"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...." Charles Dickens' line about Paris and London in the 18th century applies aptly to the state of public education in Columbus and Dayton in 2008.
In our August 6 issue we misstated some requirements of the Ohio Core curriculum. Ohio high school students entering ninth grade after July 2010 will be required, among other things, to take four years of math, including Algebra II, and three years of lab-based science, including an upper-level course like chemistry or physics.
I must take issue with Mike Petrilli's comment--from his thoughtful editorial, "What if improving teacher quality isn't THE answer"--about those like me who advocate closing the "comparability loophole" in ESEA/NCLB Title I.
/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
Mike Lach is one of the most dynamic reformers you'll ever meet, and has been working inside Chicago Public Schools for several years, helping to build its capacity around curriculum and instruction. Now he's set his sights on history and the rest of the social sciences. But he needs a hand.
Mike, first lady Laura Bush mentioned No Child Left Behind last night at the Republican Convention--although, if memory serves, she never actually uttered the phrase "No Child Left Behind."
I don't know whether Ed Week can "survive the downturn in the journalism business." But I do know that it can't survive the evermore frequent downturns??of its own website, which appears to be improperly functioning, yet again.
So the Democratic convention played host to lots of teacher union-bashing, but this week's GOP affair will feature an event
Liam went after Michelle Rhee's pay-for-performance plan (the one for the kids, not the
Seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin is pregnant, and now we learn from sundry news sources that her mother, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, supports abstinence-only education (or did, at leas
In Chicago today, students boycott school to protest their lack of learning. Gadfly doesn't like it.
Sol Stern offers a wise suggestion in this City Journal Online piece: create an independent agency in New York to verify student achievement results.
There's a lot to like about this Los Angeles Times op-ed by Newark Mayor Cory Booker, NewSchools Venture Fund CEO Ted Mitche
Yesterday, I bet that Barack Obama wouldn't mention NCLB in his acceptance speech, nor would he say much about education at all. I was right on the first count and wrong on the second. Here's what he said about k-12 schools:
Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein writes today about Michelle Rhee's proposed teacher-pay plan.
/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
If I were advising either presidential candidate--which I'm not--I'd tell them to say as little as possible on education. Partly that's because of the electorate: Americans are focused on other things, what with $4-per-gallon gas and flat-lining wages.
According to this article in today's Washington Post, Democrats on Capitol Hill are starting to work with Barack Obama's policy staff to craft a legislative agenda for 2009.
What you can expect from this week's Gadfly: Mike tells us what to do about mediocre teachers, we uncover lots of anti-union liberals in Denver (and Australia), and Christina tells us why we shouldn't throw a party for the College Board.
/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
It's been more than twelve months since Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrian Fenty named a relative unknown as the city's schools chancellor. Hard to believe, considering the tremendous amount of change that Michelle Rhee has wrought in that time.
The story goes like this. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev hands his successor two letters and tells him to open them when he, the successor, encounters a tough situation. The first such situation arises, the first letter is opened, and it reads, "Blame everything on me." Works like a charm.
Political conventions, it must be said, have lost their brio. (Nielsen reports that television ratings for them have declined unremittingly since 1980.) Which is not to say nothing interesting will happen this week in Denver; indeed, something already has.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd seems to have learned a lesson or two from the education policies of his conservative predecessor, John Howard. Rudd is moving toward a transparent accountability system that will show parents how their children are faring academically and show the state how schools that enroll similar student populations fare against one another.
