Power to Parents and The True Cost of State Education
Rt. Hon. John Redwood and Nick Seaton, Centre for Policy StudiesSeptember 2002
Rt. Hon. John Redwood and Nick Seaton, Centre for Policy StudiesSeptember 2002
Scott Joftus and Brenda Maddox-Dolan, Alliance for Excellent EducationDecember 2002
Dan Laitsch, Education Policy Analysis ArchivesDecember 4, 2002
Edited by Michael Pressley2002
General Accounting OfficeDecember 2002
Gordon W. Greene, Jr.
Students in the Lone Star state's class of 2005 - today's 10th graders - will have to pass the new Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) in order to graduate from high school. A report released by the Texas Education Agency earlier this month indicates that more than 53 percent of students will have trouble passing the test and risk being denied a diploma.
I enjoyed Checker's recent piece on school report cards. [See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=31#438] But he neglected two big issues: First, the need for huge amounts of PUBLICITY to make parents aware that these report cards even exist.
A recent article in The World & I examines how computer giant IBM's massive Reinventing Education initiative - which seeks to bring classroom-and school-level successes to scale - is transforming not only the company's culture, but also the way teachers do their jobs.
As readers may have noticed, these "desk" messages tend toward the crotchety and Cassandra-ish. That's because we see plenty still not working well in U.S.
FBI agents have seized fur coats, alligator shoes, a $57,000 Tiffany tea set, a $13,000 plasma TV set, and hundreds of other luxury items from the homes and offices of the former president of the Washington (D.C) Teachers' Union and her assistant as part of an investigation into the disappearance of over $2 million in union funds over the past several years.
This month's issue of "&ize," the Institute for Justice's monthly compilation of media clips - features a case study on the future of school choice. Included are scads of news articles from the past year - many that you've seen but also some you may have missed - that document where the school choice movement has been and where it's going. A handy volume for any reformer's bookshelf.