Charter Schools and Inequality: National Disparities in Funding, Teacher Quality, and Student Support
Policy Analysis for California EducationApril 2003
Policy Analysis for California EducationApril 2003
Robert Holland, The Lexington InstituteMarch 2003
John U. OgbuLawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.2003
Krista Kafer, The Heritage FoundationMarch 26, 2003
Patricia M. Lines, The ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management2003
Council of the Great City SchoolsMarch 2003
Now that a scientific consensus has been reached on how best to teach children to decode words, the time has come to move on to challenge of boosting their reading comprehension. The Spring 2003 issue of American Educator focuses on this topic. The lead article, by E.D. Hirsch, explains how weak comprehension ruins poor children's chances to achieve academic success.
After reading experts criticized Month by Month Phonics, the reading curriculum that he had originally selected for citywide implementation, on grounds that it lacked evidence of effectiveness, New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein has quietly decided to supplement it with a phonics-intensive program developed by Voyager Expanded Learning and based on sound reading research.
Last week, the Colorado Senate narrowly passed a pilot voucher bill that, when signed, will mark the first voucher plan enacted since last year's landmark Zelman decision. The Colorado House, which passed a similar version of the bill on February 19, is reviewing the Senate amendments.
Arkansas, Arizona, South Dakota, Kansas, Vermont, Iowa and Idaho are presently weighing proposals to reduce the number of school districts within their borders by consolidating some of them into larger units.
Parents, principals, and policymakers who want to know what research shows about the effectiveness of the Core Knowledge (CK) curriculum will find a useful summary in an article in the Core Knowledge Foundation newsletter. It summarizes three large studies that compare the academic performance of students in CK schools with pupils in control groups.
Just five years after California voters approved Proposition 227, which replaced bilingual education with English-only programs for most California LEP students, the number of English learners who scored "proficient' on the state's language test has risen significantly.
Kaplan, Inc. will open a "virtual" school of education in 2004, to be led by former New York City chancellor Harold Levy. The school hopes to attract working adults and midcareer professionals who will take their classes via distance learning and also have clinical experiences in K-12 classrooms.