The High School Diploma: Making It More Than An Empty Promise
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Russlyn Ali, The Education Trust-WestApril 2002
School Reform: The Critical Issues
Chester E. Finn, Jr.edited by Williamson M. Evers, Lance T. Izumi and Pamela A. Riley, Hoover Institution and Pacific Research Institute, 2001
Beyond instructional leadership
What does it take to be a successful principal? In the 1980s, "effective schools" research introduced the idea of instructional leadership.
Mayoral Influence, New Regimes, and Public School Governance
Terry RyanMichael W. Kirst, Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of EducationMay 2002
To Assure the Free Appropriate Public Education of All Children With Disabilities
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education2001
Education in the Twenty-first Century
Chester E. Finn, Jr.edited by Edward P. Lazear, Hoover Institution2002
Bringing in a New Era in Character Education
Chester E. Finn, Jr.edited by William Damon, Hoover Institution2002
School Boards at the Dawn of the 21st Century: Conditions and Challenges of District Governance
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Frederick Hess, National School Boards Association2002
Illiberal critics of school choice
While the debate over school choice tends to focus on things like whether vouchers weaken public schools by draining away state funds or creaming the best students, most such contentions can be refuted by evidence.
What's with Edison Schools?
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Dozens of times in recent weeks, people have asked what I expect will happen to Edison Schools, formerly known as the Edison Project, considering the parlous state of the company's stock price, other signs of financial woe, the gnarly situation in Philadelphia, and the recent separation of Edison from one of its first schools (Boston's Renaissance charter school).No doubt I get asked thi
Children as Pawns: The Politics of Educational Reform
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Timothy A. HacsiMarch 2002
A Decade of Charter Schools: From Theory to Practice
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Katrina Bulkley and Jennifer Fisler, Consortium for Policy Research in EducationApril 2002
Building a Plane While Flying It: Early Lessons from Developing Charter Schools
Terry RyanNoelle C. Griffin and Priscilla Wohlstetter, Teachers College RecordApril 2001
No Child Left Behind Act: A Description of State Responsibilities
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Council of Chief State School OfficersApril 2002 (draft)
Teaching American students to hate America
In the belief that public understanding of the Middle East will strengthen American security, the government subsidizes the work of Middle Eastern studies programs at universities around the country. But while trying to encourage the study of foreign languages and areas of the world that pose a challenge to U.S.
The pitfalls of value-added analysis
In recent months, policymakers and policy wonks alike have been singing the praises of value-added analysis, which focuses on the achievement gains that a school or teacher elicits rather than just looking at how high the students score, since high or low scores of students in a school may reflect the socioeconomic makeup of the student body (and other "input" variables) rather than the quality
Putting the memorial back in Memorial Day
Secretary of Education Rod Paige is asking teachers to help reclaim Memorial Day for its intended purpose of honoring those who have died in service to our country.
Collective bargaining and education policy
Michael PodgurskyConsiderable attention has recently focused on a bill (AB 2160) working its way through the California legislature that would expand the scope of collective bargaining beyond wages and working conditions to include matters of education policy such as curriculum and textbooks. The bill has the strong support of the California Teachers Association, the state's largest teacher union.
Expansion of collective bargaining in doubt
After California Governor Gray Davis threatened to veto AB 2160 (discussed in the accompanying editorial by Michael Podgursky) if it included a provision expanding collective bargaining to cover curriculum and textbook decisions, the bill was amended by a legislative committee yesterday to prohibit any expansion of collective bargaining, but substituting a new process by which teachers and dist
Final Report of the Evaluation of New York Networks for School Renewal: An Annenberg Foundation Challenge for New York City
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Institute for Education and Social Policy, Steinhardt School of Education, New York UniversityDecember 2001
The Emerging Education Industry
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Michael R. Sandler, Education Industry Leadership BoardApril 2002
Special Education Services in Colorado Charter Schools
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Debora Scheffel, Colorado Department of EducationMarch 2002
Statement of the Wingspread Coalition: Where Will We Find the Leaders and What Will We Ask Them to Do?
Terry RyanForum for the American School SuperintendentJanuary 2002
Education Management Organizations: Growing a For-profit Education Industry with Choice, Competition, and Innovation
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Guilbert C. Hentschke, Scot Oschman and Lisa Snell, Reason Public Policy InstituteMay 2002
School districts worry about letting kids leave failing schools
The No Child Left Behind Act requires school districts to allow children in persistently failing schools to transfer to better (public) schools and to pay the transportation costs for those students to reach their new schools. For thousands of schools, that provision takes effect in September.
In response to "The Special Ed Burden," guest editorial by Jay Greene in last week's Gadfly.
Mr. Greene: Superb analysis. I had never considered that full funding of special education costs by the federal government would dramatically increase public schools' incentive to classify challenging children.
A field guide to low academic standards
Chester E. Finn, Jr.The miserable failure of most states to implement the requirements of the 1994 federal education amendments in timely fashion had already cast a veil of doubt over the prospects for No Child Left Behind: the stark fact that states don't necessarily make the changes that Washington expects of them-and then get away with it.But what happens when states do comply with the formal requirement