Good news is no news on home schooling
On Wednesday, just after noon, I typed the term "teacher" into the Google news alert search engine. Here are five of the 10 headlines that came back:
On Wednesday, just after noon, I typed the term "teacher" into the Google news alert search engine. Here are five of the 10 headlines that came back:
Has the time come for value-added assessment? That's what some are suggesting in this Ed Week article by Lynn Olson. She reports that 16 states have written to the Education Department requesting permission to explore value-added assessments as a way of meeting NCLB requirements, with Ohio and Pennsylvania moving ahead to install such systems for state testing purposes.
According to the National Education Association, of the 41 states that have reported their NCLB test results from spring 2004, 32 showed improvement in the number of schools meeting their adequate yearly progress (AYP) goals. Cause for celebration? Perhaps. But before anyone makes grand claims, take a careful look at what those numbers mask.
The latest issue of Education Next came our way this week, and it's a good one. The cover story - Jim Traub's fascinating profile of the Hyde schools, where the focus is on rigorous character education - is a must-read. There's also a trio of articles about options for reworking the antiquated teacher pay schedule.
Outgoing education secretary Rod Paige is a great education reformer and distinguished public servant who leaves office after four years of accomplishment, candor, nonstop dedication to America's children, and loyal service to the Bush administration.
For the third time since the law was enacted in 1999, Florida's Court of Appeals ruled that the state's Opportunity Scholarship Program, which allows students in failing schools to use vouchers to attend a public or private school of their choice, violates the state constitution's controversial Blaine Amendment.
U.S Department of Education / Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE), Prepared by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. and Institute of Education ServicesOctober 2004
National Association of Charter School AuthorizersOctober 2004
Bryan C. Hassel & Lucy Steiner, Public ImpactDecember 2003
Will President Bush and his invigorated Republican allies in Congress seize their new opportunity to reshape federal education policy for the 21st century?One can hope.
A debate over constructivist versus traditional pedagogy seems to be brewing in Japan, of all places. In the 1990s, Japanese officials partially decentralized the nation's education system and began touting a teaching system that moved away from the drill-and-memorization approach that had marked Japanese education for decades.
In October, Congress enacted a D.C. appropriations bill that includes a "right of first offer" to charter-school operators to buy or lease surplus public school facilities at a 25 percent discount.
The Washington Post Magazine presents a must-read profile of a single mother from D.C. who has made immense sacrifices to get her two children the best education possible. Sheila Hutton is dogged beyond belief in her quest: "Every morning Hutton would call [her daughter's principal] to ensure her daughter was accounted for.
Yesterday, education blogger Joanne Jacobs wrote about a contest, jointly sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and Dickinson College, designed to help teachers address the subject of the September 11 attacks in particular and terrorism in general.
The Education TrustOctober 2004
Kalman R. Hettleman, The Abell FoundationOctober 2004
In this month's American School Board Journal, Kathleen Vail articulates the need for a dramatic transformation of the American high school.
On October 16, the New York Daily News reported that "Parents of students in failing city schools filed a class action lawsuit against the Education Department yesterday, arguing the city plans to illegally deny transfers." The suit "seeks to stop the city from denying transfers under the federal No Child Left Behind law." Said one mother (of five-year-old twins) who is party to the cl
Last week, we highlighted three races with education implications (click here). Here's what happened. In Florida, former state superintendent and university president Betty Castor was narrowly defeated by former Cabinet Secretary Mel Martinez.
With the President re-elected and the Senate and the House still firmly in Republican hands, it seems unlikely that No Child Left Behind will be subjected to substantial revision through legislation, as many opponents and critics (and some friends and admirers) had hoped. So send in the lawyers!
Despite an upbeat Education Week story highlighting the support of big-city mayors - including D.C.'s Anthony Williams - for charter schools as a way of transforming urban education, the charter movement continues to hit road blocks in the form of moratoria, caps, budget restrictions, and referendum defeats (see "Educa
Richard J. Coley and Ashaki B. Coleman, Educational Testing Service Policy Information Center, September 2004
Paul T. Hill and James Harvey, editors, The Brookings Institution2004
Ev Ehrlich and Tracy Kornblatt, Committee for Economic DevelopmentSeptember 2004
Modernity and its technologies bring many pluses. We can, more or less, learn everything we want to know about everything whenever we want to know it. Thanks to the Internet, 24-hour news, blogs and e-mail, we are awash in information and communication options.We don't have to wait until the morning paper arrives to learn what happened in the world yesterday.
You lament that Idaho's charter schools are funded at only 60-70 percent of the per-pupil cost of the state's traditional public schools and suggest their funding be raised toward parity ("New Idaho charter rules a start").
Just in time for Halloween, an update from the spook file. The blogger Bellaciao (motto: "To rebel is right, to disobey is a duty, to act is necessary!") has apparently unraveled the mystical meaning behind the No Child Left Behind act: it's a reference to the Apocalypse.
In 1998, the state of Wisconsin decided that only 15 percent of Milwaukee school children, or about 15,000 students, could receive a voucher under the city's school choice program. Now, as the city is just 100 students away from reaching this limit, a simmering debate over the merit of the voucher cap is coming to a boil.
In a bid to better position himself going into what will be a tough election year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg "is getting ready to trade away the education of New York City's children for a deal with Gotham's most powerful union boss, Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers." So says Ryan Sager in two recent Op-Eds in the New York Post.