NCLB requires all states, at the end of the current school year, to prove that their teachers in charge of academic classes are "highly qualified." In an era of accountability, it's a reasonable request. After all, we ask students to be proficient in their subjects. Shouldn't we ask the same of their teachersStates have had four years to prepare for this deadline-are they ready?
Whenever the Southern Baptists make the news, I often remember the question about the falling tree in the forest. If there's no one around to listen, does it make any noise?
Regarding last week’s Gadfly editorial (“It’s all about the authorizers,” May 4), I'm still fuzzy on why authorizers should close popular, legally operating charter schools. The abysmal state of traditional public schools often makes even mediocre charter schools choice-worthy.
Richard the Lionheart is best known as England's "Absent King," and for being the leader of the Third Crusade. Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood, is credited with inventing the modern American crime novel. And any number of Greek thinkers are remembered for creating the intellectual framework of Western civilization.
Are the worst schools in America about to get an overhaul? Don't count on it.
As Ohio now has over 60 organizations sponsoring close to 300 charter schools, this new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute should be of interest to all anyone concerned about the state’s charter program.Among the report’s findings:1) sponsors do not renew charter school contracts because of poor
The current wave of Latino protests in the streets over immigration, and the policy debates over this issue in the halls of Congress will go on, but the hard task of blending millions of immigrants (legal or not) into American society marches on daily, at least in the nation’s schools. Ohio is no exception.
The popular notion that public school districts are losing money because of charter school enrollment is now considered nonsense by many. The April 27 edition of The Columbus Dispatch shows that even though charter enrollment has risen in the past five years, so has funding for traditional school districts. Columbus is now receiving $20 million more than in 1998-1999
As Ohio now has over 60 organizations sponsoring close to 300 charter schools, this new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute should be of interest to all anyone concerned about the state’s charter program.Among the report’s findings:1) sponsors do not renew charter school contracts because of poor
Center for the Future of Arizona & Morrison Institute for Public PolicyMarch 2006
Several weeks ago, Baltimore managed to thwart a state takeover of several failing schools, including seven of the city's twenty-three failing middle schools (see here). This week, another story brings the Baltimore school district's bureaucratic inertia into sharp relief.
Over the past decade, champions of bold K-12 education reform, ourselves included, have often termed charter schools the most promising innovation. It's fitting that this week-National Charter Schools Week-educators, reformers, and policymakers are examining where the charter movement stands and where it's headed.
Talk to education reformers about the potential for district school boards to bring about positive change, and they’re likely to channel Nietzsche: School boards are dead. But are they? May’s Governing magazine profiled the school board in our hometown of Dayton, Ohio, which over the past several years has measurably improved Gem City’s perennially failing schools.
Imagine a school where Colin Powell teaches the finer points of diplomacy and Meryl Streep guides the newest batch of budding actors. It doesn't exist, but if it did, that's where New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof would send his kids.
Private scholarship programs faced turbulent waters up and down the Atlantic coast this week.
Belatedly, policymakers and researchers are recognizing that quality charter schools depend on quality charter school authorizing. This report presents findings from a pioneering national examination of the organizations that sponsor, oversee, and hold accountable U.S. charter schools. Its primary aim is to describe and characterize these crucial but little-known organizations.
Most discussions of charter schools assume that they are monolithic. This study, the first of its kind, categorizes the nation's charter schools into a robust typology according to their educational approaches. It also provides demographic information by type,how many are in each category, what their student populations look like, and so forth,and makes a first attempt at comparing their test scores. The result is a much richer and more accurate picture of the charter school universe.
Few wonky education articles make good movie scripts, but this excellent New York Magazine piece by Robert Kolker might be the exception. It details the battle over the Big Apple's reading program; the stakes are high. In one corner is Lucy Calkins and her Balanced Literacy program, a whole language approach in sheep's clothing.
American Institutes of ResearchApril 2006
Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. WintersManhattan Institute for Policy ResearchApril 2006
Jerry JohnsonThe Rural School and Community TrustApril 2006
Americans are becoming acutely aware of our high schools' failings.
Might charter schools begin the downfall of teacher unions? David Kirkpatrick, Senior Education Fellow at the U.S. Freedom Foundation, thinks so. He outlines the difficulty unions have faced organizing charter schools, mainly because it's inefficient for six figure-earning union staff members to target individual schools. Here's why.
Scott Montgomery Elementary School in Washington, D.C., is suffering from flagging enrollment. A new KIPP school, set to open in the District in July, is having trouble finding affordable real estate. The solution? Buddy up. In a first-of-its-kind move, the principals of Scott Montgomery and the newest KIPP Academy worked out a plan to share buildings and collaborate on teacher training.
Mark McCaig-who has a beard, holds a master's degree from Harvard, and is purportedly an expert in birds, shark teeth, and shiatsu massage (it's unclear if that's an exhaustive list)-works for Fairhaven School, outside Washington, D.C. But though McCaig manages the institution, don't call him a school administrator. At Fairhaven, "adults teach but are not teachers.
GreatSchools.net, the nation’s premier provider of online K-12 information, is embarking on an ambitious new project to provide quality educational information to Dayton parents.
The school year’s end approaches, and teachers in Ohio are scrambling to make sure they are “highly qualified” by the last day of class, as required by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
That Oprah has discovered school reform is probably a good thing, if only because she adds middlebrow legitimacy and an immense audience to most of the causes that she embraces, and because far too many Americans (middle-, high-, and low-brow alike) need reminding their schools, too, not just those across town, need a kick in the pants.
