QUOTABLES

Timothy Knowles is director of the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute. Here he responds on WBEZ to parents who are trying to save their neighborhood school from being closed.

This is deeper than bad data on standardized test scores. This is about an institution being taken away that my child goes to, I went to, maybe my mother went to. Frankly, it’s about communities, it’s about neighborhoods, it’s about relationships. Data doesn’t tip those things. And the district doesn’t factor those things in to its school closings. Most of Chicago’s closings and turnarounds have taken place in neighborhoods ravaged by poverty.

Knowles says it’s hard to measure the cost of eliminating one of the last remaining institutions in a disinvested neighborhood. If we could measure that, it might make closing schools more of a dilemma.

Alfie Kohn on Edweek's Live Chat

"Assessment systems must be aligned with [national] expectations (standards)." Now there's a sentence that should strike fear in the heart of all good teachers."

Supt. Michelle Rhee referring to 266 laid-off D.C. teachers

"I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school. Why wouldn't we take those things into consideration?" (Fast Company)

Rhee, yesterday

"'It was never our intention, nor did I ever say, it was all of the teachers who fell into these categories...Our intention was not to paint all teachers with a broad brushstroke." (Edweek)

Rhee apologists

"Michelle Rhee's great virtue is that she's been willing to say what others have not been willing to say, and to take on fights others are not willing to take on," said Andy Smarick of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. (Washington Examiner)