Commentary
Teachers vs. parents
This week, Time reports that teachers have the toughest time managing their . . . students' parents.
Commentary
Science and nonscience: The limits of scientific research
American education research has turned a corner.
Commentary
California ELL scores on the rise
According to Daniel Weintraub of the Sacramento Bee, in California schools the phrase 'English Learner' is "finally starting to mean what it says." The latest results from the California English Language Development Test show that 47 percent of English Language Learner (ELL) students in the Golden State scored either "advanced" or "early advanced" (meaning at or approaching fluency) in 2
Commentary
Cheeseheads and vouchers
The Wisconsin Senate last week moved to ease the enrollment cap on Milwaukee's successful voucher program. (See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=168#2039 for more on the debate.) The bill would raise the current limit of 15 percent of Milwaukee's K-12 students by 1,500 for one year, to 16,500 students.
Commentary
Americans wooed by Canadian site-based management
American educators are streaming to Edmonton, Alberta to study that city's successful implementation of site-based management, which gives individual schools wide-ranging control over curriculum, budgets, and management.
Commentary
Rising to the Challenge: Are High School Graduates Prepared for College and Work?
Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Achieve, Inc.February 2005
Commentary
Budget blues and b.s.
Much caterwauling has accompanied the president's new budget. Senator Kennedy thundered that the proposal, which reduces Department of Education funding about 1 percent, to $56 billion, is "the most anti-student, anti-education budget since the Republicans tried to abolish the Department of Education." Suffice to say he is exaggerating.
Commentary
Building a Better School Funding System
Governor's Blue Ribbon Task Force on Financing Student Success in the State of OhioFebruary 2005
Commentary
Performance pay: coming soon to a union near you
Despite unions' knee-jerk opposition to any plan that takes teacher performance into account when setting salaries and determining raises and bonuses, teachers around the country are warming to the idea.
Commentary
Second verse, same as the first
The Washington Post's V. Dion Haynes reports on a "new" People for the American Way "study" of the D.C. voucher program.
Commentary
Giving in to North Dakota
As recently as two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Education reconfirmed in writing the message it had conveyed to North Dakota educators in December: the state's plan for designating elementary teachers as "highly qualified" does not meet NCLB requirements (click here for more).
Commentary
High standards for thee but not for me
In Duvall, Washington, parents are objecting to a "senior project" graduation requirement for high school seniors that requires a report, an oral presentation, and a "product" of some sort. Sounds reasonable enough to us, especially since everybody knows that big chunks of senior year are pretty much wasted.
Commentary
Confronting the madrassas
Any long-term strategy for peace in the Middle East has to include dealing with the pernicious influence of radical madrassas, the Islamic schools used to spread a venomous version of Islam and to grow new extremists and terrorists.
Commentary
Don't believe the "new union" hype
Every few years comes some event that is supposed to herald a new era of bipartisan togetherness on education. Five years ago, it was the news that former labor secretary Robert Reich supported school vouchers (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/102900-02.htm).
Commentary
School Violence and No Child Left Behind: Best Practices to Keep Kids Safe
Lisa Snell, Reason FoundationJanuary 2005
Commentary
Raising the Bar: Policy Recommendations for High School Reform
Commission for High School ImprovementJanuary 2005
Commentary
Highly qualified in North Dakota
This week, the U.S. Department of Education confirmed in writing the message it conveyed to North Dakota educators in December: that state's plan for designating elementary teachers as "highly qualified" does not meet NCLB requirements.
Commentary
How do you spell "missing the point"?
A local district administrator tells the Woonsocket (Rhode Island) Call that the district has cancelled the annual spelling bee because of . . . the No Child Left Behind act. You overlooked that NCLB spelling bee ban, huh?
Commentary
When to shut the schoolhouse doors
Nothing is more challenging than opening a charter school except for closing it, which can be a public relations disaster.
Commentary
Who's in charge?
Two related stories this week touch on issues of school leadership and reform, in particular, who's in charge of setting school policy and who should be. In the Charlotte-Mecklenburg (North Carolina) school district, Superintendent James Pughsley wants principals to have the flexibility and autonomy to run their schools as they see fit.
Commentary
Putting the Pieces Together: Lessons from Comprehensive School Reform Research
Christopher T. Cross, editor, The National Clearinghouse for Comprehensive School Reform2004
Commentary
The reading gap
Last summer, the National Endowment for the Arts released "Reading at Risk: A survey of literary reading in America," which, according to a Washington Post op-ed from Sandra Stotsky (author of our own State of State English Standards 2005) and Mark Bauerlein, showed that "from 1992 to 2002 the gender gap in reading by young adults widened considerably.
Commentary
Passing rates advance on AP tests
Passing rates on Advanced Placement tests are rising in every state and nationally, with 13 percent of all students earning a 3 or better on at least one test. New York leads the pack with more than 20 percent, while Maryland, Utah, Florida, and California are close behind. Since there is research suggesting that passing AP tests is a good predictor of college success, this is good news.
Commentary
Gadfly gets Gopnik wrong
I think Gadfly misread Alison Gopnik's essay, "How we learn." She certainly is not denigrating "routinized learning," which she describes as, "Something already learned is made to be second nature, so as to perform a skill effortlessly and quickly." She does distinguish between the two kinds of le
Commentary
High time for details on high schools?
The president's proposal to extend NCLB to high school may face rough sledding. Education Week runs through the various high school reform schemes being bandied about, including small schools, a common college-readiness curriculum, increased participation in AP and IB courses, and experimentation with the format of high schools.
Commentary
CEOs and Principals
The irreplaceable Peter Drucker, now 95 years old, wrote a brilliant piece in the December 30th Wall Street Journal about the singular roles and responsibilities of the American-style CEO. It set me to thinking about school leaders and wondering yet again why we don't view the principal as a CEO.
Commentary
Nearing the end of an era
Six years ago, when Alan Bersin became superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District, he began to implement his "Blueprint for Student Success," a series of reforms aimed at dramatically improving student achievement. The local teacher union promptly and predictably howled, but until November the school board backed Bersin (3-2).
Commentary
Unintended consequences in the Big Apple
Sol Stern has a great column reviewing the likely fallout from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case in New York City, which, if upheld in the courts and heeded by the legislature, will require the Empire State to increase funding for Gotham's public schools by more than $19 billion.
Commentary
Community school funding: Beacon Journal article
The Akron Beacon Journal ran an article on January 21st, subsequently picked up by many of the state's newspapers, that misleadingly suggests that Ohio's community school funding system harms traditional school districts and worsens inter-district inequities. This is inaccurate.
Commentary
Don't Turn Back the Clock
The goal of No Child Left Behind is clear from its title, but hundreds of Ohio students with special needs would be left in the dust if at least one state legislator and the head of America's largest teacher union have their way.