American exceptionalism
Free markets, for all their virtues, do a poor job of distributing public goods like education, right? Anti-capitalist gobbledygook, says columnist Robert Samuelson.
Free markets, for all their virtues, do a poor job of distributing public goods like education, right? Anti-capitalist gobbledygook, says columnist Robert Samuelson.
Didn't feel the passion of Labor Day? Not to worry. Just pick up the Ohio Education Association's (OEA) new handbook for collective bargainers--complete with the introduction "Prepare for Battle," a rousing call to arms by OEA's own Dr. Strangelove, researcher Patricia A. Turner.
Late summer in Ohio is open season on charter schools. With the release of the Ohio Department of Education's (ODE) state report cards on school achievement, critics have launched repeated volleys aimed at tearing down the state's charter school program. This year's carping is especially vicious as state elections loom in November.
Ohio's schoolchildren aren't being well served by the state's mediocre (or worse) learning expectations. That's just one of the findings of Fordham's The State of State Standards 2006, a new report which evaluates state academic standards.
This school year marks the first that Ohio gets serious about the Ohio Graduation Tests (OGT). Students in the class of 2007 will be required to pass the OGT in order to receive a high school diploma. It's a critical first step on the road to ensuring that the state's high school diplomas carry more weight both with universities and with potential employers.
At first glance, young Americans' college prospects seem bright. Four in five high-school students expect to complete a college degree, and most parents are behind them, with six out of 10 agreeing a college education is "absolutely necessary" for their child. Sadly, only one-third of all high school students will actually earn a college degree.
Advocates of educational choice always wonder why, if the goal of education is lofty learning by students, people quarrel so fiercely about the means of getting there. Case in point: Jake Heichert, a high school senior from St. Paul, who designed his own lesson plans and curricula.
Jason C. Snipes, Glee Ivory Holton, Fred Doolittle, and Laura SztejnbergMDRCJuly 2006
College BoardAugust 29, 2006
Last year alone, forty-four states bet the farm--the Phat Farm?--on physical education classes. They're hiring more phys ed teachers, requiring more classroom hours, and bringing in state directors to get American youths' modern-day "Battle of the Bulge" under control.
In the Times on August 9, Diana Jean Schemo, referring to the "Coleman Report" and to my 2004 book, Class and Schools, wrote that "while schools can make a difference for individual students, the fabric of children's lives outside of school can either nurture, or choke, what progress poor children do make academically" (see
A.A. Milne had it right: The greatest joy of childhood is the freedom to do nothing. But one can't do nothing forever, as Christopher Robin reminded Pooh in the last of Milne's classic children's stories."I'm not going to do nothing no more," Christopher Robin said."Never again?" asked Pooh.
Rocker Eddie Van Halen had a famously tough time concentrating in class and now, thanks to a provocative study by Thomas Dee of Stanford, we know why. Eddie Van Halen's teacher was a woman.
Standards-based reform is one of the two driving engines of education improvement in the United States and has been at least since 1989.
Two-thirds of schoolchildren in America attend class in states with mediocre (or worse) expectations for what their students should learn. That's just one of the findings of Fordham's The State of State Standards 2006, which evaluates state academic standards. The average state grade is a 'C-minus'--the same as six years earlier, even though most states revised their standards since 2000.
Education policy leaders from across the political spectrum flesh out and evaluate several forms that national standards and testing could take.
Steven Glazerman, Christina Tuttle, and Gail BaxterMathematica Policy Research June 2006
Center for Education PolicyAugust 2006In this, its fifth annual report on state high-school exit exams, the Center for Education Policy delivers no big news but lots of interesting snippets. CEP reached four broad conclusions in this year's study:
Textbook publisher Pearson Scott Foresman is now offering an interactive software program in history and social studies aligned to state standards, i.e. programs whose content will differ from place to place. Not the worst idea, provided the state's standards are worthy and that students can trust the images on their computer screens.
See Jane. See Jane study. See Jane's mom insist she take five AP courses, study six hours each night, perform 20 hours a week of community service, and earn a black belt in karate, all to impress Stanford's admissions officers. See Jane have a nervous breakdown. The Washington Post's Jay Mathews doesn't doubt Jane's story, but he doesn't think it typical.
Beth Waldron complains about the money that parents spend on back-to-school supplies. She longs for the days when her parents bought her paper, pen, and pencils and sent her on her way. Today, she carps, it costs an average of $86 to outfit a child for school. Surely you jest, Beth. How are modern kids to make it through the year on a paltry 86 clams?
Katrina brought a lot of devastation, but also a chance to convert New Orleans into America's shining example of school reform. Of course, the city schools were already well down the road to collapse before the hurricane arrived last year (New Orleans had 55 of the 78 worst schools in Louisiana); the devastation simply accelerated the timetable for reform.
Polls are focused measures of public opinion and policymakers and--especially--politicians tend to take them seriously. But a poll is like a piece of plastic sheeting: if transparent and free of bias, public opinion shines through; if colored by a particular agenda, certain wavelengths of public opinion are filtered out.
Last month, University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein penned a provocative Wall Street Journal op-ed showing how both the conservative and liberal blocs on the Roberts Supreme Court inconsistently apply basic Constitutional principles in support of their own policy preferences.
With last week's release of Ohio's report card data, many teachers, school leaders, and district officials are reflecting on accomplishments well-earned, and charting a course to raise student achievement this school year. In the same spirit, the State Board of Education is studying the current achievement data with a close eye on the future.
Parents, teachers, and school administrators in Dayton are no doubt confused over the state report card results and the paradoxical message they convey. While Performance Index scores are rising--along with some charters' and Dayton Public's ratings--the number of area schools meeting Average Yearly Progress (AYP) targets is declining.
It's no secret that the state's education funding system is broken--the Ohio Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional four times. But how to fix it?
Ohio's largest cities are rapidly shrinking. According to recent U.S. Census figures, Cincinnati was the biggest loser, hemorrhaging 6.8 percent of its total population--over 22,000 residents--from 2000 to 2005, a larger percentage than any other city in the nation.
Clothing companies are salivating over this year's back-to-school buying binge. And why not? Brand Keys, a market research company, forecasts a 15 percent rise in back-to-school clothing sales.