Beating the Odds: A City-by-City Analysis of Student Performance and Achievement Gaps on State Assessments
Chester E. Finn, Jr.When we flagged this report some weeks back, we had seen only the executive summary. Now we have the full 240-page tome and are impressed enough to mention it again.
From the Capital to the Classroom: Year Three of the No Child Left Behind Act
Center on Education PolicyMarch 2005
Moving Into Town - and Moving On: The Community College in the Lives of Traditional-age Students
Clifford Adelman, Office of Vocational and Adult Education, U.S. Department of EducationFebruary 2005
. . . or improving NCLB?
Instead of riddling NCLB with state-specific loopholes, it would make infinitely more sense to acknowledge that that important statute needs a handful of carefully designed reforms. And then enact those reforms. But what would they be?
Ranking the ed schools
U.S. News has released its annual ranking of graduate programs, with a section on education schools, accompanied by a crackerjack essay that faults the ed school sector as a whole.
Hoist on their own petard
Caught stealing from your union? You might find that your best friend is . . . your union. Wayne Kruse, former president of the Lawrence Education Association, was charged with stealing $97,000 in dues from the Kansas NEA.
Dismantling NCLB . . .
On Saturday, the Washington Post featured an op ed by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings declaring her "willingness to work with states to make [NCLB] fit their unique local needs." Today, Spellings will announce-at a special meeting with state chiefs at Mount Vernon, near Washington-the particulars of the plan, which will include allowing states that can prove they've made progress towa
A better way to grade schools
Bill BreischAs winter turns toward spring, we turn toward a perennial spring event: student testing. With that testing comes the inevitable anxiety as states brace themselves for the annual status races. My state, Wisconsin, is no exception. We look ahead to this testing season with concern about how our performance data will measure up to results from other states, other districts, other schools.
Too many alternatives
Last week, the Dallas Morning News reported a sharp rise in the number of charter schools seeking "alternative education" status from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) in light of the stiffer expectations of the state's accountability system.