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Schools, Vouchers, and the American Public
Terry Moe's important new Brookings book has a title meant to recall his and John Chubb's influential 1990 work (also published by Brookings), Politics, Markets, and America's Schools. This volume should have an impact, too. Based primarily on a massive 1995 survey, it analyzes U.S. public opinion on vouchers more thoroughly and exhaustively than anyone has ever done.
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Dewey Does Tokyo
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Japan is overhauling its elementary-secondary education system.
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Is special education untouchable?
Senator James Jeffords may have made special ed reform even less likely when he let it be known that the White House's refusal to boost spending for this program was part of the reason for his decision to leave the GOP, writes Michelle Cottle in this week's New Republic. She explains why real change is unlikely and why that's most unfortunate for children.
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The perils of state-level data within a national system
As the big education bill limps through Congress, much debate centers on how to determine whether states are making real achievement gains, how to track those gains (or losses), and how best to compare states with each other - and with the country.
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Not enough choices in LA
The Los Angeles Times last month published a parent's sordid tale of gaming the magnet school system in LA Unified School District to help get her child into her school of choice. In the article, Gale Holland described how a system designed to help minority kids escape from overcrowded, substandard schools has morphed into a form of education poker. Students are admitted to
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Performance-Based Pay for Teachers in Wisconsin: Options and Opportunities, Wisconsin Policy Research Institute
Here's another worthy product of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, setting forth the issues that the Badger State would have to grapple with if it wanted to institute some form of performance- or merit-based compensation system for its public school teachers. This analysis focuses specifically on school-wide performance pay systems, i.e.
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Phi Delta Kappan, May 2001
I'd immediately drop my membership in Phi Delta Kappa, an educators' honor society of sorts, except then I'd lose my subscription to its eponymous monthly magazine, and that would mean losing touch with the conventional wisdom that I sometimes need to orient myself. With rare exceptions, you can count on this for education geo-positioning: you want to be pointed approximately 180??
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Potpourri
In a commentary published by the Hoover Institution which appeared in assorted magazines this week, Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby explains how she overcame her skepticism about standardized testing when she realized how cost-effective it is as a tool to foster desirable education change.
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Navigating Newly Chartered Waters: An Analysis of Texas Charter School Performance, Texas Public Policy Forum
The charter schools of the Lone Star State have been much in the news of late, particularly as the legislature grappled with a possible moratorium on their creation. That didn't happen, but people are understandably interested in how they're doing. After all, by 1999-2000, there were 142 such schools enrolling nearly 25,000 youngsters. How are they doing?
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Colorado Teacher Education 2000: A Review of Four Institutions, Colorado Commission on Higher Education/National Association of Scholars
The Colorado Commission on Higher Education (CCHE) wanted to determine whether the state's ed schools were tailoring their teacher training programs to the state's academic standards for students as well as to new performance standards (set by the state Board of Education) for schools of education. The CCHE asked the National Association of Scholars (NAS) to examine four teacher ed programs.
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Washington Education Watch: No Rest for the Weary
In case you thought mauling President Bush's ESEA plan was the only education business facing the 107th Congress, think again. A big sign belongs over the Beltway saying "Caution: Special Ed Ahead." By October 2002, Senate and House are supposed to reauthorize the expiring portions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which drives most special education policy in the U.S.
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The Betrayed Generation: Standards in British Schools 195-2
The indefatigable John Marks has been one of the closest and most critical observers of British education. This report from the London-based Centre for Policy Studies is an informed critique of British education standards and performance. It includes an interesting comparison between the "selective" system of Northern Ireland and the "comprehensive" system of England.
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Tribute for a Light: Public Education Spending & Staffing
Mike Antonucci's Education Intelligence Agency is not only the nation's invaluable source of otherwise inaccessible information about teacher unions; it is also, increasingly, a useful producer of interesting education data.
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Technology Counts 2001: The New Divides
Education Week's annual assessment of technology and education holds few surprises, but it does highlight an interesting shift in the terms of the education technology debate, from an emphasis on how many computers can be found in each classroom to how well (and for what) they are being used.
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Written Off: Texas' Dropout Problem
The Dallas Morning News ran a series on dropouts last week which included 19 stories under five headings: how big is the dropout problem?; why do kids drop out?; the Latino dropout problem; one problem, many solutions; and finding the will to solve it. The series is Written Off: Texas' Dropout Problem.
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Educational Leadership May 2001
This flagship monthly publication of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) is intermittently interesting, though its basic orientation is progressivist and constructivist. The May 2001 issue is better than most, particularly for those interested in teachers.
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Brookings Papers on Education Policy 2001
Our own Diane Ravitch has edited the third in her series of these thick but valuable volumes, this one based on a May 2000 Brookings conference devoted to academic standards in the U.S. Weighing in at 414 pages, this is indispensable for any serious follower of (or participant in) standards-based education reform.
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Overcoming the High School Senior Slump: New Education Policies
Authored by Stanford education professor Michael W. Kirst, this 24-page report is the latest in the "Perspectives in Public Policy: Connecting High Education and the Public School" series, published by The Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) and The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
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Leadership for Student Learning: Recognizing the State's Role in Public Education
The Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) sometimes does good work. And then sometimes it makes you want to throw up. This particular task force report makes one good point: states are in the education policy driver's seat. Then it argues that state policy makers aren't very good at driving.
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Differences in the Gender Gap: Comparisons Across Racial/Ethnic Groups in Education and Work
Richard J. Coley of the Educational Testing Service, the author of this 51-page report, concludes that, with a few exceptions, gender differences on most academic outcomes do not vary much across racial or ethnic groups.
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Closing The Deal, Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights
If you share our concern about whether the forthcoming E.S.E.A. amendments can successfully be implemented, this report tells a cautionary tale.
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Is Testing Only Good for Poor Kids?
A new analysis of state testing data by the Council of the Great City Schools finds that many of the nation's urban schools are posting significant gains in math and reading and reducing achievement gaps between white and minority students.
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Growing Pains: An Evaluation of Charter Schools in the District of Columbia, 1999-2000
Co-authors Jeffrey Henig, Thomas Holyoke, Natalie Lacireno-Paquet and Michele Moser of the Center for Washington Area Studies at George Washington University present a comprehensive status report on the D.C. charter scene in this crisp and readable evaluation.
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Adequate Yearly What?
As I write, the House of Representatives has just completed floor action on the education bill and the Senate is expected to return to it soon. The Senate has a bunch more amendments to consider, some of them important, some of them even germane.
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New York City's Public Schools: The Facts About Spending and Performance
by Emanuel Tobier (Manhattan Institute, May 2001)
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Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment
National Academy of Sciences