Very good teachers can compensate for not-so-good parents, argues Eric Hanushek in a Children of the Code interview.

If you make the most conservative estimates possible, we find that if you have a good teacher, meaning a teacher that’s at the 85th percentile or one standard deviation above the mean. If you had a good teacher five years in a row, you could completely make up for the difference between low-income and middle income achievement, on average. Having good teachers a number of years in a row can offset the disadvantages that some kids have from being less prepared coming to school and from their families not giving them the same start.

The ways we judge teacher quality don’t correlate well to ability to raise student achievement, he says.

Education is the second most important issue to voters, after the economy, according to a new Pew poll.

Speaking at a Colorado charter school, Barack Obama criticized No Child Left Behind and proposed a series of education programs.

For more than 20 minutes, the Illinois Democrat laced the language of uplift and challenge with the acronyms of education and reform: GEAR UP and TRIO, a proposed Service Scholarship program to replace retiring teachers, a Teacher Residency Program to recruit them at mid-career from other professions, and the Career Ladder Initiative to reward teachers who mentor others.

In a snug auditorium packed with education professionals, the loudest cheers greeted his critique of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind initiative, which Obama blasted for forcing teachers and students to spend most of the year preparing for a single, high-stakes standardized test without offering sufficient resources.

Obama pledge to fix the “broken promises” of NCLB.

Interesting that he chose to speak at a charter school.

John McCain is sticking to a “total, no-caveats embrace of No Child Left Behind,” writes Education Gadfly. In response to the speech, a McCain spokesman said Obama hasn’t been a leader on education reform in the Senate. True enough. But neither has McCain.

South Florida parents want their children to learn multiple languages, reports the Sun-Sentinel.

Nine-year-old Bianca Herlory can strike up a conversation in French, Portuguese, Spanish or English, and recently expressed an interest in learning Mandarin.

“It’s a gymnastic of the mind,” said her mom, Stephanie Herlory, who introduced her daughter to foreign languages at a young age. “Once they’re immersed, it comes very quickly.”

Parents think their bilingual or trilingual kids will be prepared to compete in a “flat” world.

Bilingual parents are not the only ones driving the trend. Parents who speak only English are getting in on it as well.

Years ago, when Japanese automakers were ascendant, a friend of mine helped start a language immersion school in Detroit. Black autoworkers lined up to sign up their children to learn Japanese.

“Vegetarian Predator by The Hairy Best has won Hatemonger’s Quarterly’s Fifth Annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Competition. Key line: “She is the we we are waiting for.”

Some students at the high-scoring MATCH charter school in Boston are transferring in their last semester to district-run public schools, apparently in search of lower standards. Kids get into college, slack off and then realize they might not graduate. Or they think a D at MATCH will turn into a B at Generic High, protecting their college slot.

Boston officials accuse MATCH of not offering enough support for students to graduate on time, leaving Boston with the awkward task of determining the students’ fate.

MATCH officials, on the other hand, say Boston presents an easy out — an automatic promotion — for their students struggling under rigorous graduation requirements. They deny encouraging students to leave, and ask that Boston make diploma determinations based on the charter school’s standards.

“It breaks my heart to see students leave this late in the senior year, but it would break my heart more to change or lower our standards,” said Jorge Miranda, the school’s principal. “There’s no compromising on the standards. They need that preparation to succeed in college, and when they get that college degree, that’s their ticket out of poverty.”

MATCH is right to maintain rigorous standards, writes Flypaper.

There’s a term for “standards that everyone can meet.” It’s called “no standards.”

Flypaper also questions the Washington Post’s feel-good story about a school where all students meet Maryland’s standards.

Perhaps this is a sign that Maryland should raise the passing scores on its tests?

If one school in the entire state hits 100 percent proficient (most students score as advanced), that’s hardly a sign that everyone can do it. Ocean City Elementary places an unusual emphasis on structure, consistency and getting all students to speak. Surely there’s something to learn from its success.

This time it’s a kindergarten teacher in southern Indiana accused of humiliating a five-year-old boy in front of his classmates. Gabriel Ross told his parents throughout the year that his teacher, Kristen Woodward, was mean. He said other children didn’t like him because he was “bad and stupid.”

In mid-April, Tabitha McMahan and stepfather J.R. Edwards sent Gabriel to school with a tape recorder in his pocket.

“I’ve been more than nice to you all year long and you’ve been ignorant, selfish, self-absorbed, the whole thing! I’m done!” Woodward says to Gabriel on the tape.

She continues: “Something needs to be done because you are pathetic! If me saying these words to you hurt, I hope it does because you’re hurting everyone else around you.”

Gabriel can be heard crying on the tape.

The teacher encouraged the kindergarteners to reject Gabriel.

“So you guys think, is that somebody you want to be with?” Woodward asks the class.

In unison, the other students reply, “Noooo.”

“See, your friend doesn’t want to be with you. I don’t know what else to tell you. So you’re not going to have friends because of your actions.”

She was having a bad day and lost her cool, says the teachers’ union. Too bad that just happened to be the day she was on tape. After listening to the rant, the parents pulled Gabriel out of school.

Early in the year, the teacher, a 13-year veteran, said the school would set up a “behavioral plan” for Gabriel, says the stepfather. He says that when he tried to discuss the plan, Woodward said, “I don’t have time for this.” His report card was a mix of smiley faces and frowns, usually for being disruptive, but the teacher never asked to meet with them, the parents say.

I don’t care how aggravating this boy was. He’s five years old. The teacher had options — such as talking to the parents — short of berating him and encouraging his classmates to reject him.

Woodward has been suspended. She says she’s moving out of state and vows never to teach in a public school again. Does she think private schools welcome abusive teachers?