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Textbook reform in California
Three bills before the California legislature would reform that state's infamous textbook adoption process. Assembly Bill 2455 aims to curb the ever-escalating cost of textbooks.
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The old argument on research
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an important article on pushback from the education research community concerning the use of randomized studies of education interventions.
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Shuck corn, not standards
Gadfly caused a stir in Nebraska when it criticized the state for "doing just enough to keep its federal funds while skirting the spirit of the accountability provisions" of NCLB - and the U.S. Department of Education for playing along.
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From the mouths of children&
Uncle Sam isn't the only one who wants to see evidence that schools are adequately educating their students. In Boston, a group of 8th graders caused a stir by creating a guide to the city's high schools based on their average test scores, dropout rates, and attendance records.
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Charters making gains in Michigan
New data available this week from Standard & Poor's shows that charter schools sponsored by Central Michigan University have made strong academic gains over the past three years. CMU is the largest university charter sponsor in the country, overseeing a quarter of Michigan's 202 charter schools.
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Director tests the bounds of recruitment promises
San Diego City Council member Rocky Chavez is in hot water for the unusual pitch he makes to students considering enrolling in his charter School of Business and Technology.
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Making choice work in the Commonwealth
Virginia, a mostly conservative state, would seem a natural environment for school choice and, in fact, polls show that many Virginians support choice as a means of injecting competition into the education system. Yet the Old Dominion has been inhospitable territory for this reform strategy, boasting one of the weakest charter laws on the books.
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Teaching Interrupted: Do Discipline Policies in Today's Public Schools Foster the Common Good?
Public Agenda, with support from Common GoodMay 2004
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Black flight
After Brown v. Board of Education and subsequent Supreme Court decisions ended de jure segregation, critics noted a disturbing pattern of "white flight" from urban public schools. According to Samuel G.
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Blowing smoke on NCLB
Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager opined last week that Wisconsin can exempt itself from No Child Left Behind on the grounds that the law is not fully funded and encroaches on state control of education.
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Brown in the classroom
As all know, Monday was the golden anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, and in honor of that epochal decision we have seen literally scores of articles celebrating and appraising it and its legacy.
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Serving Our Children: Charter Schools and the Reform of American Public Education
Kevin Chavous, Capital Books 2004
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Standards for What? The Economic Roots of K-16 Reform
Anthony Carnevale and Donna Desrochers, Educational Testing ServiceMay 2004
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From Bystander to Ally: Transforming the District Human Resources Department
Christine Campbell, Michael DeArmond, and Abigail Schumwinger, Center for Reinventing Public EducationApril 2004
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No good deed. . . .
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is pushing a bill to create a statewide charter district that could authorize charter schools anywhere in the state, which would then fund these schools directly, bypassing local districts entirely.
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New York, we have a problem
In the flood of dismaying statistics about American education, every once in while one bubbles to the surface that is so shocking it can scarcely be believed - even if you know it's true. Thus we learn that, among 8th grade New York City special ed students, the pass rates on state tests are 5 percent in math and 3.5 percent in reading.
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Ripples of Innovation: Charter Schooling in Minnesota, the Nation's First Charter School State
Jon Schroeder, Progressive Policy InstituteMay 2004
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Educational Freedom in Urban America
David Salisbury and Casey Lartigue, editors, Cato InstituteMay 2004
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The left and NCLB
Writing in the centrist Democrat magazine, Blueprint, Andrew Rotherham is characteristically perspicacious in warning that the left's opposition to NCLB may make its worst fears of "privatization" come true.
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Pay for performance profiled
New York Times reporter Diane Jean Schemo wrote a fine profile of Denver's new teacher pay-for-performance scheme (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=141#1740).
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Summer reading for your inner wonk
The summer 2004 issue of Education Next is out and contains many items worthy of your attention. For example, Jay Greene and Marcus Winters's account of how Florida's A+ voucher program has spurred failing schools to improve. Voucher-eligible schools, they found, made gains 15.1 percentile points higher on the FCAT math test than the Florida average.
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Colorado adopts college vouchers
On Monday, Governor Bill Owens signed the nation's first-ever college voucher program. It will award a stipend usable at any state university to all Colorado undergraduates who qualify for in-state tuition, with a smaller stipend made available for low-income students attending three private universities. The state already spends about $700 million on higher education each year.
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Education President?
Last week was "education week" for John Kerry's campaign, during which he unveiled a series of proposals that likely comprise the main education plank of his platform.
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Accountability in Nebraska
Based on your critique of Nebraska's approved state accountability plan (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=144#1771), it's clear that you know nothing about our system of assessment and accountability. You know nothing about the data supporting its validity and reliability.
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A creative way to cut NCLB costs
Education officials in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island announced last week that they were joining forces to create the New England Compact Assessment Program. In October 2005, all three states will begin using a common reading and math test in grades 3-8 and a common writing test in grades 5 and 8 to fulfill their NCLB accountability requirements.
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Appeasing degression
Washington State's Academic Achievement and Accountability Commission voted unanimously this week to lower the passing score in reading and math for fourth- and seventh-graders, and recommended lowering the pass score for the tenth-grade reading test on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), the statewide accountability test.
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Growth in School Revisited: Achievement Gains from the Fourth to the Eighth Grade
Richard J. Coley, Educational Testing ServiceNovember 2003
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Learning Partnerships: Strengthening American Jobs in the Global Economy
The Albert Shanker Institute and the New Economy Information ServiceApril 20, 2004
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Back and forth on charters
Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform is her usual blunt self in a recent exchange with the editors of USA Today, who bemoan financial, curricular, and administrative scandals among charter schools and call for greater accountability for them.