Clearing up the confusion over testing
Crack education journalist Jay Matthews reacted to anti-testing articles in a thoughtful column appearing only in the electronic version of the Washington Post.
Crack education journalist Jay Matthews reacted to anti-testing articles in a thoughtful column appearing only in the electronic version of the Washington Post.
Fans of "direct instruction," and those who would like to learn more about it, will want to examine this new report from the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. It was catalyzed by three facts: (a) Direct Instruction, properly done, is a teaching method (and curriculum) that is known to be effective, particularly with younger children and especially in reading.
by Emanuel Tobier (Manhattan Institute, May 2001)
By Howard Fuller, PhD and Kaleem Caire.
As I write, the House of Representatives has just completed floor action on the education bill and the Senate is expected to return to it soon. The Senate has a bunch more amendments to consider, some of them important, some of them even germane.
In a sideshow to the main debate over ESEA, the Senate passed an amendment on May 3 that would add $18.1 billion to the federal budget for special education over the next 10 years and would change special ed funding into an entitlement that Congress would be required to fund regardless of budget considerations. This measure has drawn criticism from the White House and others for not addre
Thirty percent of students surveyed in grades 6 through 10 have been involved in either bullying or being bullied themselves, according to a study released by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) earlier this month.
The redoubtable Paul Barton, formerly of the Educational Testing Service, prepared this March 2001 report for the National Education Goals Panel. Based on NAEP data, it seeks to track and explain state-level performance trends. He's done some interesting "quartile analysis" as well as taken a close look at minority/white achievement gaps.
The Council of the Great City Schools deserves plaudits for its ever-greater willingness to speak candidly about educational achievement (as well as its vigorous efforts to boost that achievement).
Can a new breed of superintendents--drawn from outside the ranks of traditional educators--transform urban school systems?
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) recently released the results of the 4th grade reading assessment conducted in 2000. (By NAEP standards, alas, this is speedy: data available just a year after the test was given!) The news is not good: average scores were essentially flat across the 1990's.
by Craig Jerald, the Education Trust (published by the Business Roundtable)
Like many skillful leaders whose successes throw them before the public's eye, Wendy Kopp has her share of detractors, including some within the ranks of the unique teaching corps she created.
White House aides have grown testy about the education bill, unwilling to acknowledge that the compromises Congress has forced upon it have sorely weakened George W. Bush's fine reform plan. Presumably because they assented to those compromises, they feel obliged to insist that the plan remains largely intact.Would that it were so.
The Education Trust's newsletter, Thinking K-16, is usually worth a look. The Winter 2001 issue is especially fine, being devoted almost entirely to a careful but exceptionally lucid discussion of U.S. high school results during the period since the Nation at Risk report of 1983 and the declaration of national education goals in 1989. How have we fared?
The Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) made quite a splash in the U.S. when its 1995 results came out, mostly because it showed American kids sorely under-performing their counterparts in many other lands in math and science, especially in the upper grades.
Why does our system of teacher certification emphasize training in pedagogy rather than subject-matter knowledge? The answer can be found in this report, which traces the emergence of state control over teacher certification. The focus is on efforts by the teacher education establishment to gain monopoly control over the licensing of teachers.
President Bush campaigned on a strong education-reform platform, promising the American people that for the first time in a long time, commonsense?not special interest groups?would dictate federal education policy. Just before he entered the Oval Office, we handed him a briefing book on steps he could take to help transform the K-12 education system. In this "Memorandum to the President-Elect and the 107th Congress," we explained how the federal government has wasted billions of dollars on ineffective programs and offered suggestions for making continued federal funding matter.
More than one-third of the states get low grades for the standards they have developed for teaching evolution, according to this new report. This report is the first comprehensive analysis of how each state handles evolution in its science standards for the public schools.
How much government aid do parochial schools and their students actually receive? Connell finds that public aid flows to church-affiliated schools through many channels, though amounts vary greatly from state to state. This report is especially timely in light of the Supreme Court's important decision upholding government aid to religious schools.
According to this new study, Ambassador Annenberg's gift has left only small footprints on the urban school systems it set out to reform. Good intentions and a generous checkbook were not enough to transform troubled urban schools. This report includes case studies of New York (by Raymond Domanico), Chicago (by Alexander Russo) and Philadelphia (by Carol Innerst) and an afterword by Chester E.Finn Jr. and Marci Kanstoroom.
Science as a search for truth has come under attack from both the left and the right. This report explores four case studies of threats to the integrity of science education.
Education experts tend to ignore research-based practices like Direct Instruction and instead embrace constructivist methods that are not backed by good research. This report by Douglas Carnine explains why.
According to this comprehensive report, only five states combine solid academic standards with strong school accountability.
Minnesota was the first state to embrace many important education reforms, from statewide open enrollment to charter schools to tax credits for parents paying certain education expenses. This report, written by Dr. Mitchell Pearlstein, President of the Minneapolis-based Center of the American Experiment, tells the stories behind Minnesota's unique policy experiences. What lay behind Minnesota's worthy innovations? Who was responsible for the bad ideas? Mitch's short answer: governors were behind most of the proposals that expanded education choice, while the flawed policies emerged from the state's education bureaucracy.
This report explains how New Jersey has implemented high standards for teachers without causing a teacher shortage by creating an alternative certification program.
Most states are beginning to get serious about boosting the quality of their teaching force. Unfortunately, most of the steps they are taking point in the wrong direction. This 'report card' contains plenty of evidence of that fact-together with some happy exceptions and hopeful signs.
Nappi tells the engaging story of how Princeton parents tried to change 'the system' from within but had to resort to starting a charter school in order to raise academic standards.
This report takes a close look at the implementation of standards-based reform in one state, Washington, and asks why it was successful in some places but not others.
According to this 250-page volume, proposed federal and state policies aimed at boosting teacher-quality may well worsen the problem. Instead of adding even more politics-governance to the teacher training system, policymakers should open up the profession to well-educated individuals and should hold principals accountable for student learning.