Commentary
Topics
Commentary
The Politics of Remediation: Institutional and Student Needs in Higher Education
Mary SolidaySeptember 2002
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Unraveling the "Teacher Shortage" Problem: Teacher Retention is the Key
National Commission on Teaching and America's FutureAugust 2002
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Teachers' Compensation in the US and Idaho or When Does $47,087 Equal $36,375?
John Wenders, Idahoans for Tax ReformAugust 2002
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School Vouchers: Settled Questions, Continuing Disputes
Pew Forum on Religion and Public LifeAugust 2002
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Summer school for new principals
Almost half of New York City's 1200 principals have been on the job for less than three years, and principal retirements are expected to grow in the next few years.
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High stakes testing not linked to dropouts
The dropout rate for Massachusetts high school students in 2000-2001 stayed steady at 3.5 percent, possibly disappointing critics of the state's new high-stakes graduation exam (MCAS), who had predicted that making the test a graduation requirement would cause dropout rates to skyrocket. In Boston, the rate declined from 9.4 percent in 1999-2000 to 8.5 percent in 2000-2001.
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Great principals are key to keeping good teachers in poor schools
It has often been noted that high-poverty schools tend to be staffed by less experienced teachers. In an online piece at WashingtonPost.com, the always-thoughtful Jay Mathews examines some of the reasons for this and some of the proposed solutions.
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The new and improved SAT
While many are suspicious of the changes that the College Board and ETS are planning for the SAT (changes made largely to placate the University of California, which had threatened to stop requiring the test), college admissions counselor John Harper argues in the cover story of this week's Weekly Standard that the new test is a big improvement.
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Teachers exploit loophole in law to qualify for extra pension money
In many states, teachers (and other state or local government employees) are prohibited by federal law from collecting "spousal retirement benefits" from the Social Security system when they retire if they have state or local government pensions. But a loophole in the law allows them to receive such benefits if they spend a single day-their last working day-in a different job.
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Teachers reject NEA's September 11 curriculum
The American Federation of Teachers and some other educators are scrambling to distance themselves from the "blame America" lesson plans produced by the National Education Association for use on and around September 11, 2002. The NEA's lessons urge teachers to discuss instances of American intolerance but avoid suggesting that any group is responsible for last September's terrorist attacks.
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Florida school puts a positive spin on failure
Teachers and administrators at a Florida elementary school hope to convince students that the "F" their school received from the state's accountability system really means "fantastic" and "fun." Pep rallies and t-shirts declaiming "F = Fantastic" are just some of the strategies this failing school is using to boost everybody's sense of self-esteem and complacency.
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Algebra for everyone?
Currently about 25 percent of 8th graders complete algebra or a higher-level math course, but students who don't complete first-year algebra by 8th grade are seldom able to take calculus in high school, which colleges like to see on transcripts.
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Public likes vouchers more and more, and tests too
The results of the 34th annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the public's attitudes toward the public schools were released on Tuesday, and as in other years, early attention has focused on what those results show about public support for vouchers.
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Purging history and literature from the schools
In a long essay in the Summer 2002 issue of Daedalus, Diane Ravitch ponders whether the current round of standards-based reform can solve the endemic education problems that undermine effective teaching of history and literature.
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Schools, teachers slow to take advantage of Internet
School and classroom websites, once hailed as a way to let parents know what their kids are doing in school, often languish today, with students and parents likely to find only outdated information such as school menus or homework assignments from the previous year.
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Making Sense of Test-Based Accountability in Education
edited by Laura Hamilton, Brian Stecher and Stephen Klein, RAND2002
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The Class Size Debate
edited by Lawrence Mishel and Richard Rothstein, Economic Policy Institute2002
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Growth of the Teacher Advancement Program: Teaching as the Opportunity 2002
Lowell Milken, Milken Family FoundationJuly 2002
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State High School Exit Exams: A Baseline Report
Naomi Chudowsky, Nancy Kober, Keith S. Gayler, and Madlene Hamilton, Center on Education PolicyAugust 2002
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Charter Schools and Accountability in Public Education
Paul Hill and Robin Lake with Mary Beth Celio2002
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Leaving many children behind
Don't think for a minute that June's Supreme Court decision upholding Cleveland's school-voucher program has opened the floodgates of education choice for American families.
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CliffsNotes for education statistics
The Heritage Foundation's Krista Kafer has compiled an education "CliffsNotes" of sorts, drawing from data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics and others.
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California threatens home schoolers
A memo issued by the California Department of Education last month warned parents that they may not home-school their children unless they have professional teaching credentials, the Washington Times reports.
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Moving Past the Politics: How Alternative Certification Can Promote Comprehensive Teacher Development Reforms
Virginia Roach and Benjamin A. Cohen, National Association of State Boards of Education2002
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The liberal case for privatization
Harvard Law School professor Martha Minow is ambivalent about the Supreme Court's decision in Zelman, but she has come to believe that the left's opposition to the privatization of social services is simplistic.
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Effectiveness of class size reforms hinges on student misbehavior
The larger a class is, the more student misbehavior reduces teaching effectiveness, suggests research by Edward Lazear, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
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A blueprint for reforming California's schools
The Pacific Research Institute has issued a brief guide to improving public education in the Golden State. The mini-report advocates 10 commonsensical but hard-to-implement reforms including: providing a school-choice accountability option, adopting value-added testing, introducing merit/ differential pay and testing for teachers, and ensuring the use of proven teaching methods and curricula.