Putting a wrinkle into Governor Jeb Bush???s plans to allow students trapped in failing schools to transfer to private schools, a Tallahassee judge earlier this week struck down Florida???s three-year-old voucher program, ruling that it violated the state constitution by aiding religious schools with tax dollars - and following very different jurisprudential reasoning than the U.S.
Religious leaders in Pakistan are blasting a government plan to crack down on that nation???s 10,000 madrasas, Islamic schools that often foster religious extremism, and the government has been too nervous to press for reforms, according to an article in The New York Times.
The Advanced Placement (AP) program has taken a beating this year, with Harvard announcing that it would only give credit for scores of 5 on AP tests and several prominent private schools withdrawing from the program altogether.
With New York City focused on the question of what it takes to be an effective school system leader for the 21st century, the Times published profiles of four respected superintendents in this Sunday's Education Life section: Alan Bersin (San Diego), Carmen Russo (Baltimore), Joseph Olchefske (Seattle), and Barbara Byrd-Bennett (Cleveland).
Three weeks ago, we directed readers to an article in The Wall Street Journal by Jay Greene arguing that, contrary to what was reported by the Harvard Civil Rights Project, private schools are actually more integrated than public schools.
Randy Elliott Bennett, Journal of Technology, Learning and AssessmentJune 2002
Sondra Cooney and Gene Bottoms, Southern Regional Education Board2002
James E. Bruno, Education Policy Analysis ArchivesJuly 26, 2002
National Geographic Society and Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning2002
edited by George W. Bohrnstedt and Brian M. Stecher, CSR Research ConsortiumAugust 2002
A host of opposing forces-not a failure of will, goals or effort-is what's retarding urban schools, writes ace journalist Richard Whitmire in the Democratic Leadership Council's Blueprint Magazine.
On Monday, July 29th, New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg named Joel I. Klein, the chairman and chief executive of Bertelsmann Inc., and a former assistant attorney general in the Clinton administration-where he led the antitrust prosecution of Microsoft-as chancellor of the city's public school system.
Seven months after President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, and one month after the U.S. Department of Education announced that children at 8,652 low-performing schools are now eligible to transfer to higher-performing schools, some states and school districts are giving the new law's approach to failing schools a chilly embrace.
Some weeks back, I used this space to describe ways that a state's academic standards may be lowered, including several that occur out of public view.
A recent issue of Duke Magazine featured a profile of the Media and Technology Charter High School, started by a Duke alumnus to serve students from the worst neighborhoods in Boston.
Fueled by an active business community, frustrated parents, reform-minded local legislators, dedicated entrepreneurs (and some assistance from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation), charter schools have flourished in Dayton, Ohio, which some term "ground zero" of the national charter movement.
The Department of Education has given the Blue Ribbon School award since 1982, but attention has recently been drawn to the fact that not all honored schools can actually claim stellar records of student achievement. Accordingly, the DOE recently announced that test scores and test score improvements will become a major component of the selection process.
As the editor of Teachers As Owners, I couldn't be happier with the conclusion in the recent Gadfly review, namely that "one can't put the book down without noting the chasm between these ideas and the reality of most American schools." (See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=51#770.) Notwithst
A new report from the National Research Council proposes that math and science Ph.D.s, who face fewer job openings in academia, should instead try teaching in K-12 schools, which are in dire need of math and science teachers.
Last week, the Camden city council unanimously approved a resolution asking the New Jersey legislature to award hefty $6,000 vouchers to students in the city's notoriously low-performing schools. The measure-which faces steep opposition from the governor and teachers union-marks the first time a Northeastern municipality has endorsed a publicly funded voucher program.
Richard Noeth and George Wimberly, ACT2002
Marie Gryphon and David Salisbury, CATO InstituteJune 10, 2002
Paul A. Herdman, New American SchoolsApril 4, 2002
Paul E. Barton, Educational Testing ServiceMay 2002
Deborah Nelson, Consortium for Policy Research in EducationMay 2002
Teachers nationwide are scrambling to create lesson plans in observance of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, turning for help to new university workshops like "Understanding the World After September 11" and tolerance-heavy lesson plans such as a National Council for the Social Studies lesson about "Osama," a young Iraqi immigrant to the US who is teased at school because of his name.
A remedial reading program with basic phonics instruction and sentences like "Dad had a sad lad," is being taught to 35,000 middle and high school students in the Los Angeles Unified School District this year, much to the embarrassment of students in the program, who landed in these classes due to their low Stanford 9 reading scores.
