The main reason important reforms don't get made in American K-12 education may be termed the Chicken Little Syndrome: the assertion that the sky will surely fall down if this change is made or, more temperately, the suggestion that the sky MIGHT collapse but we can't be sure so let's not take chances.
The discipline problems that many of today's teachers-even elementary school teachers-have to deal with may shock delicate readers. What's wrong with kids today? See "Schools Awash in Bad Behavior," by Linda Perlstein, Washington Post, July 11, 2001
In this working paper on the misalignment between consumer demands and the pedagogy of teacher professionals, J.E.
This report by the Southern Regional Education Board looks at one of our education system's biggest challenges: convincing new teachers to stay on. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, a quarter of beginning teachers leave the classroom during the first five years. "Reduce Your Losses" asks why many young teachers want to change careers soon after entering the classroom.
The Detroit Public Schools are short more than 1000 certified teachers, but the district has 440 such teachers performing administrative tasks as department heads, curriculum leaders or staff coordinators, and often not teaching, reports Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki in the Detroit Free Press.
The Charter Friends National Network (CFNN) has issued a revised (May 2001) edition of this useful publication, prepared by Elizabeth Giovannetti, Eileen Ahearn and Cheryl Lange.
Why do conscientious school board members act like cranky five-year-olds, and what can we do to make school boards more effective? Jay Mathews has some ideas in "The Freedom of Choice," by Jay Mathews, Washingtonpost.com, July 10, 2001
New Frontiers for a New Century: A National Overview is the title of the latest issue of Thinking K-16, published quarterly by the Education Trust. Authors Kati Haycock, Craig Jerald and Sandra Huang argue that we need to consider bold solutions to reduce the achievement gap that has plagued American education for decades.
As Congress wraps up the ESEA reauthorization process, standards-based reform has taken center stage. Soon, the debate over "adequate yearly progress" and other exciting details will end, and a timeless question will re-emerge: motivated by these new incentives, how should schools transform themselves in order to increase student achievement?
The National Education Association (N.E.A.) would rather die than let parents choose their children's schools-but this week it voted to let them decide whether or not their kids will take tests! What's the difference?
Since 1994, high schools in Los Angeles have been able to name as many valedictorians as they like rather than singling out one top student. To avoid making any good students feel bad, some schools had 30, 40, and even 90 valedictorians this year.
The National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council is at it again, taking money from the (Clinton) Department of Education to advance the education profession's conventional wisdom while claiming to be engaged in serious analysis.
I was out of the country last week and expected to return to find an end to the media frenzy about Education Secretary Rod Paige being (a) unhappy with his job, (b) "out of the policy loop" and (c) on the verge of quitting. Alas, this foolishness seemed, if anything, to have intensified.
Long-time education policy analyst Henry M. Levin now heads the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, based at Teachers College, Columbia. That center held its kick-off conference in April 1999. The conference papers have now been collected in this volume, which Levin edited.
Nearly all states post report cards on the internet that show parents (and others) how their children's schools are doing, but some of these report cards are more useful than others. The Heritage Foundation has created a web site that highlights the 10 best internet-based school report cards, explains why such measures are important, and includes links to school report cards in all the states.
Children First America has issued an eight-page brief describing bold reforms that the Kiwis have made to their education system over the past decade and a half.
The summer issue of the American Federation of Teacher's magazine, American Educator, has several must-read articles. E.D.
The Educational Research Service's new study of high-performing districts expands on an appraisal of high-performing schools that it published three years ago.
A year after the University of California system made changes in its admissions policy designed to increase campus diversity, Hispanic admissions soared 18%.
School choice researchers and critics discuss the strengths and weaknesses of studies analyzing the effects of vouchers in "The Problem With Studying Vouchers," by D.W. Miller, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 13, 2001 (Article is available only to subscribers.)
In "No Vouchers for You," Sam MacDonald explores the growing political divide between black elites and typical black voters over vouchers.
Diallo Dphrepaulezz's new report for the Pacific Research Institute tells the story of San Francisco's Edison Charter Academy, which made sizable gains in test scores after being taken over by Edison Schools, but which was nonetheless notified by the San Francisco Board of Education in March 2001 that its charter was about to be revoked.
Fresh from Canada, this compact package of ten papers, edited by the Fraser Institute's Claudia R. Hepburn, looks at whether and how competition-based reforms could benefit the Canadian education system. More than a few of its lessons also apply to-indeed, many were derived from research performed in-the United States.
The University of Washington's Paul Hill has written a fine short background paper for the Progressive Policy Institute on "charter districts," an idea that has been gaining interest as the charter-school movement has spread.
One in 10 Rhode Island students was suspended last year, and either sent home or forced to sit in isolated rooms for hours. The Providence Journal looks at who is suspended (disproportionately black students), why (less for violent offenses than for truancy and tardiness), and with what result.
Over the past few months, federal policymakers have grappled with both education and taxes. Americans want both improved education and tax relief, but some say these dual priorities are in conflict. That need not be so, according to the Cato Institute.
While public discussion of the education bill has focused on such hot-button issues as vouchers, much of the real drama in Washington-"what everybody was E-mailing and voice-mailing everybody else about"-is the "adequate yearly progress" or A.Y.P. formula, writes Nicholas Lemann in a narrative account of the progress of Bush's ambitious education plan through the Congressional gantlet.
Patrick Welsh, a veteran Alexandria, Virginia high school English teacher who often writes for the Outlook section of the Washington Post, describes what a new superintendent faces in Alexandria: "constant negotiations with and back-biting from a crowd of self-appointed community experts who think they know best how to run a school system." No superintendent can survive the minefie
