Road to effective change eludes public schools
The powerful forces bearing down on Ohio and public education here were nicely encapsulated in two recent Dayton Daily News articles.
The powerful forces bearing down on Ohio and public education here were nicely encapsulated in two recent Dayton Daily News articles.
The Charter School Growth Fund is seeking charter management and support organizations to participate in a six-month project to develop strategic business plans, financial models, and implementation plans for expansion. At the conclusion of the project, selected organizations will receive multi-year grants and loan packages to help with the costs associated with expansion.
In June, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute released a study of Ohio's teacher pension system entitled Golden Peaks and Perilous Cliffs: Rethinking Ohio's Teacher Pension System. This report has triggered much overdue public debate in Ohio and beyond regarding teacher pension systems and their interaction with school-improvement efforts.
U.S. Government Accountability OfficeJuly 2007
National Center for Education StatisticsJuly 2007
There was much to praise in Judge Sharon Gleason's late June decision rejecting claims that Alaska's schools are underfunded, and noting that traditional concepts of "local control" must be abandoned when schools repeatedly fail to educate kids. But there was much to criticize, too. In her ruling in Moore v.
In a globalizing economy, America's competitive edge depends in large measure on how well our schools prepare tomorrow's workforce.And notwithstanding the fact that Congress and the White House are now controlled by opposing parties, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are bent on devising new programs and boosting education spending.
Who knows schools better, outside consultants or internal operatives (principals and teachers)? The British government is betting on the latter. It's experimenting with a program that pairs principals ("head teachers") of successful schools with their counterparts in less-successful ones.
The editors at the Indianapolis Star have written many a perceptive piece about the shortcomings of Indiana's schools (see here and here, for example). Their latest pair of education-related editorials is similarly spot-on.
Last Saturday in Newark, three young people--two of them enrolled in college, one just months away--were fatally shot, execution-style, on the playground of Mount Vernon School, where six-year-olds attend class during most of the year.
In last week's News and Analysis ("NCLB Watch: Will the center rise again?"), Michael J. Petrilli inaccurately characterized the reauthorization bill put forward by Senators Lieberman, Landrieu, and Coleman.
At exclusive Mills College in the upscale Oakland foothills, arriving fashionably late to meetings, lattes in hand, is considered good form. At American Indian Charter School in crime-ridden downtown Oakland, tardiness brings a swift kick in the derrière--latte or no.
Just as a centrist consensus around NCLB reauthorization appeared to be in sight (see
James C. Carper and Thomas C. HuntPeter Lang Publishing, Inc. 2007
National Center for Education Statistics, Institute for Education SciencesJuly 2007
Caroline M. Hoxby and Sonali MurarkaNational Bureau of Economic ResearchJuly 2007
Gadfly has heretofore expressed no opinion about the District of Columbia's lack of representation in Congress. But the latest crusade of Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's nonvoting delegate to the House of Representatives, makes one think that perhaps D.C. shouldn't have a vote. Norton is trying to kill the D.C.
Two weeks ago, I escaped from Washington's oppressive humidity and headed with my wife's family to New Hampshire's Lake Sunapee. Like any Granite State vacationer I hoped for sunny days, cool, relaxing nights, and, of course, a visit from a major presidential candidate.
Maryland has taken a profound and laudable step. At least the judiciary has. The state's Court of Appeals ruled, in a 7-2 decision, that charter schools should receive as much money per pupil as regular public schools.
When Gadfly did graduate work in Britain, he was subjected to English teaching strategies ostensibly suited to his personality, lifestyle, and compound eyes.
National Institute for Excellence in TeachingJuly 2007
Reg Weaver thought he had a cunning strategy for cornering elected officials (read about his cell-phone attack here). But his wiles are no match for his counterpart to the south.
The extremes to which public schools will go to keep faith outside their doors are well known--no nativity scenes or menorahs at Christmas or Hanukkah, no public prayer, and a reluctance to teach the Bible or Quran. But does this mean that schools are free of religion? What about the people who teach in public schools? Do they check their religious beliefs at the schoolhouse door?
Reformers face a Catch-22: they want to try new approaches, which by definition haven't yet been proven. But a skeptical public wants assurances that doing something differently will yield better results.
Once upon a time, Rick Hess and I argued that a Washington Consensus birthed the No Child Left Behind Act, and that this centrist coalition remained firmly entrenched, at least at the elite level of policymaking.
When engineer Nicholas Aggor's sons Samuel (14) and Joshua (13) brought home bad grades in math, he didn't just help them with their homework or call their teachers for a conference. No, he decided to rewrite their textbooks. Now, the two boys are in advanced math classes and Dad's textbooks--14 of them--have caught the eye of several school districts and publishing companies.
Was it a furtive trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a secret love affair with the way Cézanne depicts apples and pears, that caused New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to hold principals accountable for the