Tooley, Templeton, and tots
"If good ideas were all that mattered, everybody who has heard of Jeffrey Sachs would have heard of James Tooley as well--but they aren't, and you almost certainly haven't." So begins Clive Crook's perceptive tribute to
Toward a National Education Ministry?
Michael J. Petrilli, Chester E. Finn, Jr.The bi-partisan, governor-led, Gates-funded, Aspen-housed Commission on No Child Left Behind has produced a report that should be called No Idea Left Behind. Unfortunately, only a fraction of those ideas are sound.
How Much are Public School Teachers Paid?
Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. WintersManhattan Institute's Center for Civic InnovationJanuary 2007
State Takeover, School Restructuring, Private Management, and Student Achievement in Philadelphia
Coby LoupBrian Gill, Ron Zimmer, Jolley Christman, Suzanne BlancRAND CorporationFebruary 2007
Taking transparency too far?
Merit pay is controversial, especially when tied to student test scores. But if you really want to engulf the teacher lounges in acrimony, make the list of individual bonus winners (and losers) public for all the world to see.
The next best thing to a Super Bowl ring
This past week, as the temperature in Chicago dipped below zero, the Chicago Tribune's editorial board warmed itself by the ed reform fire.
The sum of the evidence
Martin A. Davis, Jr.Supporters of traditional math instruction were dealt a blow recently when the What Works Clearinghouse released its evaluation of elementary math curricula.
Nonbinding resolutions
California Assemblyman Joe Coto apparently believes that the Golden State doesn't have enough problems getting kids to graduate from high school; he wants to tack on more requirements for the diploma. That's fine when the requirements are academic.
Remedying remedial learning
And you thought trying to compute high school graduation rates was complicated. Try figuring out the percentage of students who need "remedial" work once they enter the hallowed halls of higher education.
Fie on fatalism
Chester E. Finn, Jr.School reforms come and go. But educational determinism, it appears, goes on forever. By which I mean the view that schools are essentially powerless to accomplish much by way of learning gains, no matter what is done to or about them.
Fordham West Wants You
Fordham’s Dayton office is looking for a talented Project Administrator to join its small team of dedicated Ohio staffers. The Project Administrator will support Fordham’s charter school sponsorship efforts and perform general office management duties.
Special Education Solutions for Charters
Quentin SuffrenOne of the toughest challenges facing charter schools, in Ohio and elsewhere, is the demands of serving children with special needs. Charter schools, like their district counterparts, educate any and all students who come to them (a fact still lost on many critics).
DPS Levy Deserves to Pass
Terry RyanIt’s no secret that my colleagues and I at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation have been critics of the Dayton Public Schools (DPS) over the past decade and have done our best--not good enough--to help create sound educational alternatives for kids whose prospects were blighted by the system’s disabilities.
Equity on the Horizon in Arizona
A new bill making its way through the legislature in Arizona would provide state charter schools with the same amount of funding as traditional public schools. The proposed legislation would increase per-pupil funding by $852 for charters serving K-8 students, and $993 for charter high schools. All additional funding would be provided by the state.
Dumbing Down: Outcomes-based and politically correct--the impact of the Culture Wars on our schools
Martin A. Davis, Jr.Kevin DonnellyHardie Grant Books2007
Great Schools for All: A Plan Big Enough to Close America's Largest Achievement Gap
Coby LoupConnecticut Coalition for Achievement NowJanuary 2007
Reading wars redux
Chester E. Finn, Jr., Martin A. Davis, Jr.For more than three decades, advocates of "whole-language" reading instruction have argued--to the delight of many teachers and public school administrators--that learning to read is a "natural" process for children.
School bored politics
School board meetings are the choicest venues to stage a culture war this side of the O'Reilly Factor. The best battles, of course, pit religion against science, faith against fact. And just when you thought this struggle was going stale, here comes Al Gore and his global warming docu-drama An Inconvenient Truth.
Next time, use Kinko's
To instruct students on the artistic technique of chiaroscuro, a Renaissance innovation that contrasts dark colors with intense whites, a typical teacher might display Baglione's Sacred Love versus Profane Love or Rembrandt's
A reformer is born (or so one hopes)
When New York elected Democratic attorney general Elliot Spitzer to succeed Republican George Pataki as governor, nobody knew exactly what tack he would take on education.
Vouchers over Easy
As we reported a few weeks ago ("Nothing easy in the Big Easy,"), every day brings new challenges to New Orleans's schools.
Whole-Language High Jinks
Louisa MoatsIf you thought whole-language reading instruction had been relegated to the scrap heap of history, think again. Many such programs (proven to be ineffective) are still around, but they're hiding behind phrases like 'balanced literacy' in order to win contracts from school districts and avoid public scrutiny. Louisa Moats calls them out in Fordham's new report, Whole-Language High Jinks.
Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56
Coby LoupRafe EsquithViking Press2007
No more bubble boys
Human-robot interaction may have been occurring a long time ago, but until now we've seen few practical uses for robotics in education.
Quality redoubts
At Editorial Projects in Education, we were starting to wonder whether the reception to the latest edition of our Quality Counts report and its Chance-for-Success Index had been a bit too positive.
Shame on the blame game
Teachers unions have lately taken a pummeling in the war of ideas (see here, for example) and yearn for some defending. Diane Ravitch provides it in this impassioned article from the AFT's flagship publication.
Desperate measures in Denver
Reporter Katherine Boo's recent piece in the New Yorker about education reform in Denver shows why good intentions, ideas, and actions are often slow to solve the problems of blighted schools.