Commentary
The Price We Pay: Economic and Social Consequences of Inadequate Education
Clive R. Belfield and Henry Levin, EditorsThe Brookings Institution Press2007
Commentary
State sets requirements for STEM instructors
Currently, at least 20 Ohio public schools are seeking high school math and science teachers (see here).
Commentary
In search of the next great Gadfly
Do you have a passion for improving education and a sense of humor? Are you hard-working yet cheerful? Are you able to flex with changing circumstances and work in a fast-paced, demanding environment? If so, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute might be just the place for you.
Commentary
Inside ODE's budget cuts
After being dragged over the coals by Governor Ted Strickland in his State of the State Address, the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) has identified $101.2 million worth of budget cuts (see here) to help the governor pare $733 million from state government spending.
Commentary
Comprehensive Longitudinal Evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program
School Choice Demonstration ProjectDepartment of Education Reform, University of Arkansas2008
Commentary
Reading First press conference
On March 10, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute demanded an inquiry into scandalous efforts by the executive and legislative branches to sabotage the Reading First program. httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=xSrUEHjwt1I
Commentary
Too little, too late?
Margaret Spellings addressed the Reading First state directors on Thursday and complained about Congress's "devastating" budget cut of the program. It's about time.
Commentary
And nothing at all
Meanwhile, First Lady Laura Bush managed to give a speech about literacy this week and not mention Reading First at all. A real profile in courage.
Commentary
The power of suggestion
An article in Tuesday's New York Times references an experiment in which researchers served icy vodka tonics to some college students and icy tonic water to others. Both drinks tasted the same.
Commentary
The patron saint of busy
St. Anthony School in Milwaukee exists today only because of the city's voucher program. In 1998, before the state supreme court allowed public money to fund religious schools, St. Anthony enrolled under 300 students. Now it has over 1,000 pupils (all but about a dozen attend on vouchers) and is thriving.
Commentary
Commentary
The education of John McCain
As the GOP worries whether John McCain, now anointed as the party's leader-in-waiting and November standard-bearer, is sufficiently Reaganesque to do right in the Oval Office, here's a point in the senator's favor: Like the Gipper, he doesn't consider education a top presidential priority.
Commentary
The true story of Reading First
Ethically-challenged political appointee overrides the "merit" process and steers millions of federal dollars to preferred firms, including one that employs his wife, all the while foiling those who would favor a different outcome. The program's intended beneficiaries--poor, illiterate children--lose out.
Commentary
Highly regulated principals
From the Department of Bad Ideas: Creating federal certification for "highly qualified" principals. We would delight in eviscerating proposals like this, but Sheryl Boris-Schacter has already done a fine job of it.
Commentary
Make like a laser and focus
The final report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel will be released next week, and indications are it will contain several solid proposals while also avoiding many of the contentious "math wars" issues.
Commentary
A certain Finnish je ne sais quoi
Call it education's version of the French paradox. Students in Finland "have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells, and no classes for the gifted.
Commentary
The write fight
David Gelernter turns in a brisk essay in the March 3rd Weekly Standard, contending that English, a beautiful language, has been hijacked by feminists who are ruining writing and depleting the supply of those in America who write well. They do this by inserting odd, abrasive phrases like "he or she" and "chairperson" into the vernacular.
Commentary
We're making progress
In his response to Achieve's 2007 Closing the Expectations Gap report, Checker Finn lamented what he characterized as the slow pace of state progress in adopting the American Diploma Project (ADP) policy agenda that Achieve, the Fordham Foundation, and the Education Trust developed four years ago.
Report
Governance
Too Good to Last: The True Story of Reading First
Too Good to Last: The True Story of Reading First is an in-depth and alarming study of Reading First's betrayal. Under the leadership of White House domestic policy chief Margaret Spellings and with support from Congress, Reading First was to provide funding to primary-reading programs that were based on scientific research. Backlash and brouhaha followed. Aggrieved whole-language program proprietors complained bitterly that their wares couldn't be purchased with Reading First funds. Then the administration turned its back on Reading First, allowing the program to be gutted and starved of funding.
Commentary
Commentary
The recipe for success?
The Wall Street Journal examines why Finland's laid-back education system leads the world. Long story short, nobody knows.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction
Ignorance is not bliss
Are we rearing a nation of ignorant students? This is the question posed in the latest report, Still at Risk, by Fordham's sister organization, Common Core.
Commentary
BOOK IT! it's not
An interesting press release popped up in my inbox today. An excerpt: With 13 million children living in poverty in the United States, US Airways has made a bold step to help end the cycle of poverty through a new cause partnership with Reading Is Fundamental. Today, US Airways and RIF are launching the ???Fly with US. Reading with Kids."
Commentary
Why Asian students do better in math
It may not be simply that they study harder (though anecdotal evidence suggests they do).
Commentary
Commentary
Teachers gone wild
A recent study finds that one-third of American teenagers regularly post offensive language or manipulated images on the web, and over 25 percent of these online pranks target teachers and principals. Such hi-jinks are not always a laughing matter.
Commentary
The opacity of hope
We stand corrected. Last week, Gadfly posited that perhaps Barack Obama has an open mind when it comes to school choice.
Commentary
Rather unreasonable
Common Core, an organization devoted to bringing content-rich instruction to U.S. classrooms, was born this week. Susan Jacoby's new book, The Age of American Unreason, was born two weeks earlier. It seemed fitting to welcome the former by reading and reviewing the latter.
Commentary
I'm thinking of a number...
Everybody knows Detroit has a dropout problem. But no one, it seems, can say exactly how bad it is. According to a new study by the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University, just 31.9 percent of Detroit students graduate in four years.
Commentary
Lessons learned
Yes, I've learned plenty in the 57 years since I entered 1st grade in Dayton, Ohio's Fairview Elementary School, and the four decades since I taught social studies at Newton High School in Massachusetts. Let me share a dozen of the most profound lessons.