Has Student Achievement Increased Since 2002?: State Test Score Trends Through 2006-2007

Nancy Kober, Naomi Chudowsky, Victor ChudowskyCenter on Education PolicyJune 2008

Flunked

February 2008EFF Films

No se puede!

That's the message South Carolina is sending to undocumented students now that it's become the first state in the nation to bar illegal immigrants from attending its public colleges and universities.

One nation, indivisible?

Watching the "Capitol Fourth" concert and ensuing fireworks on TV the other evening, four-year-old granddaughter in my arms, I grew as misty, sentimental, and patriotic as I usually do on America's birthday (which happens also be be little Emma's "half-birthday"). The next morning, however, I awoke with my ever-more-frequent sense of foreboding about the nation's future.

Green means go

Michelle Rhee wants to pay teachers in Washington, D.C., close to $131,000 a year--but there's a catch. To make the big bucks, educators will have to sacrifice job security. The D.C. schools chancellor has proposed to establish two pay tiers, red and green.

Discovering "academic freedom"

By all means spare yourself the burden of reading, as I did this week in the esteemed National Review Online, that criticizing sneaky attempts to undermine evolution in k-12 science class is somehow akin to promoting eugenics.

WSF: Grand idea?

Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, referred to always as "young conservatives," have written a much ballyhooed book, Grand New Party, which purports to show Republicans how they can win in November and beyond. The key, say the authors, is to appeal to Sam's Club voters--i.e., working people without college degrees.

WWTJD?

Must've been a slow day at the G-8 Summit. The Washington Post reports, on A1, that "Asian American students will outnumber white classmates for the first time" at Thomas Jefferson High School (colloquially known as T.J.) in Fairfax County, Virginia. Some fret that the highly selective school, which garnered the top spot in U.S.

TJ

Here's more on TJ, i.e, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in Fairfax County, Virginia.

McCain to talk schools

AP reports that he'll do it next week when he speaks at the NAACP convention. Update: More from Campaign K-12.

Reg is no Lech

Here's a fine wrap-up, from Ed Week (subscription required, but

From the Dept. of Odd Headlines

"Gambling addict gets 18 months for embezzling schools" It started with small stuff, like overhead projectors. But when she bet the library in a game of high-stakes hold???em, the clinic on red, and the playground on Federer, and lost them all, administrators suspected something was amiss.

Priorities

Yesterday, he who is the Democrat presumed nominated, Barack Obama, said this: You know, I don't understand when people are going around worrying about, "We need to have English-only." They want to pass a law, "We want English-only."

More on Louisiana

Good study, bad spin

That's my take on the new Marcus Winters/Jay Greene/Julie Trivitt study on the impact of high-stakes testing on low-stakes subjects in Florida.

Re: Hands-on demonstration

Didn't we come out in favor of burning crosses into students' flesh??in our recent report, Who Will Save America's Urban Catholic Schools???Or am??I confusing??cross-branding with another of our??recommendations,

From the Dept. of "Say Wha?"

Eduwonkette provides a fine example of the??educational gobbledygook that we must??hack away in order to find some clarity. Here's a snippet:

Still don't get it

Mica Pollock, an "anthropologist of education," which I assume means that she excavates fossilized Australopithecus pencil boxes in the Olduvai Gorge, graciously comments about my last post (in which I quoted from an interview with her about her new book):

Three cheers for broken government

Word around Washington is that Congress is unlikely to finish its appropriations bills before the election and may choose to pass a yearlong "continuing resolution" for all of fiscal year 2009.

Show me the...

Education Week looks at how much money??each presidential candidate would??devote to schools.

Hands-on demonstration

Bobby Jindal may be wrong in trying to get religion back into science classrooms but at least he's playing by the (text)book. MSNBC reported yesterday that a science teacher in Mount Vernon, Ohio, burned crosses into the arms of his students.