CliffsNotes for education statistics
The Heritage Foundation's Krista Kafer has compiled an education "CliffsNotes" of sorts, drawing from data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics and others.
The Heritage Foundation's Krista Kafer has compiled an education "CliffsNotes" of sorts, drawing from data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics and others.
Teachers and administrators at a Florida elementary school hope to convince students that the "F" their school received from the state's accountability system really means "fantastic" and "fun." Pep rallies and t-shirts declaiming "F = Fantastic" are just some of the strategies this failing school is using to boost everybody's sense of self-esteem and complacency.
Don't think for a minute that June's Supreme Court decision upholding Cleveland's school-voucher program has opened the floodgates of education choice for American families.
Currently about 25 percent of 8th graders complete algebra or a higher-level math course, but students who don't complete first-year algebra by 8th grade are seldom able to take calculus in high school, which colleges like to see on transcripts.
Jonathan SchorrAugust 2002
Stephen Sugarman, Education Policy Analysis ArchivesAugust 9, 2002
Patrick Murphy and Erin Novak, Annie E. Casey Foundation2002
Elaine M. Walker, Education Policy Analysis ArchivesAugust 4, 2002
Erica Frankenberg and Chungmei Lee, The Civil Rights Project, Harvard UniversityAugust 2002
Harvard Law School professor Martha Minow is ambivalent about the Supreme Court's decision in Zelman, but she has come to believe that the left's opposition to the privatization of social services is simplistic.
In June, Education Secretary Rod Paige issued an important report, the first "Secretary's Annual Report on Teacher Quality." What a splendid fuss it has kicked up-and hurrah for Paige for standing his ground.Entitled "Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge" (and previously noted by the Gadfly at http://www.edexc
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Zelman that the Cleveland voucher program does not offend the First Amendment, The Christian Science Monitor reports that state legislatures in California, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Kansas, Minnesota, and Maine will introduce voucher legislation this year.
In an article in this summer's Harvard Educational Review, Dan Goldhaber and Eric Eide summarize research on the impact of school choice on minority students in urban settings. They write that relatively little evidence exists that school choice is having a clear-cut impact, and conclude that the mixed results suggest that choice alone will not transform urban school systems.
The U.S. Department of Education has awarded an $18.5 million contract to develop a national What Works Clearinghouse to summarize and disseminate evidence on the effectiveness of various education interventions.
The larger a class is, the more student misbehavior reduces teaching effectiveness, suggests research by Edward Lazear, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
The Pacific Research Institute has issued a brief guide to improving public education in the Golden State. The mini-report advocates 10 commonsensical but hard-to-implement reforms including: providing a school-choice accountability option, adopting value-added testing, introducing merit/ differential pay and testing for teachers, and ensuring the use of proven teaching methods and curricula.
Shazia Rafiulla Miller and Robert M. Gladden, Consortium on Chicago School ResearchJune 2002
The Center for the Future of Teaching and LearningMarch 2002
USA Today reports that 19 schools designated as "Blue Ribbon Schools" of excellence by the U.S. Department of Education also appear on states' lists of failing schools.
Andrew J. Coulson, Mackinac Center for Public PolicyJuly 2002
Paul L. Kimmelman and David J. Kroeze2002
Core Knowledge Foundation2002
Dan Lips, Goldwater InstituteAugust 1, 2002
Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family StatisticsJuly 2002
New research shows that, despite a decade of federal efforts to promote them, the three most popular programs that schools use to discourage kids from using drugs are ineffective or unproven. "Anti-drug programs like D.A.R.E. called a bust," by Greg Toppo, Chicago Sun-Times, August 4, 2002
When evaluating schools and education reform initiatives, analysts (and the policymakers who depend on them) are often hampered by poor data. Conclusions about school and program effectiveness would be far more robust if states had a mechanism for linking student test scores over time.
The standards and accountability movement that is transforming K-12 education has begun to permeate the ivory tower, as colleges and universities are being pressed to prove that they can deliver results, not just rest on reputation. Although some public universities are phasing in state assessments, many higher education officials don???t want to open that Pandora???s box.