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Commentary
12.17.2003

The nightmare of Cuban education

At the holidays, it's traditional to count your blessings. This essay in the Houston Chronicle reminds us that, whatever its flaws, America remains a bulwark of freedom, a blessing, and a shining ideal. The author, a Cuban mother, is pained when her five-year-old son returns from school singing the praises of five Cuban spies imprisoned in America for espionage.

Commentary
12.17.2003

Southeast Asia: Short on cash, long on reform

Southeast Asian countries seem to be learning a lesson that's taking Americans longer to understand: bureaucracy should not get in the way of needed education improvements and the most important reforms are grounded in new forms of accountability, not larger budgets.

Commentary
12.17.2003

Straight talk across the pond

A recent report from the British government's Office of Standards in Education attributes the schools' continued failure to meet proficiency targets in math and English to "a stubborn core" of badly trained teachers with a poor grasp of subject knowledge

Commentary
12.17.2003

Good, bad, and troubling

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

There is good news, bad news, and troubling nonsense associated with the 2003 big-city NAEP results (for 4th and 8th grade reading and math) released yesterday by the Department of Education.

Commentary
12.17.2003

Mo' achievement, mo' money

In 1995, Texas philanthropist Peter O'Donnell started an incentive program aimed at improving the quality of Dallas public schools. Unlike most school reforms, this one was aimed at raising the bar for the highest achieving students in the school by awarding $100 rewards to all students who passed an Advanced Placement test, and $150 teacher bonuses for every student that passed.

Commentary
12.17.2003

Twas the day before vouchers

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

'Twas the day before vouchers, and all through the landThe foes of school choice had a further demand.The bus routes were planned with extraordinary care,Though Congress had acted with no time to spare.The children were nestled all snug in their beds,While visions of better schools danced in their heads;Rod and Gene in their office, and Nina by phone,Had reviewed

Commentary
12.17.2003

Union charges after charters

In October, Mike Antonucci and his invaluable Communiqu?? drew our attention to news that the California Teachers Association planned to spend $250,000 to organize teachers in Golden State charter schools.

Commentary
12.10.2003

Bad new ideas in New York

If there is a master plan behind the school reform agenda of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his chancellor, Joel Klein, we have yet to divine it. On some issues, their instincts are good - charter schools, for example (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=121#1520).

Commentary
12.10.2003

Terrorized by the tiniest

This week, Time has a chilling report on the increase in violent incidents among very young students. In Philadelphia, for example, schools chief Paul Vallas had to institute a get-tough policy after 21 serious assaults on teachers and fellow students by kindergartners last year, including one boy who punched a pregnant teacher in the stomach.

Commentary
12.10.2003

The high cost of bad curricula

Andrew Wolf reports in the New York Sun that the New York City department of education has "overspent its budget for professional service contracts by more than $200 million" over the past year, in pursuit of the elusive and unproven "professional development." According to Wolf, the Big Apple's schools are essentially trying to make up for the failings of their chosen "progressive" ma

Commentary
12.10.2003

Compromise on special ed

This week, Education Secretary Rod Paige announced new guidance on one of the stickiest questions surrounding the AYP requirements of NCLB: just how to deal with severely disabled pupils in calculating who is and isn't making adequate yearly progress.

Commentary
12.10.2003

D.C. vouchers in the House

This week, the pilot District of Columbia voucher program cleared another important barrier when it passed the House as part of a huge consolidated spending bill. Included are $13 million for the voucher program itself, $1 million for administrative expenses, and an additional $13 million for both D.C. public and charter schools. Children in D.C.

Commentary
12.10.2003

Keeping the courts out of education

American society is groaning under a tide of litigiousness, and education is one of the fields most profoundly affected by it.

Commentary
12.10.2003

Why not religious charter schools?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

The tragedy of urban education is the dearth of effective schools for poor kids. That acute shortage belies the right nominally conferred by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, namely that parents can move their children from failing public schools to better ones.

Commentary
12.4.2003

Title I clarification

As I read the November 13 edition of Gadfly, I noticed an error in your article on "institutional behaviorism" (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=123#1539).

Commentary
12.3.2003

Board bashing bonanza!

A remarkable two-part story in the Post-Gazette questions the need for and usefulness of school boards, those dinosaurs of progressive politics.

Commentary
12.3.2003

The power of one

Kathleen Porter-Magee

Observations from the NCSS annual conference

Commentary
12.3.2003

Houston, we have a problem

The New York Times has lowered the boom on the "Texas Miracle," claiming that its own analysis of SAT-9 test scores of Houston ISD students from 1999-2002 shows that the district made at best modest gains in reading and math, despite claims (based on the now-defunct TAAS assessment) that Houston schools had dramatically increased scores and closed the minority achievement gap.

Commentary
12.3.2003

Diamonds in the rough

Too often for our taste, articles in the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's magazine Educational Leadership reflect the status quo. But sense shone through in a recent issue on "The Challenges of Accountability," especially in articles by Craig Jerald and Frederick Hess.

Commentary
12.3.2003

Ernie is to Bert as...

According to Dahlia Lithwick of Slate, the First Amendment's Establishment and Free Exercise clauses are the "constitutional equivalent of Ernie's relationship to Bert - in that no one really wa