Time for another end-of-the-year “Best” list!

I’ll be adding this list to ALL MY END-OF-YEAR “BEST” LISTS FOR 2018 IN ONE PLACE!

You can see the previous editions of this list, along with all my Ed Policy-related “Best” lists, here.

Here are my choices for the best resources on education policy shared over the past six months (this is different from my annual “round-up” of important education-related news):

Billionaires are spending their fortunes reshaping America’s schools. It isn’t working. is from Vox. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About The Role Of Private Foundations In Education Policy.

Meet the man who made Advanced Placement the most influential — and controversial — tool in American education is from The Washington Post.

How are America’s public schools really doing? appeared in The Washington Post. I’m adding it to The Best Articles Pointing Out That Our Schools Are Not Failing — Please Suggest More.

ProPublica, along with Chalkbeat, The New York Times, and I assume others, has published Miseducation: Is There Racial Inequality at Your School? And it’s pretty amazing….

The ProPublica side of things is an interactive that offers:

Based on civil rights data released by the U.S. Department of Education, ProPublica has built an interactive database to examine racial disparities in educational opportunities and school discipline. Look up more than 96,000 individual public and charter schools and 17,000 districts to see how they compare with their counterparts.

Chalkbeat has a series of articles focusing on the details of what this data looks like on the ground in various communities around the country.  You can find links to all their articles on the site (scroll down).

And The NY Times has a related article headlined ‘You Are Still Black’: Charlottesville’s Racial Divide Hinders Students.

I’m adding this info to:

New & Revised: Resources To Help Us Predominantly White Teachers To Reflect On How Race Influences Our Work

The Best Resources For Learning About School Desegregation (& Segregation) – Help Me Find More

I’m adding this new Newsy video to New & Revised: The Best Resources For Understanding Why We Need More Teachers Of Color:

 

Kirabo Jackson published an article in Education Next (The Full Measure of a Teacher) about his latest research (What Do Test Scores Miss? The Importance of Teacher Effects on Non–Test Score Outcomes). You’ll want to read his entire article, if not the full study, but a one sentence summary is that he finds that teachers’ impact on student behavior has a greater impact on “future success” than their impact on student test scores.  Read more about it here.

The False Comfort of Securing Schools is from The NY Times.

Sara Mosle’s Can Good Teaching Be Taught? appeared in the NY Times.

If Students Aren’t Trying on International Tests, Can We Still Compare Countries’ Results? is from Ed Week. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Getting Some Perspective On International Test Comparison Demagoguery.

School Choice Is the Enemy of Justice is a powerful column in The New York Times, written by Erin Aubry Kaplan.

The Teacher Paradox: Educators Organize Under Fire is from The American Prospect.

What New Orleans Tells Us About the Perils of Putting Schools on the Free Market is from The New Yorker. I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles Analyzing Charter Schools.

11 memorable education stories every education reporter should read comes via Alexander Russo.

Holding Donors Accountable is by Larry Cuban. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About The Role Of Private Foundations In Education Policy.