Articles

[In 2007 the National Commission on Education and the Economy issued its second report -- Tough Choices or Tough Times.  The Mooney Institute's Mark Simon authored the following critique presented on April 4, 2007 at the Capital Educators Partnership Spring Forum, in response to a presentation of a summary of the report by Mr. Tucker.]

To work in public education today is to choose a career in the line of fire.Read more

A number of respected researchers have recently turned their attention to teacher unions and the role that labor agreements play in public education. They point out that unions have the potential to contribute to solutions to intractable problems, or can be barriers to reform. Unfortunately, the Fordham Foundation’s new report, The Leadership Limbo; Teacher Labor Agreements in America’s Fifty Largest School Districts treats a very serious subject without the serious objective scholarship that it deserves.Read more

[The following testimony on how DCPS might learn from strategies used successfully in other districts for improving teaching quality was delivered on behalf of the Mooney Institute before the DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) on March 12, 2008. A pdf version of the testimony is attached.]

The most important thing a school district can do to improve the quality of teaching and student learning is to create a system for nurturing the craft of teaching. Great teachers are not found; they are made.Read more