Inside the Black Box of High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Patricia J. Kannapel and Stephen K. Clements, Prichard Committee for Academic ExcellenceFebruary 2005
The Business of Education Improvement: Raising LEA Performance Through Competition
Chester E. Finn, Jr.CBIMarch 2005
The Saudi connection
The New York Sun reports that Saudi Arabia has given Columbia University's Middle East Institute annual grants of $15,000 since 2002 to support "outreach" programs, which allow Columbia faculty and graduate students to instruct many of New York's public school teachers about how to teach Middle East politics.
Ravitch takes a stand
In the New York Times, Diane Ravitch - as is her wont - yells "Stop!" to the tide of governors, policy wonks, and technology moguls who have recently fingered high schools as the weak link in American K-12 education.
RIP, SAT
The old SAT is dead, but The Economist offers a proper eulogy, crediting it for "producing one of the great silent social revolutions in American history - the rise of the meritocracy." In the 1930s, Harvard president James Bryant Conant determined to break the WASP stranglehold that populated America's top colleges and universities with the feckless children of wealth.
Spelling bee returns!
Last month we reported that a Rhode Island school district had cancelled its annual spelling bee on the dubious grounds that it violated NCLB. Well, we're happy to report that the district bowed to public pressure and held the competition, but not without some changes.
Levine versus the ed schools
Only Nixon, it is said, could go to China, and perhaps only Arthur Levine could go to our schools of education.
All the cool kids are doing it&
The Palm Beach Post reports that Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Education Commissioner John Winn are changing their tune on NCLB requirements. Despite promises to the contrary, the state recently met "informally" with U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to discuss lowering their adequate yearly progress benchmarks.