Two of the worst federal education policy ideas in memory have made their way up Capitol Hill in recent days, one in a fuel-efficient hybrid occupied primarily by Democrats, the other in a gas-guzzling pickup full of Republicans.
I just read your piece about the "Reading Wars." I think part of the problem rests with the heavy-handed deliberation process that the National Reading Panel undertook to try to end the reading wars in the first place.
Institute for Research on Education Policy and Practice2007
This latest piece of the New York Times' series on middle schools finds this: There's no clear-cut formula for discerning who can handle the hormone-crazed kids in America's middle schools. But one Bronx principal has the right idea. Middle school teachers, he said, must "have a huge sense of humor and a small ego." That sums it up pretty well.
Mayoral control in New York City is hitting some bumps in the road. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein regularly trumpet their "historic gains" in test scores. They say that since the mayor gained control, scores have gone up by 12 percent in reading and 19 percent in math.
We've had the standards-and-accountability movement, the school choice movement, and even the small schools movement. Are we finally witnessing the rise of an autonomy movement?
In last week's editorial ("How to end the reading wars?") Michael J. Petrilli argued that Reading First has been a "massive failure in terms of sustaining, much less widening, the reading-education consensus." Not true.
Eleven-year-old Alex Sorto, a student at Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring, Maryland, believes that eating broccoli will help boost test scores at his school. For now, however, Eastern's administrators are eschewing vegetables in favor of peppermints.
Performance pay for k-12 teachers is stalling in Florida, mostly because teachers hate the proposed plan. A few states to the left, however, some Arkansas schoolteachers are warming to the merit pay idea.
Martin R. West and Paul E. Peterson, EditorsThe Brookings Institution2007
Mitchell B. PearlsteinCenter of the American ExperimentJanuary 2007
Call it what you want--buyer's remorse, reverting to form, Hoekstra's rebellion--but Congressional conservatives aren't going to accept NCLB version 2.0 without a fight. Rather, they're bent on emasculating or repealing it.
This month's Atlantic includes a thoughtful article by Jonathan Rauch about how to end the culture wars: "slug them out state by state." He points to the cautionary tale of Roe v. Wade, which nationalized an intensely controversial issue:
Exxon Mobil is concerned about U.S. math and science education, so it has decided to pay kids to study. The company is pouring $125 million (a bit more than one day's profits) into the National Math and Science Initiative, which will reward students by paying them cash for each English, science, or math AP test on which they receive a score of 3 or higher.
The Beastie Boys once spurred angst-ridden teens to fight for their right to party.
When Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa decided to reform his city's schools, he likely didn't know what all he was getting into. An incident last week, when the mayor took a cadre of journalists to visit an L.A. high school and a student spray painted his bus with graffiti, is representative.
Those who care about the education of Ohio’s neediest children are stuck between two vexed options--the proverbial rock or hard place. The first are traditional district schools with decades of evidence--low test scores, high drop-out rates--of how poorly they meet many children’s needs.
According to this new study, urban area charter schools appear to be safer than their traditional district counterparts.
In the debate over Indiana’s K-12 education funding, House Democrats are seeking a freeze on funding for charter schools. The result would be “de facto moratorium” on any new charters, insisted Dan Roy, Indianapolis’s director of charter schools.
If a recent University of Washington study is to be believed, reforming Ohio’s education system could cost from $1.2 to $2.4 billion more annually--a 16 to 31 percent increase in state P-12 education spending. And that’s just the state’s share (47 percent of current funding).
It’s no secret that data-driven decision making figures prominently in high-performing schools. What it entails and how to implement it successfully are the subjects of this report commissioned by the New Schools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy firm working to improve and reform public education.
Rod PaigeThomas Nelson Publishers
U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for a Competitive WorkforceMarch 2007
State education officials in the Land of Lincoln are jumping for joy--student performance on the state's ISAT exam is up from 2005. Way, way up. On most exams, the 2005-2006 gains outpaced the improvement made over the previous five years combined.
Center on Education PolicyFebruary 2007
Last week we invited readers to submit their own ideas for the forthcoming education X PRIZE. Here are a few of the responses.
Harvard psychologist Susan Linn, co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, sees something devilish lurking behind Pizza Hut's "Book It" program, which rewards young readers with free pizzas.
David Brooks is softening. He's looking for "creative" presidential candidates willing to "talk about improving the lives of students" instead of just talking "about improving the schools." The creative ones "will emphasize that education is a cumulative process that begins at the dawn of life." Sen.
