America's Untapped Resource: Low-Income Students in Higher Education
Richard D. Kahlenberg, editorThe Century Foundation2004
Richard D. Kahlenberg, editorThe Century Foundation2004
Clifford Adelman, Institute of Education SciencesJanuary 2004
Dan Goldhaber and Emily Anthony, Center on Reinventing Public EducationMarch 2004
The guest editorial in the March 4, 2004 issue of the Education Gadfly ("Will Congress hurt or help K-12 math education?" http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=138#1708 ) begins with name-calling ("fuzzy math") and then descends into an ideological diatribe filled with acid opinion and seldom "marred
No Child Left Behind is focusing so much attention on the 4th and 8th grade results that American students (and states) get on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) that a lot of people scarcely remember that NAEP also tests 12th graders.
A mixed bag of results has arrived from New Jersey's charter schools, with a few showing strong gains but many falling behind local district schools. Only 17 percent of eighth graders in Garden State charters, for example, passed state math tests, compared to 74 percent of students across the state.
After a run of bad press about plummeting stock prices and voided contracts with districts, Edison Schools, Inc., finally seems to be hitting its stride in at least one of the districts it serves. In its third year of a "$30 million, five-year contract to manage six elementary schools and a middle school in disadvantaged areas for the Clark County, Nev.
Yesterday, the Washington state legislature narrowly passed a bill that will allow both the creation of 45 charter schools for disadvantaged students over the next six years and the conversion of an unlimited number of failing public schools into charters.
NPR recently aired a fascinating story on the schools operated by the Department of Defense for children of military personnel, and whether they, too, should be subject to NCLB's requirements. (Today they're not, because they're not funded by the Department of Education and Title I.) The National School Boards Association says they should be.
For months now, Minnesota's courageous and passionate education commissioner, Cheri Pierson Yecke, has been the target of unrelenting criticism for her team's proposed social studies standards.
Some weeks ago, we noted that Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews was seeking "true life stories" of how NCLB is affecting classrooms, good and bad (http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=133#1658).
J.R. Lockwood, Harold Doran, and Daniel McCaffreyR Foundation for Statistical ComputingDecember 2003
Bryan C. Hassel and Meagan Batdorff, Public ImpactFebruary 2004
Committee for Economic DevelopmentFebruary, 2004
How would Shakespeare do on the new writing section of the SAT? None too well, according to this article in the Atlantic, which scored several well-known writers against the writing criteria set by the College Board, which sponsors America's most prominent test.
The Department of Education is entertaining comments on an important proposed change to Title IX regulations that presently impede single-sex schools.
In Colorado, a bill to create an independent state board to authorize charter schools is facing legislative obstacles. The Democrat who sponsored it says it would help charter schools by providing state, rather than local district, oversight.
Many educators believe it doesn't matter what kids read, so long as they are reading something. We beg to differ. Despite the good intentions of policymakers and teachers who want to improve students' reading skills, especially low-income and minority children, merely spending more time on "reading skills," does not a better reader make.
Much like the "reading wars" between phonics instruction and whole language learning, the K-12 "math wars" have raged for more than a decade. With many defeats and only occasional victories, parents, education reformers, and a number of university mathematicians have struggled against "fuzzy math" in schools.
A Consumer's Guide to High School History Textbooks is a summary review of 12 widely used U.S. and world history textbooks.
Frederick Hess and Andrew Kelly, The Abell ReportJanuary 2004
Gail L. Sunderman and Jimmy Kim, Harvard Civil Rights ProjectsFebruary, 2004
American students are being overworked, says an alarmed chorus of newspapers, magazines, and books. As described by the popular media and even some academics, the crisis is reminiscent of Sister Carrie and Industrial era child-labor scandals. "Overbooked: Four Hours of Homework for a Third Grader" blared a recent cover of People magazine.
It is surprising and disappointing to have a couple thousand-word article dismissed in less than a sentence, as "focusing on ancillary issues." That is what happened in last week's Gadfly. Perhaps, after a brief review offered below, some readers will find more of value than did Mr.
While it doesn't have quite the shock value of accusations of terrorist leanings, the battle over three proposed Massachusetts charter schools lacks little for controversy.
In a diverse suburb just outside Chicago, Evanston Township High School officials are thinking about pulling out of NCLB, "saying that the financial benefits might not be worth the trouble." Though the school would still be held accountable to Illinois' "less stringent penalties if students do not meet standards," it would likely not be required to disaggregate student scores as NCLB requires,
True, Rod Paige should not have called the National Education Association "a terrorist organization." Given the times in which we live, the middle word in that phrase might have been better chosen. (How about "hostile"? "Disgraceful"?
Does the Supreme Court's decision in Locke v. Davey - concerning a college scholarship for underprivileged students that was denied to a divinity student attending an evangelical college - have implications for the debate about vouchers and the effort to roll back Blaine Amendments in 32 states?