In the U.S., public educational systems select teacher candidates based on test scores, credentials, and university degrees. But those, says Malcolm Gladwell in a recent New Yorker article, are not good predictors of teacher success. In fact, he writes, there may be no good predictors at all.

Dean Dad recently experienced a forehead-slapping moment about bilingual education:

Which would you choose: a modest salary and with modest regular pay raises and a guaranteed position as long as you weren't negligent at your job, or a higher salary and bigger raises in an environment where the people you supervised underwent high-stakes tests every year--and where you underwent annual evaluation (to determine whether you get a raise, retain your job, or are fired) based in part on their performance on the test?

Ninth-grade teacher Damion Frye is giving homework to his students' parents: So far, Mr. Frye, an English teacher at Montclair High School, has asked the parents to read and comment on a Franz Kafka story, Section 1 of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Their newest assignment is a poem by Saul Williams, a poet, musician and rapper who lives in Los Angeles. The ninth graders complete their assignments during class; the parents are supposed to write their responses on a blog Mr. Frye started online. If the parents do not comply, Mr. Frye tells them, their child’s grade may suffer — a threat on which he has made good only once in the three years he has been making such assignments. The point, he said, is to keep parents involved in their children’s ’ education well into high school. Studies have shown that parental involvement improves the quality of the education a student receives, but teenagers seldom invite that involvement. So, Mr. Frye said, he decided to help out. The blogosphere is divided: Is this scheme asinine or brilliant?

In my university town this weekend, students are moving back into their dorms and apartments. Shortly after settling in, they'll head--many with credit-card-toting parents in tow--to the bookstore to purchase the books for their courses. How much did you pay for the last book you bought? Was it a paperback novel? In the U.S., if you bought it new and paid retail, you're probably looking at about $12-$15. A guide on how to use specific software or to learn to code in CSS? Maybe $30-$40. Mainstream cookbooks? Usually under $50. But textbooks? It's easy for students to drop the equivalent of a month's rent on a semester's worth of books, especially if they're studying science, engineering, or art history. It's common for students to pay $100-$150 or more for textbooks in certain disciplines.

Alice Mercer started a meme in the K-12 edublogosphere that begins with a very interesting question: "Is School 2.0 about technology or pedagogy?" Which, of course, begs the question: What is School 2.0?

Before I get to the teachers' union news, you should know: I grew up in a union family and I'm unabashedly pro-union. Here's why: Mom and Dad were each members of at least three unions: the national, state, and local teachers' unions. They walked the picket lines and Dad even appeared in the newspaper chanting at a school board meeting. During the tenures of California governors George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson, we experienced some lean, if not uncomfortable, times in our household. Mom and Dad argued frequently about money, and I learned the importance of having a strong union and group of negotiators to maintain our household and our annual modest camping trips around California and neighboring states.

The New York Times reported this week that students at some high schools are being forced to declare majors. The schools see such a move as making their students more competitive for college. The NYT article explains that students "are expected to stick with their major through four years unless they have a compelling reason to change."

I have mixed feelings about the state of gifted education in the U.S. today. These feelings come from too many sources to name, but here are a few: 1. I was identified as a gifted child when I was six years old, and remained in gifted courses through high school graduation. I benefited tremendously from these special classes. When I took some mainstream classes in high school, I felt something, some spark, was missing from the classroom, even when I had great teachers. 2. As recently as 2005, 30 percent or more of children in my town were identified as gifted. And that's when the benchmark for giftedness was set at a score at the 95th percentile or higher on a standardized test.