How Does Teacher Pay Compare? Methodological Challenges and Answers
Sylvia A. Allegretto, Sean P. Corcoran and Lawrence Mishel Economic Policy Institute 2004
Sylvia A. Allegretto, Sean P. Corcoran and Lawrence Mishel Economic Policy Institute 2004
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education StatisticsSeptember 2004
American Legislative Exchange Council, Andrew T. LeFevreSeptember 22, 2004
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Ben Wildavsky, Sourcebooks, Inc.September 2004
How do you keep your revolutionary edge if you become part of the establishment?
Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson has been in the spotlight more than once this year for daring to support initiatives like charter schools, the suspension of teacher pay and class-size initiatives, and the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) graduation requirement.
Salon.com offers an against-the-grain article purporting to show that the accepted wisdom about college professors-that they're overwhelmingly liberal and generally vote Democrat-is overstated. This would be fascinating if true, but the piece contradicts itself.
The Broad Foundation announced this week that the Garden Grove Unified School District in Orange County, CA is the winner of its 2004 urban prize for education - the largest and most prestigious such award in public education. Each year, the Foundation awards $1 million in college scholarships to the most outstanding urban school districts in the nation.
In Chicago, teachers' unions and community agitators are howling over Renaissance 2010, Mayor Richard Daley's plan to remake the school system by closing consistently troubled schools, reopening others as charters, and rolling back regulations that stifle education innovation.
Time magazine this week discusses the challenges, benefits, and pitfalls of "grade skipping" - moving extremely gifted students up to a higher grade. Critics have long maintained that moving children, however brilliant, into classes with older students will hurt them socially if not academically.
Sara Mead, Progressive Policy InstituteSeptember 2004
We know you don't want Checker to write the From the Readers section, too! So give him a break. Send YOUR thoughts to [email protected]. And watch this space for more From our Readers as we hear more from you.
Jay Greene and Greg Forster, The Manhattan InstituteSeptember 2004
Caroline M. Hoxby, Harvard University and National Bureau of Economic Research September 2004
Every person in America wants every child in America to have a terrific teacher every year. That much we can assume. Why, then, is it so hard to craft sound policies yielding that universally sought result? Excellent question.
The unfortunate saga of the California Charter Academy, closed for various improprieties last month (click here and here for more), has something like a happy ending.
Ask most parents to rate the American education system compared to the rest of the industrialized world, and they'd no doubt tell you it is second to none.
The American Enterprise Institute's Frederick M. Hess and our own Checker Finn have three new and overlapping analyses of the No Child Left Behind Act, with particular reference to that law's accountability and choice provisions.
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty announced this week that three schools in the Land of 10,000 Lakes will pilot a new teacher pay-for-performance plan that he hopes will pave the way toward more ambitious merit pay schemes down the road.
Does it matter where public-school teachers send their own children to school? If so, how and why? What can we learn from them?
National Association of State Boards of Education2004
Education Commission of the StatesJuly 2004
The Los Angeles Times, anyway. After the recent charter school dustup, we're happy to recommend a column on charters that strikes a good balance and gets the facts - even those that are painful for charter school proponents - right.
"Eighty-three percent of Michigan elementary and middle schools that failed federal achievement standards for at least four years . . . gave themselves As on self-evaluations worth a third of their overall grades" on a statewide assessment system designed to give parents more information about schools, reports the Detroit News.
Editor's note: As Democrats gathered in Boston to nominate John Kerry, Gadfly critiqued the Democratic education platform (see Napping 'til November).
Even in a world awash in spin, we have to scratch our heads at the wildly conflicting storylines developing about the D.C. voucher program. In the Washington Times, vouchers are celebrated as a tremendous success, with demand far exceeding supply, especially in the middle and high school grades.
The Louisiana Board of Regents recently completed a yearlong pilot study that has the potential to shake up the way the state rates its teacher training programs.
This month's Phi Delta Kappan has an article penned by American Enterprise Institute education policy studies director Fredrick Hess and Gadfly's own Checker Finn that looks at the implementation of NCLB's choice provisions with an eye toward whether they are being "conscientiously and constructively implement