Yesterday, at a conference sponsored by Common Good at the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, education reformers and researchers (including our own Checker Finn) came together to discuss the educational downsides of excessive litigation and regulation. Teachers and administrators were described as walking on eggshells out of fear of lawsuits.
Columbia University president Lee Bollinger is full of folly. First, he offered the world a troubling vision of the future of journalism schools that would render them more like ed schools.
Social studies teachers across the country routinely try to teach their students "what things were like" at particular times and places in history. Many such lessons, however, are a waste of time.
When New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg won control over the city's long beleaguered school system, we were cautiously optimistic that this move might be the long-overdue change in governance that could help turn Gotham's failing schools around.
Two examples this week of why injecting competition into the system works. In Minneapolis, word comes that the local district has lost almost 5,500 students in the past five years, mostly to charter schools and suburban schools through open enrollment plans. In response, district leaders say they are looking into making their schools more responsive to the needs and wants of parents.
The American Enterprise Institute, the Progressive Policy Institute, and the National Council on Teacher Quality October 2003
Earlier this month, D.C. mayor Anthony Williams began to lobby for mayoral control over District schools - a move that has been tried in other big cities with mixed results.
We are heartened by news that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to dramatically expand the number of Gotham's charter schools from two dozen to more than 50.
AARP Knowledge Management, NRTA: AARP's Educator Community, and HarrisInteractive Inc.2003
Amanda K. Miller and Kathryn Chandler, National Center for Education StatisticsOctober 2003
Paul T. Hill and Kacey Guin, University of WashingtonEducation Policy Analysis ArchivesOctober 2003
The GOP is responding to allegations that No Child Left Behind is an "unfunded mandate" and that not enough federal dollars are being appropriated for it.
In the October 16 Gadfly, I cited a "sage observer" of the school choice scene who suggested that grassroots activism and the large sums being spent thereon are not actually influencing votes in the halls of Congress or state legislatures and that all this money and energy might better be deployed to elect different candidates rather than struggling to change minds of those alr
As reported earlier, Minnesota's swell new social studies standards are out for public comment [see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=114#1433]. Now you can read some of these comments and, alas, many are both harsh and moronic.
In 1970, on the reasonable assumption that teachers need to know something before they can teach it, California legislators passed the Ryan Act, mandating that people training to become teachers in the Golden State must earn a bachelor's degree before taking classes in pedagogy and suchlike.
The lack of intellectual diversity on college campuses today is not just an issue for conservatives. On Wednesday, four witnesses, three of them self-proclaimed liberals, talked with the Senate HELP Committee about the dangers of the one-sided education being provided at America's colleges and universities.
With the passage of the politics-governance Act (NCLB), states have had to adjust their accountability systems to comply with federal law. As a result, in the summer of 2003 Ohio's Governor Taft signed House Bill 3, which dramatically changed the state's assessment system and what it means for charter schools. This report helps charter school leaders coordinate their testing and data reporting procedures to meet state and federal guidelines, in the hope that all students might surpass Ohio's academic expectations.
Tom Loveless, Brown Center on Education Policy, Brookings InstitutionOctober 22, 2003
Jay P. Greene, Greg Forster, Marcus A. Winters, The Manhattan InstituteOctober 9, 2003
Learning First Alliance2003
Just as TIME reported that the College Board plans to drop the analogies section from the SAT, education blogger Joanne Jacobs recounts a story about a Kennewick, Washington high school teacher who, after a lesson on the Salem Witch Trials, asked his students to write a "Mass Hysteria Essay" in which they "expose injustices caused by mass hysteria" and "compare the causes and effects o
No Child Left Behind requires that, by 2005-6, all classes must be taught by "highly qualified" teachers. That means a teacher must have a college degree, state certification, and demonstrated mastery of the subject s/he teaches. But as with many NCLB provisions, it's up to the states to set their own benchmarks for certification and subject-area mastery.
We recently reported on a group of resourceful students and parents in Marysville, Washington who lobbied the governor, held a press conference, and went to court to try to get their teachers to end the longest teachers strike in state history.
To help states comply with the highly-qualified teacher and school-choice provisions of NCLB, the Department of Education recently awarded more than $13 million in grants to several organizations to help attract able professionals into teaching, to inform families of their educational options under NCLB, and to expand and study charter school achievement.
Eighteen long years ago, Denis Doyle and I wrote this in the New York Times:
With application deadlines looming, popular magazines have recently devoted much space to college admissions. TIME's cover story this week highlights changes the College Board has made to the new SAT, noting that it is "an exhaustive revision largely intended to mold the U.S.
Myles Mayfield, Allen Schirm, and Ruria Rodriguez-Planas, Mathematica Policy Research August 2003
Paul T. Hill, Center on Reinventing Public Education September 2003
