sunshine act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teachers unions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[won't back down]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=21982</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Spoiler alert: when Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new feature film, Won’t Back Down, hits theaters later this month, its plot hinges on the forcing of school officials to make big decisions in front of parents rather than behind closed doors. The film is fictional, but raging against backroom power politics is not. Teachers&#8217; unions and district officials almost always negotiate privately, so when those negotiations reach a deal or an impasse — or lead to a strike, as they did in Chicago yesterday — the public gets to hear only part of the story as families scramble to figure out what to do with their kids. Chicago, whose 400,000 students make it the U.S.’s third largest school district, today offered safe havens for kids in dozens of public libraries and churches and, for a four-hour stretch this morning, in nearly 150 public schools staffed with nonunion workers. (MORE: Chicago Teachers Strike: What They&#8217;re Fighting For) At issue in the Chicago strike — the first by the city’s teachers in 25 years — are clashes between the union and Mayor Rahm Emanuel on how to handle teacher pay, evaluations, benefits and layoffs. In public, the Chicago Teachers Union uses generalities to describe its demands, with the union president, Karen Lewis, saying the teachers want a “fair contract.” But according to one senior Chicago official with direct knowledge of the negotiations with the union reps, “Their public rhetoric has almost nothing to do with what’s happening at the table.” Media accounts indicate that the city’s latest offer was to raise teacher pay 16% over the next four years, but the senior city official and other sources with knowledge of the negotiations say the union demanded raises that would amount to at least a 35% salary increase over three years as well as guaranteed jobs for any teachers who get laid off as Chicago’s schools downsize. The city does not have that kind of money, and other changes the union is demanding would essentially render meaningless a new law in Illinois that mandates improved teacher<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=21982&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/2100_unionchicago_0910.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Chicago Schools Strike</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">julierawe</media:title>
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		<title>Why Romney&#8217;s Big School Voucher Idea Is Really Pretty Puny</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/06/14/why-romneys-big-school-voucher-idea-is-really-pretty-puny/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/06/14/why-romneys-big-school-voucher-idea-is-really-pretty-puny/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Jun 2012 10:00:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Presidency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republicans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[State & Local Governments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[charter schools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[school choice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[schools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vouchers]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=17391</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[School vouchers are back in the news except that proponents of the idea, including Mitt Romney, are not using the word vouchers any more. For some reason voters don&#8217;t like that term, but they do like the idea of giving parents more choices, so vouchers — I mean “scholarships” and “choice” — are a big part of Mr. Romney’s education platform. Listen to him talk about it, and it’s as though we’ve traveled back in time; substitute Bob Dole for Romney and President Clinton for President Obama, and it’s the same debate we had in the 1990s. There is a lot more choice in education now than there was two decades ago: voucher programs for private and parochial schools are well established in cities like Milwaukee and Cleveland, and states like Indiana and Louisiana have enacted them more recently. There are also about half a dozen state programs specifically for students with disabilities. Meanwhile, charter schools continue to proliferate; there are now more than 5,000 of these publicly funded alternatives that students can choose to attend rather than their traditional neighborhood school. But despite all that, this latest round of voucher-pseudonym talk probably won’t amount to much. That’s because school choice is a state-by-state game, not a federal one. Here are three reasons why Romney’s proposals are less provocative than they seem: (MORE: The Biggest Myths About School Vouchers) 1. This is about politics, not policy. Romney’s gambit here is politically clever because it forces Obama to be against choice and drives a wedge between parents and the teachers’ unions. In fact, Obama is for charter schools and public-school choice – charter schools are independently run public schools, and public-school choice schemes allow parents to choose from among existing public schools besides the one in their neighborhood – and his administration has used various initiatives to promote them. But voters don’t parse the issue the way wonks do, so it gives Romney an opening. Romney and other Republicans know they&#8217;re using a great talking point when they complain that the President is<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=17391&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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			<media:title type="html">Romney Visits Philadelphia School</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">julierawe</media:title>
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		<title>Forget Wisconsin. The Unions&#8217; Biggest Loss Was in California</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/06/06/forget-wisconsin-the-unions-biggest-loss-was-in-california/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/06/06/forget-wisconsin-the-unions-biggest-loss-was-in-california/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Jun 2012 18:35:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[American Cities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Labor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pension reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[retirement costs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[San Jose]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teachers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teachers unions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wisconsin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=16976</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Bad news for teachers and other public-sector employees: America is more than ready to cut your pensions and benefits. While most politicos had been focusing this week on the Wisconsin recall, an election 2,100 miles away in San Jose, Calif., may be a bigger harbinger of the kind of austerity voters are developing a taste for. In this city of about a million residents an hour south of San Francisco, voters on Tuesday approved arguably the country’s boldest pension cuts. San Jose’s Democratic mayor, Chuck Reed, has been grappling with ballooning pension costs that have increased from $73 million to $245 million in the last decade. Retirement costs already consume more than 20% of the city’s general fund, which helps explain why Reed was pushing San Jose to pass Measure B, which would give voters the power to approve increases in pension benefits and give the city the power to suspend automatic 3% annual raises during a fiscal crisis. The measure would also make workers contribute half the cost of their pensions; employees currently pay $3 for every $8 the city contributes, and the city is financially responsible for any shortfalls. Also included are provisions to curb the abuse of disability benefits. It’s a tough package — and will certainly be challenged in court because it changes benefits not only for future workers, something everyone agrees is legal, but for current ones as well. Nonetheless, voters passed it by a stunning margin of 69.5% in favor, 30.4% opposed. A pension reform measure also passed in San Diego. (MORE: Why Scott Walker Survived His Recall) These results matter for teachers, whose pensions and benefits are facing scrutiny and who should realize from Tuesday’s results that their unions are not invincible. Collectively the votes in Wisconsin, where Walker survived a recall after cutting benefits and curtailing collective bargaining for public sector workers, and in these California cities are a big wake-up call. These cuts are being made not in red states but in some of the country’s most progressive territory. If public-employee unions<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=16976&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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			<media:title type="html">San Jose Elections</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">julierawe</media:title>
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		<title>How To Fix Pell Grants</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/24/how-to-fix-pell-grants/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/24/how-to-fix-pell-grants/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 May 2012 10:45:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brookings Institution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[college tuition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Federal Pell Grant Program]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pell grants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[student loan debt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[student loans]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=16269</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A decade ago I was involved in an effort to rethink federal college aid programs in partnership with the Brookings Institution. We brought together a diverse set of thinkers to brainstorm about how to better target federal dollars to help the neediest students. Sounds pretty mundane, right? But it was a circus. People were so miffed by any suggestion of changing the Federal Pell Grant Program that one advocate even circulated a cowardly anonymous poem insulting the wife of a participant. (Who says education policy is boring?) There was hardly any useful data about who was using various federal aid programs because different federal agencies — including the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education — wouldn’t talk to each other. In short, I quickly learned that when it comes to higher education reform, war is Pell. The attitude in Washington is different now, and even advocates acknowledge some changes are necessary. Pell grants are being scrutinized because taxpayers now spend more money on them — $36 billion this year, up from $14 billion in 2007 — than on entire federal agencies. Almost half of all college students currently receive some Pell grant assistance, ranging from $555 to $5,550, based on their financial need. In July, Congress is tightening the purse strings by reducing the number of semesters a student can receive a Pell grant (to 12, down from 18) and, most controversially, lowering the household income level that determines which students&#8217; families are not required to contribute any money for their college education. That threshold is dropping from $32,000 to $23,000. (MORE: Is There Really a Student-Loan Crisis?) There aren&#8217;t many families poor enough to qualify for the zero-contribution plan; the recent changes will bump about 12,000 students  out of that category and will lower the grants for an additional 274,000. But much broader changes to the Pell program are necessary to make it more beneficial and effective. A variety of ideas about how to achieve that are ricocheting around Washington. Here are five that policymakers should consider: Front-load the grants. The<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=16269&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/collegefunding2_blog_0523.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">collegefunding2_blog_0523</media:title>
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		<title>Student Loans: Is There Really A Crisis?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/17/student-loans-is-there-really-a-crisis/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/17/student-loans-is-there-really-a-crisis/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 May 2012 10:00:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[college]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[financial aid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Peter Thiel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[student debt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[student loans]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=15855</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Student debt is completely out of control, right? The more than $1 trillion in outstanding college loans is front-page news and is pretty much the only educational issue the presidential candidates are talking about. Yes, ballooning student debt is causing real hardship for some Americans. But as with many educational flare-ups, the public debate is giving us more noise than signal. So before you decide to skip college based on the hysteria, here are a few things to keep in mind. Students with $100,000 debt loads are far from the norm. On May 13 the New York Times took a long look at student loans. The paper profiled a student who just graduated from Ohio Northern University, a private Methodist college, with $120,000 in debt. That is a staggering amount, which is no doubt why the Times led with this young woman. But the article subsequently noted that just 3% of student borrowers owe more than $100,000; only 10% owe more than $54,000. (MORE: College Admissions: How To Deal With The Thin Envelope) Meanwhile, median debt for the two-thirds of U.S. college students who borrow to finance their education is only $12,800.  That&#8217;s actually less than the difference in annual earnings between those with a college degree and those with only a high school education — a gap that government data shows is growing as the economy becomes more skill-based. That’s part of the reason for the rapidly rising student loan debt: we’re in the midst of an economic downturn, and people are returning to school to upgrade their skills. It wasn’t lost on Americans that college graduates were much less likely to be unemployed during the past few years. Doubling the interest rate for federal student loans is less calamitous than it sounds. Under federal law, interest rates on federally backed Stafford loans are set to double from 3.4 to 6.8% in July. That sounds terrible, but the rate increase would only affect new loans. And for the average borrower, the higher rate — assuming, and that’s a big if, Congress doesn’t prevent the increase from kicking<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=15855&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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			<media:title type="html">College Debt Myths</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">julierawe</media:title>
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		<title>What Do We Do About Poor Science Scores? Take Kids Outside</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/11/what-do-we-do-about-poor-science-scores-take-kids-outside/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/11/what-do-we-do-about-poor-science-scores-take-kids-outside/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 May 2012 10:30:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environmental education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marguerite Roza]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NAEP]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[science education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teacher Appreciation Week]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trout in a Classroom]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=15165</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It’s Teacher Appreciation Week, so let’s start this column with a nod to my 9th-grade science teacher, Bruce Butler, who lit a spark in me by making geology and environmental science fun, interesting — and rigorous. I still think of him whenever I’m out hiking or fishing and come across some geological curiosity. He went on to a successful career as a principal and is retiring this summer, but would no doubt be happy to know that today’s science teachers seem to be having an impact on kids, too, according to science achievement-test data released yesterday. The data, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, a test given periodically to a national sample of students, shows that overall scores are rising a little and that the racial achievement gap is narrowing.  Still, there is a long way to go: just one in three 8th-graders scored at the proficient level, a tiny increase from the last time the test was administered two years ago. (MORE: What Everyone Missed on the Pineapple Question) At last month’s White House Summit on Environmental Education, there was much handwringing by my fellow panelists and other advocates about the sorry state of environmental education — and science education in general — in our schools. Cabinet officials reiterated their support for making environmental education more important, but there was little in the way of specifics. Ideas such as using innovative technology to simulate environmental experiences were touted, but perhaps the most promising way to improve science teaching and environmental education is also the simplest: get kids outside more. Children will learn more about the natural world by spending a few hours in it than days in front of a computer — and it’s healthier for them too. (MORE: Can Computers Replace Teachers?) The NAEP data released yesterday shows that students who rarely do hands-on science underperform those who do it almost every day by 16 points on the NAEP’s scale — that’s about a full grade level’s worth of learning. Hands-on science is not only<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=15165&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/a119437586.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Children and nature</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">julierawe</media:title>
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		<title>What Everyone Missed on the Pineapple Question</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/04/what-everyone-missed-on-the-pineapple-question/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/04/what-everyone-missed-on-the-pineapple-question/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 May 2012 10:30:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[new york]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pineapple and the Hare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pineapplegate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[standardized testing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=14495</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When the New York Daily News posted an article about an Aesop-inspired fable that appeared on the standardized test eighth graders in New York state had to take last month — about a pineapple challenging a hare to a foot race through the forest — all hell broke loose because the passage was so poorly written and the questions about it so incomprehensible. The fable described several animals assuming that the pineapple must have a trick up its sleeve that would enable the immobile fruit to win the race, and when they discovered that it didn’t, they ate it. Test-takers were asked: Why did they eat the pineapple? The correct answer: because the animals were annoyed. And who was the wisest of the animals? An owl that was never mentioned in the passage. Anti-testing activists responded with fury that this set of questions showed why standardized testing is worthless. New York officials quickly turned tail and tossed out the pineapple passage, declaring that they would not count it on this year’s test and would not use it in the future. There was just one problem: much of the uproar was based on bad information. (MORE: The Case of the ‘Talking Pineapple,’ the Reading-Comprehension Test Stumper) Who screwed up in Pineapplegate? There is plenty of blame to go around various parties, and their roles in this debacle illuminate many of the bigger problems facing education reform today. Where to begin? Let’s start with: The media. Standardized tests are closely guarded to prevent cheating, so when the Daily News ran its story, the reading passage and accompanying questions had never before been made public. The newspaper apparently plucked the information off of anti-testing online message boards – always a reliable source, right? The passage the paper ran was so poorly written that it would indeed have been inexcusable. Tests are shoddy, case closed! Except that the passage the Daily News published on April 19 was not the actual one on the test; it was an incomplete paraphrase, leaving out such things as —<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=14495&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/a84473884.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Pineapple</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/430c0d4410029026cc08d4abbe0c39e3?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">julierawe</media:title>
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		<title>School Reform: Why Romney and Obama Aren&#8217;t Talking About Education</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/26/what-obama-and-romney-wont-tell-you-about-education/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/26/what-obama-and-romney-wont-tell-you-about-education/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:30:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[barack obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[education reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[election 2012]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitt romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[No Child Left Behind]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=14168</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[According to a recent poll, 67 percent of registered voters in swing states said education was &#8220;extremely important&#8221; to them in this year&#8217;s election. Parents of high schoolers and college students are particularly worried, or they should be, that the interest rate on federally backed student loans is set to double in July, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. Meanwhile, only 8 percent of low-income students even make it out of college by age 24. Business leaders agree America needs to do a better job educating its kids if we want to remain competitive globally.  Yet despite all that, President Obama and Mr. Romney aren&#8217;t talking about education&#8217;s hard questions. They aren&#8217;t even talking up their own successes. Why? Because education reform doesn&#8217;t fit well with the overall argument either candidate is making about why he should get to sit in the Oval Office next January. (MORE: Can Obama Really Lower the Cost of College?) When it comes to education reform, both men have a party-base problem. Romney as governor championed charter schools and rigorous standards. He understood that improving our education system, especially our elementary and secondary schools, is a national issue crucial to our economic growth. He was regarded as a moderate — he even praised No Child Left Behind. Now his campaign website talks about education as a global competitiveness strategy but concludes that the solution is to leave school improvement to states. As the presumptive nominee of a party that is increasingly allergic to a robust federal role in most areas of domestic policy, Romney talks a good game about national problems but is unable to propose actually using national policies or strategies to help solve them.  The former moderate from Massachusetts now finds himself to the political right of President George W. Bush on education. (MORE: ‘Let’s Not Weaken It’: An Exclusive Interview with George W. Bush on NCLB) Obama has his own minefield to walk through. He has compiled an impressive record on education, including an unprecedented focus on turning around low-performing schools, a<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=14168&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/auntitled-11.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Education</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">erinleighskarda</media:title>
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		<title>College Admissions: How to Deal With a Thin Envelope</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/19/college-admissions-how-to-deal-with-the-thin-envelope/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/19/college-admissions-how-to-deal-with-the-thin-envelope/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:30:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[admission]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[college]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[college admissions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rejections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thin envelope]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wait list]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=13741</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It’s an exciting time for students who got into one of their top-choice schools. But what about all the kids who didn’t? At 18, that kind of rejection can be devastating. And perspective on how the college you go to doesn&#8217;t determine the rest of your life takes a few years to kick in. Tom Brokaw has said publicly that his rejection from Harvard helped him realize that he needed to party less and study more. He got a degree from the University of South Dakota and ended up becoming one of the most highly regarded household names in America. Warren Buffett didn’t get into his first choice for business school, and he’s done alright too. Brokaw and Buffett’s paths to impactful careers offer a basic and important lesson: Your first act isn’t your last. In that vein, here are three pieces of practical advice for dealing with college rejection. (MORE: How Colleges Really Make Admissions Decisions) This is an initial setback, not the end of the world. Take it from me, as someone who initially wanted to study resource economics and be a forest ranger but ended up working in the White House on education policy and writing a weekly column for TIME: It’s pretty common to change your mind about what you want to do, often more than once. So that perfect fit with a particular school that you think you’re missing out on might not be so perfect in the long run anyway. Students change majors, and people change careers. If you stop to think about it, a system that expects 18-year-olds to know the path they want to be on decades down the road is bound to have a lot of false starts. I asked educational entrepreneur and former school superintendent Tom Vander Ark — who studied at the Colorado School of Mines — how he moved from a successful career as a mine engineer into education. He cited the vagaries of the professional world and a desire to do new things. &#8220;A formal education may<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=13741&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/a129020012.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/a129020012.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/a129020012.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">College Admissions</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">ruthdaviskonigsberg</media:title>
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		<title>Are Pre-K Programs About To Get Gutted?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/05/are-pre-k-programs-about-to-get-gutted/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/05/are-pre-k-programs-about-to-get-gutted/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:45:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cuts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Head Start]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[preschool]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Race to the Top]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=12831</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When a little girl, who I’ll call Tina, arrived in a pre-kindergarten program in Washington, D.C. she was unable to recognize any sounds or letters.  By the time she left for kindergarten she knew all her letters and more sounds than D.C.’s standards require. Now, six years later, Tina’s teachers say she’s “on a roll” in school. (MORE: Student Loans—To Pay For Kindergarten?) There are plenty of legitimate debates about what works in education, but the importance of early-childhood education is not one of them. High-quality early-childhood programs help kids in school and in life. Why? Research shows that good programs can improve a variety of outcomes and University of Chicago economist and Nobel Laureate James Heckman points out that dollars invested early are higher leverage than later remediation. But it’s also common sense. Tina’s teachers say that until she learned behavioral and participatory skills she was simply unable to engage with and benefit from instruction at school. It’s good for parents, too, because good programs teach them about how to be involved and advocate for their child’s education. So why aren’t we ensuring that more students and families at-risk of school failure get this sort of support? A forthcoming report from the National Institute for Early Education Research being released next Tuesday takes a look at state spending on pre-kindergarten education. The data show two alarming trends. First, states continue to cut spending on early-childhood programs. Roughly two-thirds of the 39 states with early-childhood education programs cut spending in 2011. Those cuts come on the heels of reduced spending the last few years, and many states are planning on additional cutbacks in the next several years. At the same time states seem to be minimizing quality and increasing enrollment by supporting day care rather than educationally sound programs. (MORE: How To Unlock Your Child&#8217;s Academic Potential) To its credit, the Obama Administration is trying to buck the trend. As part of Race to the Top, the administration sponsored a $500 million competition to encourage states to improve their early-childhood programs.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=12831&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/ideas_pre_k.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">pre-kindergarden</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">ruthdaviskonigsberg</media:title>
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		<title>5 Things Teachers Could Learn from the Marines</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/15/5-things-teachers-could-learn-from-the-marines/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/15/5-things-teachers-could-learn-from-the-marines/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Mar 2012 10:45:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fallujah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marine Corps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marines]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[public school]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teachers unions]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=11585</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Fallujah probably isn&#8217;t the first place you’d go for ideas about how to improve our schools. It was the scene of some of the toughest fighting during the Iraqi War. But the city’s successful recapture by the United States highlighted why the Marines Corps is such a respected fighting force. In that battle, as in others, 19- and 20-year-old Marines were trusted to make extraordinary split-second decisions in an environment more dangerous and confusing than most of us can imagine. Yet back home in American schools, we still haven’t figured out how to give our teaching force – whose members are college graduates, more than half of whom have advanced degrees – autonomy and accountability in a far less dynamic workplace. In school districts and state capitals, we veer between giving teachers insufficient training and oversight and giving them almost no autonomy at all. The Marine Corps isn’t perfect. A few of its members have been accused of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, it’s undeniable that the Marines are highly effective at their core mission of maintaining a nimble and lethal fighting force. In conversations with active-duty Marines and with former Marines who now work full-time in public schools, some lessons for improving our teaching force became clear. Here are five things the leathernecks can teach us: 1. Give people autonomy, but training too The Marines have the most junior force of any of the armed services: 39% of Marines are Privates or Lance Corporals. By comparison 19% of the Army, 20% of the Air Force, and 24% in the Navy are at the lowest ranks. The Marines also have the highest ratio — by a substantial margin — of enlisted personnel to officers of any of the armed forces. So they’re not top-heavy. (MORE: Super Bowl School: What the NFL Can Teach Teachers) This could be a recipe for disorganization or worse, but instead a Marine fire team of four can operate largely on its own, if necessary, while carrying out its commander’s intent. It can do this because of extensive training. &#8220;The<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=11585&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/a132307295.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Marines</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">julierawe</media:title>
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		<title>Can Parents Take Over Schools?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/08/can-parents-take-over-schools/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/08/can-parents-take-over-schools/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:23:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parent trigger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Adelanto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parent Revolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ben Austin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=11120</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If your child’s school is lousy, would you want the option to band together with other parents and take it over? That’s the idea behind “parent trigger” legislation that enables parents in low-performing schools to vote to change the governance of their children’s school — and remove teachers and the principal if they want to. Although only four states have enacted such a law (California was the first to do so in 2010), legislators in Florida are debating this week whether it should become the fifth, and similar bills are pending in a dozen states. But so far parents have yet to make a trigger vote stick. Yesterday, parents in Adelanto, Calif., resubmitted a petition to take over a school there after their first petition was rejected by the school board following a frantic campaign by the teachers union to dissuade parents from signing. At a school in Compton last year, parents backed away in the face of pressure so intense a Los Angeles court found their First Amendment rights had been violated. In perhaps the most offensive allegation, teachers union activists have apparently told immigrant parents that supporting the trigger campaign could result in their deportation. (MORE: Parents Should Be Allowed to Choose Their Kids&#8217; Teacher) Pretty dramatic stuff. (A fictional version is coming soon, with a parent-trigger themed movie due out this year, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, and Holly Hunter.) The controversial parent triggers got a big boost this week from the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, California Representative George Miller, who in a statement said, “parents must be empowered to stand up and say the status quo isn&#8217;t good enough for their children.” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s former Chief of Staff, also spoke in favor of parent triggers this week, in support of the Florida legislation. But with all eyes focused on the debate over whether to give parents the right to pull the trigger, is enough attention being paid to what will happen after one is pulled? In<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=11120&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/a2012-03-07t061815z_88228222.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Chrissy Guzman speaks in frustration during a Adelanto School District board meeting regarding the parent trigger law, in Adelanto, California</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timeadmin</media:title>
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		<title>Teacher Sex Abuse: Why Repeat Offenders Are So Common</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/01/sex-abuse-in-schools-why-public-disclosure-is-crucial/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/01/sex-abuse-in-schools-why-public-disclosure-is-crucial/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:45:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bud Spillane]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Deasy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Los Angeles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Miramonte Elementary School]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sex abuse]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=10684</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When Bud Spillane was a school superintendent in New Rochelle, N.Y., he had to deal with removing an elementary school teacher suspected of sex abuse. “It was pretty evident he had done something,” Spillane recalls. The biggest obstacle to removing him from the classroom? “Parents came out of the woodwork…against me,” he says. They loved the teacher, the afterschool time he put in, and the weekend trips he liked to take students on, so they fought to keep him in school. Later in Spillane’s career, while he was leading the Fairfax County Public Schools outside of Washington, he had a teacher’s attorney demand a public hearing in a dismissal action involving multiple instances of alleged sexual misconduct with students. It was a shrewd move; instead of letting the school board handle the action in a private executive session, the lawyer wanted to force children to testify in court. Several parents understandably refused to put their kids through that spectacle. Welcome to the complicated and ugly world of sexual abuse in schools. (MORE: Rotherham: Should Tenure Be Abolished?) School shootings like the one this week in Ohio happen very rarely, but they understandably generate a lot of media coverage. By contrast, sexual abuse in schools happens much more frequently, to the point where the allegations have to be particularly egregious in order to make headlines. Miramonte Elementary in Los Angeles caught the nation’s attention the other week when a teacher was charged with a series of grotesque acts involving more than 20 kids, including allegedly photographing blindfolded students and spoon-feeding semen to some of them in his classroom. (Remember that the next time someone tells you that there is no way bad teaching could persist in school year after year without being noticed.) That teacher and two others at the school have been accused of sexual misconduct, leaving parents to wonder just how pervasive this problem is and why school districts seem to have to take such unusual measures to deal with it. The Los Angeles school superintendent John Deasy responded to the Miramonte scandal<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=10684&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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			<media:title type="html">Parents of children at Miramonte Elementary school demonstrate as the investigation continues into a bizarre sexual abuse scandal after a second teacher was arrested on suspicion of abusing children at the school in Los Angeles</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">fromero0648</media:title>
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		<title>Tim Tebow Debate: Should Homeschoolers Be Allowed on Public-School Sports Teams?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/16/tim-tebow-debate-should-homeschoolers-be-allowed-to-play-sports/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/16/tim-tebow-debate-should-homeschoolers-be-allowed-to-play-sports/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:00:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[high school football]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[homeschooling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sports]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tebow laws]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tim tebow]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=9758</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Denver Broncos’ offseason just started, but their star quarterback Tim Tebow is already back in the news. Legislators in Virginia and several other states are considering proposals to allow homeschooled students to play high school sports at local public schools. Called Tebow laws, they are the same kind of rules that allowed their homeschooled namesake to play high school football in Florida long before he joined the NFL. Despite — or perhaps because of — Tebow&#8217;s success, the prospect of lots of homeschoolers joining high school sports teams has the education establishment up in arms. Many opponents to Tebow laws repeat the mantra, “High school sports are a privilege, not a right.” Others fret that the logistics will be too daunting; for starters, how can you ensure homeschoolers are academically eligible to play? And after years of deriding public schools, homeschooling advocates seem shocked they’re not being greeted with open arms. The controversy surrounding Tebow laws is at once a reminder that homeschooling is too lightly regulated and a cautionary tale for those who want to broaden support for public schools. (MORE: What Tim Tebow&#8217;s Celebrity Says About America) The debate in Virginia, where I served on the state board of education, about the proposed Tebow law is the highest-profile so far. The politician championing the law got a lot of attention last week with the way he celebrated the bill passing one chamber of the state legislature: by Tebowing, getting down on one knee as the quarterback has become famous for doing and bowing his head in prayer. (Governor Bob McDonnell has said he will sign the bill if it passes in the state senate.) Homeschooled students in Virginia — as well as in some other states — can already take classes in public schools if local school districts decide to allow it. The Tebow law would work the same way. It wouldn’t mandate participation but would create a local option for school districts to decide. For their part, student athletes would still have to make the teams they want to<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=9758&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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			<media:title type="html">Tim Tebow</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">fromero0648</media:title>
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		<title>College Endowments: Why Even Harvard Isn&#8217;t as Rich as You Think</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/09/college-endowments-why-even-harvard-isnt-as-rich-as-you-think/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/09/college-endowments-why-even-harvard-isnt-as-rich-as-you-think/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:00:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[college presidents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[college tuition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cooper Union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Swenson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[endowments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harvard]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ken Redd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NACUBO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tuition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[University of Texas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Yale]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=9314</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It seems everyone has an opinion about what colleges and universities should do with their endowments. Use them to lower tuition! Let students attend for free! Improve facilities! Hire more professors! When the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) released its annual report on endowments last week, the big numbers grabbed headlines — Harvard’s endowment, the nation&#8217;s largest, grew 15%, to $31.7 billion. Less attention was directed to Southern Virginia University&#8217;s endowment of $574,000, which won&#8217;t provide too many scholarships at a place that costs more than $18,000 a year. A few weeks ago I had lunch with a college president whose school has an endowment of about $20 million. It may sound like a lot of money, but he was consumed with fundraising efforts just to make ends meet. So the next time you hear someone pitching an idea for what a college should do with its endowment, think about these five reasons that the reality of how college endowments work is different from the rhetoric. (MORE: Colleges Are Selling Naming Rights to Bathroom Stalls) 1. Most schools don’t have them. There are 2,719 four-year colleges in the U.S. (and another 1,690 two-year colleges), according to the most recent Department of Education figures. Most higher-education institutions have no endowment, says William Jarvis, managing director and head of research at the CommonFund Institute, which helps NACUBO with its endowment surveys. But as with everything else around higher education, it’s the elite schools — which tend to be the ones that have large endowments — that drive the conversation. Endowments just aren&#8217;t a big factor at most of the institutions of higher education in this country. 2. Many endowments are not that big. The endowments at schools like Harvard or Yale (No. 2, with $19.3 billion) or even public universities like the University of Texas (No. 3, at $17.1 billion) get the attention. But of the 823 U.S. colleges and universities that responded to a NACUBO survey (which also included Canadian schools), only 73 had endowments that topped $1 billion; 137 had<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=9314&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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			<media:title type="html">Harvard University Campus</media:title>
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