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Commentary
10.22.2003

Who needs school boards?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Eighteen long years ago, Denis Doyle and I wrote this in the New York Times:

Commentary
10.22.2003

Who put test makers and newsweeklies in charge?

With application deadlines looming, popular magazines have recently devoted much space to college admissions. TIME's cover story this week highlights changes the College Board has made to the new SAT, noting that it is "an exhaustive revision largely intended to mold the U.S.

Commentary
10.22.2003

Setting a low bar for highly qualified teachers

No Child Left Behind requires that, by 2005-6, all classes must be taught by "highly qualified" teachers. That means a teacher must have a college degree, state certification, and demonstrated mastery of the subject s/he teaches. But as with many NCLB provisions, it's up to the states to set their own benchmarks for certification and subject-area mastery.

Commentary
10.15.2003

The politics of foreign policy funding

A few weeks ago, New York Times columnist David Brooks penned an editorial in which he talked about academe's not-so-subtle bias against center-right or conservative viewpoints [see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=117#1474].

Commentary
10.15.2003

Unions fight virtual academy

Education Minnesota, the state teachers' union, filed suit on Thursday to shut down the Minnesota Virtual Academy, an online school that is a partnership between a small Minnesota school district and K12, the online curriculum provider founded by former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett.

Commentary
10.15.2003

Are school-choice funders wasting their money?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Observing Congressional vote-counting for the beleaguered D.C. voucher bill, one of America's sagest observers of the school choice scene asked the other day if I had noticed that the tireless and costly grass-roots efforts of innumerable pro-choice organizations seem to be having absolutely no effect on the willingness of individual Senators and Representatives to vote for the measure?

Commentary
10.15.2003

A new investment in school choice?

Alexander Russo

Earlier this year, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a somewhat unusual addition to its K-12 portfolio: nearly $19 million over five years to expand the "Cristo Rey" schools nationwide.On the surface, this announcement appeared to be no more than a new element in the $450 million Gates Foundation effort to promote

Commentary
10.15.2003

Seeds of hope

The latest in Jay Mathews's Washington Post series on innovative teachers features Rafe Esquith, a middle school teacher in Los Angeles who has created an oasis of excellence inside his educationally arid public school.

Commentary
10.15.2003

Show them what they've won!

The European Union, in what Gadfly can only call a retrograde move, recently awarded a grant to a school in Italy that teaches young Italian women the skills they need to become game show hosts and showgirls.

Commentary
10.15.2003

Charter challenges all over

Life is getting harder for charter schools and those seeking to start them. In Massachusetts, word comes this week that new charter applications are down more than 50 percent--just 14, compared to 35 last year.

Commentary
10.8.2003

Noticias excitantes para la reforma de educacion

We welcome a new player on the education-choice team, the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options, or Hispanic CREO. The group was launched today at the National Press Club, with a follow-up conference in Washington and the release of a new study on Hispanic students and choice, authored by Jay Greene of the Manhattan Institute.

Commentary
10.8.2003

Are unions accountable, too?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

"If men were angels," Madison wrote in Federalist #51, "no government would be necessary."

Commentary
10.8.2003

Sad state of service

The latest issue of National Review contains a special section on education, featuring Victor Davis Hanson (a contributor to Fordham's recent publication Terrorists, Despots, and Democracy: What Our Children Need to Know) on the Iraq War and college campuses.

Commentary
10.8.2003

Children, seen and heard

In August, the Marysville, Washington school superintendent refused to comply with 30 union demands, including across-the-board raises that would have cost the district $14 million. And so, on September 1st - the first day of school, chosen to cause maximum chaos - Marysville teachers began what is about to become the longest strike in the state's history.

Commentary
10.8.2003

New college try

Standardized tests may be under attack in America but they turn out to be a godsend for Russian parents. That nation's college entrance exams, relics of the Communist era, are specific to each university and usually involve professors drilling applicants in an oral exam.