The Census on Education

Representation and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers ... . The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.

— Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States, via the US Census Bureau

Certainly, the census means reapportioning some of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. There are winners and loser among states and then the remapping of legislative districts by states. This year's notables: Texas gained four seats, Florida two, and New York and Ohio each lost two; another fourteen states picked up or lost one seat. The reallocation of seats come from the country's latest population count: 308,745,538 Americans, roughly 64 million of these people are school-aged children. As we know, census data often affects decisions of national and local importance, including education and support services for children (notably public health care, rural development, and housing).

But what else can the data show us in regard to education? Quite a lot, and The New York Times has an easy-to-use multimedia tool that lets you explore census data, from a broad, countrywide view, on down to your own zip code. I found the tools' view of elementary students in private schools interesting, primarily because it was there. The other education maps include those highlighting the distribution of high school, college, and advanced college degrees. And then, there's the interesting random and occasionally education-related topics. (Off topic, but of interest: the change in median home value map.)

Image credit: The New York Times

The New Teacher Project’s Case Against Quality-Blind Layoffs

The New Teacher project, a national nonprofit with aims to close the achievement gap by finding ways to ensure high-need students get top-notch teachers, makes a case against quality-blind layoffs. While the case isn't surprising, the following excerpt, from a February 2011 report, is:

Fully 40 percent of the nation’s teachers (1.25 million) work in one of 14 states—Alaska, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia and Wisconsin—where it’s currently illegal for schools to consider job performance in making layoff decisions. Ten of these states are facing budget deficits greater than 10 percent, meaning that layoffs are a real possibility.

Image source: The New Teacher project (click to enlarge image)

A Modern-Day Humanist on the So-called Greed of Teachers

First there was John Stuart Mill, a British philosopher and wit who believed “the whole point of education is to determine the future free actions of the individual,” as “it aims through the associative processes to determine the person’s motives and actions.” Now we have Jon Stewart, a whip-smart son of a teacher, with a brother who is the New York Stock Exchange’s chief operating officer.

In the following video clip, our modern-day Stewart interviews Diane Ravitch about reforming education, and in full-on Stewart fun, he highlights Fox News’ unconsidered perspective on teachers (summers off! easy work! guaranteed pay raises!). It's particularly entertaining (and tragic) when he compares teachers to Wall Street bankers: “Regardless of the greed based, almost slightly sociopathic ‘job’ the bankers did wrecking our economy, those people were there every single day, 12 months a year, not that nine month...!”

For Diane Ravitch,  scroll to 13:15.
Or go directly to Good magazine's education blog for the “Teachers and Wall Street” clip.

Image source: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart