2003 State Special Education Outcomes: Marching On
Sandra Thompson and Martha Thurlow, National Center on Educational OutcomesDecember 2003
Sandra Thompson and Martha Thurlow, National Center on Educational OutcomesDecember 2003
Achieve, Inc., The Education Trust, and The Thomas B. Fordham FoundationFebruary 2004
Department for Education and Skills, United KingdomFebruary 2004
The federal budget process is something of a kabuki drama, with affected special interests acting out their ritualized poor-mouthing on cue. This is especially the case for Fiscal 2005, in which the White House gave the Department of Education a $1.7 billion increase in a very tight fiscal environment.
Former IBM CEO Lou Gerstner once said, "Never confuse activity with results." New York City Deputy Schools Chancellor Diana Lam could do well to learn that lesson. Unfortunately, rather than judging schools by results, Lam and her team have focused on mandating superficial activity for teachers - apparently assuming that teachers, left to their own devices, could never do right by students.
Jake Bogdanovich, an Ohio senior randomly chosen to take a standardized test to gauge his district's progress toward meeting the goals of a school reform program, decided to engage in a little sabotage. As he observed, no "scholarship opportunities" were connected to the test, nor would its outcome be reflected on his report card.
In an editorial, USA Today notes that the 15,000 National Merit Scholars are not just chosen on the basis of, well, merit, but also geography. That is, scholarships are apportioned to each state based on the number of graduating seniors in that state relative to the number nationwide.
Education and political circles are buzzing with talk of the unfair burdens that Congress has allegedly heaped upon states and districts via the No Child Left Behind Act.
This week, California Education Secretary Richard Riordan introduced a plan that would cede control over a school's administration and budget to its principal, taking it away from the central office administration. A hearty thumbs-up for this fine proposal, but now we learn that some principals would just as soon have the buck stop with someone else.
Last week, we reported that the Utah House Education Committee sent a bill to the floor barring state schools from "any further participation in the No Child Left Behind Act." (See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=133#1656 for background info.) Now it seems that legislators have decided that, while they