Protecting Public Education from Tax Giveaways to Corporations
The National Education AssociationJanuary 2003
The National Education AssociationJanuary 2003
Heinrich Mintrop, Education Policy Analysis ArchivesJanuary 15, 2003
Lance T. Izumi, K. Lloyd Billingsley and Diallo DphrepaulezzPacific Research InstituteNovember 2002
Since New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced last week that the city will require all but its top elementary schools to use a reading curriculum called Month by Month Phonics [see "Letters From New York City: Bloomberg's Reforms" in last week's Gadfly], top reading experts have raised doubts about the t
Groups in two states are using the No Child Left Behind Act as the basis for lawsuits aimed at forcing states and districts to provide better teachers and school choices.
Last week, the British government's Department for Education and Skills (DfES) released its annual "league tables," which rate schools in England based on student performance on national tests. For the first time, DfES also issued a value-added analysis of school performance.
I must say I am thoroughly intrigued by the education reform experiment being conducted in New York as reported by Diane Ravitch. ["Letter from New York City: Bloomberg's Reforms,"] I certainly wish them well.
While a survey of college freshmen reveals a continuing decline in the time they spend studying or doing homework during their senior year of high school, their high school grade point averages continue to climb.
Clever as always, Miss Manners this week chides parents who neglect their "homework" of teaching children the ability to sit still for short periods of time, to listen to what other people say, and to refrain from hitting.
Last week, the Fraser Institute in British Columbia announced the launch of Children First: School Choice Trust, Canada's first privately-funded voucher program, which is aimed at helping poor families send their children to private schools. The program will provide grants paying 50 percent of tuition, up to a maximum of $3,500 per year, for up to 150 students in Ontario.
You know how a balloon mortgage works: you pay a low interest rate at the beginning, but a few years out the rate soars. So you hope to refinance on more favorable terms - or offload the real estate onto someone else - before that painful day arrives.As tomorrow's deadline hits for states to file their No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability plans with the U.S.
Fingering localized school funding as the cause of the persistent incompetence of many schools (as well as the source of great inequalities in per pupil spending), writer (and former White House aide) James Pinkerton proposes what he calls a grand compromise to address both these problems and please both Republicans and Democrats to boot: a Pell grant program for K-12 education.
Since last year, top Washington (D.C.) Teachers' Union officials have been under investigation for having embezzled more than $5 million and using those funds to purchase luxury goods for themselves.
David Myers and Mark Dynarski, Mathematica, Inc.January 2003
After The New York Times ran a front-page story on an anti-testing study by Audrey Amrein and David Berliner last month, there was an immediate response from researchers across the political spectrum noting the many shortcomings of the study.
New Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty announced last week that he planned to kill the state's wimpy "Profile of Learning" - a set of academic standards that focus more on hands-on discovery learning projects than academic content - and that he had appointed Minnesota native Cheri Yecke as his education commissioner.
Just as the teacher shortage has been declared over [see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=6#414], states are reporting shortages of qualified candidates to become principals.
This first-hand account of a recent Yale graduate's first - and last - year teaching in a DC public school paints a frightening picture of the chaos that has become an accepted part of daily life in an urban school that lacks effective leadership.
When Michael Bloomberg ran for election as mayor of New York City, he pledged to make the improvement of the public schools his first priority. After he was sworn into office on January 1, 2002, he said that he wanted to be judged by whether the public schools improved.
Several articles in the January 2003 Phi Delta Kappan are worth a peek. The special section on teacher education includes seven articles addressing the challenges faced by education schools in the 21st century.
Sherman DornEducation Policy Analysis ArchiveJanuary 2003
Tom Corcoran and Jolley Bruce ChristmanConsortium for Policy Research in EducationNovember 2002
Audrey Amrein and David BerlinerArizona State UniversityDecember 2002
Education Week, January 2003