Is Utah leaving NCLB Behind?
Since the adoption of No Child Left Behind two years ago, several states have threatened to reject federal Title I money so they can sidestep the new law's accountability provisions.
Since the adoption of No Child Left Behind two years ago, several states have threatened to reject federal Title I money so they can sidestep the new law's accountability provisions.
Co-published by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and AccountabilityWorks, with support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, this report looks at six elements of K-12 accountability systems in 30 different states. Each state is rated on standards, test content, alignment of tests to standards, test rigor, testing trustworthiness and openness, and accountability policies. The major conclusion: while some states have the basis of a sophisticated and rigorous accountability system in place, no state has every element of a serious standards-based education reform package in place. And few states are as open to evaluation as they ought to be.
Elizabeth G. Hill, Legislative Analyst???s OfficeJanuary 2004
The poet Longfellow once wrote, "How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams with its illusions, aspirations, dreams!" And though George Bernard Shaw would respond that youth is wasted on the young, youthful idealism remains a mainstay of our culture and one of the most precious things to be guarded and nurtured by education.
The Institute for Justice has a nifty new website on school choice with links to legal briefs, fact sheets, and talking points about the topic. A handy resource for researchers, journalists, and activists. Check it out at http://www.ij.org/cases/school/.
Though testing opponents have made some gains in the court of public opinion, they continue to strike out in the real courts. This week, the Massachusetts Supreme Court unanimously rejected a claim by several Bay State students that the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System is unconstitutional.
There are at least three possible responses to pressure on teachers to get students up to par on state standardized tests. One is to do the job. Another is to take a pass, not get the job done, and criticize the test. A third is to cheat. Generally, we would characterize these responses, respectively, as the correct response, passing the buck, and unethical.
Education leaders in Georgia and Minnesota are working to revise their state standards for U.S. and world history. And, in both states, a fierce debate has ensued.
Sixteen long years ago, I wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education that "consumers need a 'no-frills university' to turn the higher-education marketplace upside down." I lamented, "It costs $20,000 to attend some of the nation's more illustrious colleges this year, prices having risen an average of 9 percent over last year.
This brochure contains profiles of the winners of the second annual Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Prizes for Excellence in Education. The 2004 prize for Valor is awarded to Howard Fuller, and the 2004 prize for Distinguished Scholarship is awarded to Eric Hanushek.
On Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, Gary Orfield and the Harvard Civil Rights Project released a study concluding--just like last year's report, and the one the year before that--that school segregation is on the rise. According to the authors, their 'new' work "shows that U.S. schools are becoming more segregated in all regions for both African American and Latino students.
The Philanthropy RoundtableJanuary 2004
Kim K. Metcalf, Stephen D. West, Natalie A. Legan, Kelli M. Paul and William J. BooneIndiana University School of EducationDecember 2003
Christopher T. Cross, Teachers College PressDecember 2003
A Missouri circuit court judge last week ruled that a Cass County school district violated state law when it awarded "commitment" bonuses to a handful of teachers who agreed to sign two-year contracts.
Ahh, young love. It makes the world go round, no? And faking it may also cost Randi Coy, a 23-year-old teacher in Arizona, her job. Coy is the star of the new Fox reality show, "My Big, Fat, Obnoxious Fianc??," in which she has to convince her family and friends that she is engaged to a, well, big, fat, obnoxious man. If she does, she's promised a million dollars.
In the effort to reform American education, big-city school systems are where the action is. But remarkably, until now nobody could answer with a modicum of reliability a rock-bottom question: How are students faring academically in Los Angeles relative to those in Atlanta? There just wasn't enough information to make those kinds of city-to-city comparisons.
A counterpoint to the doom and gloom surrounding most accounts of the rebuilding of Iraq. The Hoover Institution's Bill Evers, who for five months was part of the small team of U.S.
2004 could turn out to be the year of the teacher, the year that the bureaucratic, ideological, and regulatory strangleholds under which the teaching profession labors might just be broken. Last year ended with the Education Trust's stern rebuke of federal and state officials for playing fast and loose with NCLB's highly-qualified teacher requirement.
Today is a red-letter day for parents and kids trapped in failing D.C. public schools. The Senate has just passed the much-delayed omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2004, which has language attached to it authorizing a voucher program in the District.
Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, Harvard University September 2003
James Tooley, Pauline Dixon, and James Stanfield, Adam Smith Institute2003
Edited by Chris Patterson, Director of Research, Texas Public Policy FoundationDecember 2003
Three universities in Virginia are considering cutting some of their ties to the state as a way of easing regulations and mandates coming from Richmond. William and Mary, the University of Virginia, and Virginia Tech have all seen state aid plummet in recent years even as they chafe under what they consider to be onerous state regulation.
Just before Christmas, the New York Times went off on a tear about "pork on the hill," grousing over the omnibus 2004 federal appropriations bill (which the Senate must still vote on this month) because of its 7,000 "special interest provisions," a.k.a.
Until last week, out-of-state and newly graduated teachers who wanted to work in North Carolina were required to pass a subject-area test to teach in that state's middle and high school classrooms.
A fascinating article from The Oregonian outlines one of the most troubling aspects of American education - the dramatic drop-off in pupil achievement from elementar
If you've ever struggled to decipher a graphics-only IKEA instruction manual while putting together a large piece of furniture with the help of only a miniature wrench (and who hasn't?), you will be relieved to know that Northampton College in England has recently announced a new course: flat-pack furniture assembly 101.