Commentary
Commentary
A New Approach to Principal Preparation: Innovative Programs Share Their Practices and Lessons Learned
How to get better leaders for America's schools
Commentary
Commentary
Commentary
Education News Nuggets
Looks like teacher salaries aren't the only controversial salaries these days.
Commentary
Event: School Leadership Matters
Fordham Institute?co-hosted a great event earlier today, along with the Rainwater Charitable Foundation and the Center for American Progress. It was entitled ?School Leadership Matters? and it highlighted the release of a new report from Rainwater ?
Commentary
AEI event today: Moynihan in the White House
Today the?American Enterprise Institute will host an event?Moynihan in the White House?sponsored by the Richard Nixon Foundation. It begins very shortly (1:00?3:00 PM) From the AEI invite:
Commentary
The murkiness of religious charter schools
Review: Blurring the Lines: Charter, Public, Private, and Religious Schools Come Together
Commentary
End of an era in New York City
The public education world shook yesterday with the news that New York City's Chancellor Joel Klein was resigning.? Handpicked by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who had taken control of the largest school system in the country in 2002, Klein, an anti-trust lawyer with no education experience, oversaw one of the more dramatic urban education transformations in history.
Commentary
Education News Nuggets
If we start using electrical brain stimulation to improve math skills, do you think we will increase or decrease America's fear of math??
Commentary
Quotable & Notable
?There's accumulating evidence that there are racial differences in what kids experience before the first day of kindergarten. They have to do with a lot of sociological and historical forces. In order to address those, we have to be able to have conversations that people are unwilling to have.?
Commentary
Online credit-recovery courses: good idea?
Here's a story about school districts in Texas offering online credit-recovery courses to any student who fails a class.
Commentary
Thanks much, Joel!
Though?New York City's academic achievement gains over the past eight years are still matters of dispute, on Joel Klein's watch the nation's largest city also turned out to be among?its most impressive when gauged by the kinds of structural and policy changes that comprise intelligent, promising?modern-day school reforms.?(New Orleans is the only real rival for that title, along with the Distri
Commentary
Voucher wars
A post on National Review's The Corner blog arouses a months-dormant education topic: vouchers in Washington, D.C.
Commentary
Diploma-cy
The United States and India plan to increase their collaboration on higher education. Starting in 2011, for instance, the countries will hold annual summits on the topic.
Commentary
The low-down on teacher pensions
Review: Education Finance and Policy: Special Issue: Rethinking Teacher Retirement Benefit Systems
Commentary
Quotable & Notable
?What we're finding is that, to the extent charter schools do better than traditional schools, it is often attributable to ?creaming' or ?skimming,' excluding special education students, poor students on free-lunch programs, or limited English-speaking children.''
Commentary
Dec. 2: Ed Schools and Reform
We've just announced that we'll hold an?event (here at Fordham) on Thursday, December 2, entitled ?Are Education Schools Amenable to Reform?? Should be an interesting and lively discussion, part of which will touch on our report, Cracks in the Ivory Tower?
Commentary
This and that?
Well, here are a few rather unique stories that caught my eye today. First, some parents are actually hiring ?homework helpers? to monitor their children and make sure the homework gets done. Now, I ?know many parents are stretched awfully thin these days. But hiring someone to say ?do your homework,?
Commentary
Mixed signals on quality for preschoolers
A couple of fine new studies attest to the importance of quality instruction for preschoolers?and the dizzying (?stunning? says one research team) range of bad-to-excellent offerings in today's early childhood programs and centers. ?There is no evidence whatsoever,?
Commentary
Under pressure
Teachers' unions are feeling the heat, according to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times. Its author, Mitchell Landsberg, writes, ?Teachers unions have a well-deserved reputation for exercising political clout . . . Now, that clout is in question.?
Commentary
Education News Nuggets
Big Brother is watching?even on school buses. And if you're a brat, don't think you'll be cut any slack.
Commentary
Disturbing trend: Reformers as compliance police
Once upon a time, centrist school reform had a single, overriding theme: accountability for results. This was apparent in the standards movement, with its focus on delineating clear expectations for all students, the achievement of which was to be measured by rigorous tests and linked to real consequences for adults.
Commentary
Quotable & Notable
?Those who aggressively wish to start firing larger numbers of teachers every year rely on an obvious but critical assumption (often unstated): that schools and districts can find better replacements? Matthew Di Carlo, Staff Writer, Shanker Blog
Commentary
The long slog to diversity
What's a school to do? Virginia's ultra-selective Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology?the best high school in the land, says U.S.
Commentary
Commentary
That bites
New York City's public schools have a problem on their hands, and in their carpets and chairs: bedbugs.
Commentary
Snubbed
The New Jersey Education Association, the state's largest teachers' union, is not pleased: Acting Education Commissioner Rochelle Hendricks has ?respectfully? declined to address its members at the group's annual convention.
Commentary
Welcome to a new era of restraint
What do Tuesday's election results portend for education? After much palaver in many quarters, I conclude that it's pretty simple: less money, and less reform from Washington. More responsibility shouldered by states and, perhaps, districts. And that equation isn't as bad as it may sound.
Commentary
Quotable & Notable
?If we can do that work together through education, it actually might help to lessen some of those tensions in other areas as well.'' [in reference to overhauling the nation's public education system in the post-election political landscape] Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education