Commentary
Commentary
Bad news for LA
In May, Gadfly reported that the Los Angeles teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, had managed to unseat several reform-minded members to win back the majority of the Los Angeles Unified School District School Board [see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=24#103].
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Broad bucks to Long Beach
The Long Beach (CA) Unified School District has received this year's $500,000 Broad Prize for Urban Education, the nation's largest education prize. This prize recognizes urban school systems that have made the greatest strides in shrinking the achievement gaps among ethnic and socioeconomic groups.
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No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning
Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, Simon and SchusterOctober 2003
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Segregation in Neighborhoods and Schools: Impacts on Minority Children in the Boston Region
John R. Logan, Deirdre Oakley and Jacob Stowell, Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research, Harvard UniversitySeptember 1, 2003
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Commentary
Flexing some union muscle. . .
There's nothing like a little old-fashioned blackmail. . . . The Wall Street Journal reports that education unions are increasingly turning to powerful allies in their fight against education privatization and outsourcing: public employee retirement funds and their billions of investment dollars.
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. . . .And keeping the unions honest
A fascinating Education Week profile features Mike Antonucci, author of the Education Intelligence Agency's invaluable weekly Communique on doings within the teacher unions (http://members.aol.com/educationintel/communique.htm).
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U.S. history standards flunk
A state's academic standards are the recipes from which its education system cooks. A gifted chef may produce tasty dishes without great cookbooks, but most people's food isn't apt to be much better than its recipes.
Report
Standards
Effective State Standards for U.S. History: A 2003 Report Card
Is there any subject as disheveled, distorted and dysfunctional as social studies? As part of our continuing effort to revitalize the subject of social studies, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute offers Effective State Standards for U.S. History: A 2003 Report Card. This groundbreaking and comprehensive state-by-state analysis of K-12 education standards in U.S. history was prepared by Sheldon Stern, historian at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston for more than 20 years. It evaluates U.S. history standards in 48 states and the District of Columbia on comprehensive historical content, sequential development, and balance.
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Public High School Graduation and College Readiness Rates in the United States
Jay Greene and Greg Forster, Manhattan Institute September 17, 2003
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Old Education Ideas, New American Schools: Progressivism and the Rhetoric of Educational Revolution
Jeffrey Mirel, University of Michigan Paedagogica Historica, Volume 39, No. 4 August 2003
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Making Sense of Leading Schools: A Study of the School Principalship
Bradley Portin et al., Center on Reinventing Public Education September 2003
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In Need of Improvement: Ten Ways the U.S. Department of Education Has Failed to Live Up to Its Teacher Quality Commitments
Education TrustSeptember 3, 2003
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The benefits of creative thinking
Most businesses, when faced with a budget crunch, pare non-essential activities to save money. Firing essential staff is generally a last resort. In schools, however, teachers are often the first to go when money gets tight.
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On Vouchers and Accountability
When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Zelman v. Harris, I thought the ruling would have little impact on the school choice debate because it dealt only with constitutionality, not the politics of actually passing a voucher bill. Now events in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere make me think I was wrong.The voucher debate has changed since Zelman.
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On Vouchers and Trojan Horses
The lively debate over a proposed federal voucher program for needy children in the District of Columbia has re-surfaced a familiar issue. In today's guest editorial, Andy Rotherham calls it ensuring "accountability" for private schools receiving voucher-bearing students.
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Charter schools-what they're cracked up to be
This week, a draft of New York State's five year report on charter schools was presented to the governor and legislature.
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Class size reduction-not what it's cracked up to be
Florida voters take note! The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a report this week that's chock full of interesting findings about schools and reform strategies around the world. Among the more interesting results, the OECD report found that class size reduction is not the cure-all reform that many want it to be.
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Missed Opportunities: How We Keep High-Quality Teachers Out of Urban Classrooms
This fascinating new report starts with the well-known fact that poor, urban, and minority classrooms are less apt to be staffed by highly qualified teachers, then challenges the conventional wisdom that such people generally shun jobs in "hard to staff" places. Turns out that's not true. Plenty of well-prepared and qualified teachers APPLY for such teaching posts. But they don't get hired.
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Reflections on 9/11
On this solemn anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, in lieu of a conventional editorial, we offer excerpts from five of the 29 thoughtful essays in Fordham's recent publication, Terrorists, Despots, and Democracy: What Our Children Need to Know.
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From the Headlines to the Frontlines: The Teacher Shortage and its Implications for Recruitment Policy
Patrick J. Murphy and Michael M. DeArmond, Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington August 2003
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Preparing Teachers Around the World
Aubrey H. Wang et al., Educational Testing ServiceSeptember 2003
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Commentary
No More Islands: Family Involvement in 27 School and Youth Programs
Donna Walker James and Glenda Partee, American Youth Policy ForumSeptember 2003
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Bush launches NCLB website
President Bush this week announced a public-private partnership between the U.S. Department of Education and the Broad Foundation-in conjunction with Standard & Poor's and the education data-crunching outfit Just for the Kids (JFTK) - to make disaggregated state student achievement data and other NCLB-related information readily available via the web for parents and policy makers.
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CA charter bills out of balance
A California bill that would strengthen state oversight of charter schools has come one step closer to becoming law, passing the California Senate and heading to the General Assembly, possibly within days.
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China puts private schools on par
Over the past few years, the number of private schools in China has grown rapidly, numbering more than 54,000 by the end of 2000 and likely far more today. These private schools have sprung up in response to the increased demand for primary, secondary and higher education - a demand that the government cannot afford to meet, given the size of China's student population.
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MN sets the standards
Minnesota's current statewide social studies standards are, as education commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke bluntly puts it, an "embarrassment." Encouraging, then, that this week Minnesota released a new set of draft standards in science and social studies that are, on their face, terrific.[For earlier coverage of the battle over pitching the Profiles, see
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NEA president supports vouchers for all
In a late-night vote Tuesday, the House of Representatives, by a razor-thin margin, approved the controversial bill to provide $10 million in private school tuition grants to at least 1,300 D.C. schoolchildren next year. As Gadfly reported last week, three prominent D.C. officials, all former voucher foes, came out strongly in favor of the new "scholarship" program.