Jeopardizing a Legacy: A Closer Look at IDEA and Florida's Disability Voucher Program
People for the American Way Foundation andDisability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF)March 6, 2003
People for the American Way Foundation andDisability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF)March 6, 2003
Samuel Meisels, Sally Atkins-Burnett, Yange Xue, Donna DiPrima Bickel, Seung-Hee Son, Education Policy Analysis ArchivesFebruary 28, 2003
Students for Teachers, Yale UniversitySpring 2003
Rarely does a newly introduced bill deserve comment before it's even gotten to the stage of hearings, but you should know about this one. Senator Lamar Alexander--former U.S. Secretary of Education, Governor of Tennessee, president of that state's flagship university, and chairman of the National Governors Association--used the occasion of his "debut" speech on the Senate floor to introduce S.
Katherine Boles and Vivian Troen, Yale University PressMarch 2003
Anne T. Henderson, ParentLeadership Associates2002An Action Guide for Community and Parent Leaders: Using NCLB to Improve Student AchievementPublic Education Network, 2002
Darrel Drury and Harold Doran, New American SchoolsJanuary 2003
In a recent Gadfly (http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=13#305), I sketched the main findings of Hoover's Koret Task Force in Our Schools & Our Future: Are We Still at Risk?, a reflection on what's happened to American education in the two decades since A Nation at Risk was issued in
In several publications, the Fordham Foundation has helped to expose some of the suspect claims made by "intelligent design" advocates as they've tried to insert their neo-creationist perspective on evolution into science instruction in K-12 schools. Readers interested in this controversy may want to check out this month's issue of Commentary magazine.
Why is Edison Schools, a start-up firm that advanced a great idea to address a pressing need, an outfit with many talented people and lots of investor capital, still struggling to succeed in its core business of managing schools?
We learn from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, from surveys by the National Geographic Society, and from a hundred other sources that American students' knowledge of history and geography is lamentably thin, that their understanding of their nation's past is weak, and that their comprehension of the world outside U.S. borders is skimpy indeed.
Sylvan Learning Systems, the nation's top K-12 tutoring company, announced last week that it will sell its tutoring centers and focus entirely on higher education (operating colleges overseas and on the internet), an area which the company believes has greater long-term potential for growth.
The cash-stressed New York City school system is spending about $70 million this year on paid sabbaticals for 1000 veteran teachers, the New York Post reported last week. The teachers are on six- and twelve-month leaves of absences, taking college courses part-time.
First elected to the Milwaukee school board in 1995, independent labor organizer John Gardner is best known for his passionate support of Milwaukee's voucher experiment.
Pew Forum on Standards-Based Reform2002
Randall Reback, University of MichiganNational Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, Teacher's College, Columbia UniversityDecember 3, 2002
The American Federation of Teachers December 2002
The Governor's Commission on Teaching Success, OhioFebruary 20, 2003
With many states being forced to slash education budgets because of the overall economic downturn, opponents of charter schools are trying to seize the opportunity to kill new charter laws, to put a moratorium on the granting of new charters, and to reduce funding for already cash-strapped existing charter schools.
Kieran Egan, Yale University PressSeptember 2002
Marie Gryphon, The Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 466February 4, 2003
Paul T. Hill, Kelly Warner-King, Christine Campbell, Meaghan McElroy, Isabel Mu??oz-Col??n, The Center on Reinventing Public Education, The University of WashingtonDecember 2002
In 1999 Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and billionaire Eli Broad helped elect a new reform-minded school board for the L.A Unified school district. The teachers unions have fought back, though, and on March 4, two union-backed candidates defeated reformist incumbents supported by Riordan and Broad (and their political action committee, the Coalition for Kids) for seats on the school board.
New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein has been getting a lot of grief from reading experts about Month by Month Phonics, the reading curriculum he has selected for all but the top 200 of New York City's elementary schools. Now he's beginning to hear from math experts about problems with Everyday Math, the math curriculum he has mandated for all but the top schools in the system.
Since Virginia introduced its Standards of Learning (SOL) curriculum and exams in 1995 and 1998, respectively, not only have pass rates on the state exams risen steadily for all ethnic groups, but students in the state have scored higher on several national achievement tests, according to a study conducted by StandardsWork.
You might have thought that alternative certification of teachers was more vibrant, robust and widespread than ever, considering how many states now claim to have some form of it--45 of them plus D.C., reports alt-cert watcher Emily Feistritzer--and its warm embrace last June by Education Secretary Rod Paige. Think again.
Two school voucher bills have won approval in the Colorado Legislature, one each in the House and the Senate. Both bills would make publicly-funded vouchers available to low-income, low-achieving students trapped in failing public schools who would like to switch to private school, including religious schools.
Today, 88 percent of 8th graders expect to attend college, but many of these students will either not qualify for admission, not be permitted to enroll in credit-bearing courses, or never complete a degree. Why are so many high school graduates unprepared for college- level work?
Teachers (or prospective teachers) wishing to earn certification or degrees can now take advantage of an online program offered by Western Governors University (WGU) and partially financed by the U.S. Department of Education. The Teachers College at WGU, a virtual university that received accreditation last month, will offer associate's, bachelor's, and master's degrees in education.