Commentary
Affirmative action for speakers of second languages
A year after the University of California system made changes in its admissions policy designed to increase campus diversity, Hispanic admissions soared 18%.
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Commentary
Paige Nonsense
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.
Commentary
Report card on report cards
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.
Commentary
Privatizing Education: Can the Marketplace Deliver Choice, Efficiency, Equity, and Social Cohesion?
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.
Commentary
School Choice in New Zealand: Sixteen Years of Unprecedented Success
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.
Commentary
Summer reading from the AFT
The summer issue of the American Federation of Teacher's magazine, American Educator, has several must-read articles. E.D.
Commentary
High Student Achievement: How Six School Districts Changed into High-Performing Systems
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.
Commentary
What superintendents are up against
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
Commentary
The Fight to Save the Edison Charter in San Francisco, Pacific Research Institute
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.
Commentary
Tough Issues for E.S.E.A. Conferees
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.
Commentary
Fiscal Analysis of a $500 Federal Education Tax Credit to Help Millions, Save Billions, Cato Institute
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.
Commentary
Blacks divided on vouchers
In "No Vouchers for You," Sam MacDonald explores the growing political divide between black elites and typical black voters over vouchers.
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Commentary
Do suspensions work?
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.
Commentary
Charter School Districts, Progressive Policy Institute
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.
Commentary
Can the Market Save Our Schools? Fraser Institute
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.
Commentary
The Unfinished Revolution: Learning, Human Behavior, Community, and Political Paradox
This provocative book by John Abbott and Terry Ryan argues that our education problem isn't something that can be solved by altering schools but, rather, must be tackled by entire communities. They don't, in fact, believe that today's schools are the right focus for tomorrow's education.
Commentary
Education at a Glance 2001
The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) is becoming a steadily more useful source of interesting and worthwhile education data, much of it contained in the now-annual publication named Education at a Glance.
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Ahead of the Class: A Handbook for Preparing New Teachers from New Sources
Much ink has been spilled over the alarming estimate that our schools will need upwards of 2 million new teachers by 2010. Some U.S. schools are already experiencing a teacher shortage.
Commentary
A Jay Mathews hat trick
If you read the Washington Post, you may already have seen reporter Jay Mathews' article about the Saxon math program, which helps children learn but which the powers that be in most school districts refuse to adopt.
Commentary
Catalyst for Cleveland Schools: Mayors in Charge
The May/June 2001 edition of Catalyst for Cleveland Schools is out and it focuses on the effectiveness of mayors in reforming education, with a close look at four cities - Cleveland, Chicago, Boston, and Detroit. In Cleveland, Mayor Michael R. White has distinguished himself by having a lot of power but rarely showing it, more often allowing school chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett to lead.
Commentary
Catholic Schools in New York City
Raymond Domanico has written a 26-page report comparing the academic performance of New York City's Catholic elementary schools with the city's public schools.
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Change is the name of the game in Memphis
The American Association of School Administrators named Gerry House superintendent of the year in 1999. House was hailed by her peers as a visionary, in part for insisting that all 165 schools in her Memphis school district implement a comprehensive reform model. She also won one of the coveted McGraw education prizes for this work.
Commentary
Charter School Prospects
Not all charter school news is good, in part because not all the schools are good. Recent state proficiency test scores for many Ohio charters, for example, were pretty disheartening. Everyone knows that Texas has a handful of inadequate charter schools. So are a few in the nation's capital.
Commentary
Can AP courses save inner city high schools?
The May issue of Catalyst, Voices of Chicago's School Reform, contains four articles that examine the district's attempt to use Advanced Placement courses and International Baccalaureate programs to boost student achievement in the Windy City's high schools. http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/05-01/0501toc.htm
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Turning themselves around after being failed by the public schools
In Washington, DC, where the high school graduation rate is only 57 percent, what happens to the other 43 percent? Many later try to earn their diplomas by passing the GED, but only 34 percent of those taking the GED exam in DC pass it (compared to 70 percent nationwide). In this week's Washington City Paper, Garance Franke-Ruta puts a human face on these glum statistics i
Commentary
Evaluations of Privately Funded Vouchers
In the past several days, you may well have read assertions by U.S. Senators, explaining their vote against the Gregg amendment to include a voucher pilot program in the big elementary/secondary education bill, to the effect that there is no evidence that such programs work.
Commentary
A New Era of School Reform: Going Where the Research Takes Us
This 105-page study, prepared by Robert J. Marzano of the McRel (Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning) regional lab under contract to the U.S. Department of Education, is an important, albeit rather technical, synthesis of 40 years of research on the characteristics of effective schools and effective teaching.
Commentary
10 good things we owe to high-stakes testing
Inspired by the negative character of most commentary on high-stakes testing in the press and the education literature, University of North Carolina psychometrician Greg Cizek has compiled a list of 10 good things that have been brought about by increased reliance on testing in our nation's schools.
Commentary
Freshmen not ready to graduate from high school in California
California gave its new high school exit exam for the first time this year and newspapers across the state last week made much of the "abysmal" results: less than 45 percent of the state's 9th graders passed the test. While a committee of teachers had recommended that the state set the passing score at 70 percent, the state board of education voted to lower the bar to 60 in Englis