Public catching on to pension system woes
The truth is finally setting in about the health of Ohio’s public pension systems, but one shouldn’t be too optimistic that major reforms are on the horizon.
The truth is finally setting in about the health of Ohio’s public pension systems, but one shouldn’t be too optimistic that major reforms are on the horizon.
Ohio has one of the most stringent academic ???death penalties??? in the country for our charter schools.?? If they perform poorly enough for long enough, the state will force them to close their doors.?? (And, for the record, that's a good thing ???
Terry has an op-ed in yesterday's Cleveland Plain Dealer that's worth checking out if you're interested in virtual learning, ways to save costs in K-12 education during unprecedentedly bad times, smart accountability mechanisms for charters (including e-charters), or a c
The looming state budget crisis has become a political elephant in the room, with state leaders largely avoiding the topic ahead of November’s elections. Case in point, a state panel charged last September with recommending solutions to the crisis held its first meeting just yesterday.
In case you’ve been living in a cave, the 2010 FIFA World Cup is well underway, and Ohio Gadfly is a proud fan.
Ever wonder how your local high school compares to others around the state or country? Newsweek has recently published their yearly pick of top high schools across the nation. Check out the complete list, as well as interactive features (you can search by city, state, or year)
Grade inflation has been in the news for a while, but The New York Times ran a story the other day about a different twist on this topic ?
Teachers in North Carolina may have won the lottery this week, and schools in upstate New York are breaking Guinness Wor
?There are not enough good schools in the city of Boston, and that's not right.? ?Jon Clarke, Edward W. Brooke Charter School Co-Director 16
It's right here. Kevin Carey nails the post-NCLB school reform ethos. ?Mike Petrilli
?It's honor inflation? I think it's a bad idea if you're No. 26 and you're valedictorian. In the real world, you do get ranked.? -Chris Healy, Furman University Associate Professor?
Almost a decade ago, Fordham and the Progressive Policy Institute published a phone book-sized treatise, Rethinking Special Education for a New Century. One of its most important chapters was ?Rethinking Learning Disabilities,?
Thanks to Netflix CEO and education reformer Reed Hastings, I've got a number of complete seasons of Beavis and Butthead (along with many other shows and movies) at my fingertips, on demand, in good TV quality, all for less than $9 a month. Streaming Netflix is really a marvelous invention.
Amber, Fordham's research director, discussed our report ?Charter School Autonomy: A Half-Broken Promise? during a recent episode of the Family Policy Matters radio show, which is based in North Carolina.
As the world cup heats up opportunities for Sports fans to receive MBA's are increasing.
?We think it would be wrong to lay off teachers who are performing for students when we know there are teachers who are not? Ron Huberman, CEO of Chicago Public Schools
Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.Christina Clark Tuttle, Bing-ru Teh, Ira Nichols-Barrer, Brian P. Gill, & Philip GleasonJune 2010
Kathleen CushmanJossey-Bass Publishing2010
Clara Hemphill and Kim NauerCenter for New York City Affairs, The New SchoolJune 2010
Emily Cohen, Aileen Corso, Valerie Franck and Kate KeilherNational Council on Teacher QualityJune 2010
Richard Whitmire has been worried about the fate of boys in the classroom for some time now. He points primarily to lackluster overall high school graduation and college-going rates for boys, which are far lower than for girls.
As we’ve noted before, the Fordham Institute team with help from the Gates Foundation has embarked on a multi-stage think-fest concerning the long-term governance of the “Common Core” state standards and the forthcoming assessments that are meant to be
If he could make one significant change to public education today, Timothy Knowles, one of the founding fathers of teacher “residency” programs, would eliminate teacher tenure. Why? “The more difficult it is for principals to address underperformance, the more likely they are to use informal methods to do so.
According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Donovan Forde has “multiple disabilities.” He’s part of a fraction of a fraction of special education students served by the public school system. In this New York Times profile, Sharon Otterman explores Donovan’s experience as a student at P.S.
P.J. O’Rourke has just learned—some of us were there a while back—that not only is it expensive to send kids to school, but it isn’t yielding much bang for the taxpayer’s buck. He explains: We’re spending on average a reported $11,000 per pupil—and more like north of $20,000 in reality. The teacher-pupil ratio is roughly 15:1.
Some uproar over schools having better AP ratings from Hispanic students taking AP Spanish, but why is this a problem?
?Why not evaluate each teacher individually on a variety of criteria such as test scores, instructional quality, parent satisfaction and peer comments? Teaching is unique, but so are other professions where such evaluations are commonplace.?
In 2007 we commissioned the well-respected economists Robert Costrell and Michael Podgursky to analyze Ohio's State Teachers Retirement S