How to describe the bizarre chain of recent events in Michigan? It began when philanthropist Robert Thompson offered to build 15 charter schools in the educational wasteland of Detroit, at a cost of $200 million.
In Iowa and Philadelphia, teacher pay-for-performance plans are in serious jeopardy. In Iowa, lawmakers are considering scrapping their state's initiative, which was adopted back in 2001 but never really implemented due to budget constraints.
Colleges and universities pride themselves on being havens of diversity where the best and brightest of every race, creed, and color come together to teach, study, and conduct research. However, as any non-P.C. academic is apt already to have learned in painful ways, this commitment to diversity is generally skin-deep.
Among the many arguments that voucher opponents level against the D.C. voucher program is the supposed drain they would cause in the District's public school budget. This argument is nonsense, especially in D.C., where Congress is ready to sweeten the pot with quite a lot more money for the regular public-school system.
The debate over the D.C. voucher bill took a nasty turn in recent days, with Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) accusing the GOP of using the voteless District as a guinea pig.
"Facts are stubborn things," John Adams famously wrote, "and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." Nowhere is that truer than in education, where passions and wishes often take the place of hard information.
Tom Loveless, Brown Center on Education Policy, Brookings Institution and RAND CorporationOctober 1, 2003
Jennifer King Rice, Economic Policy Institute2003
Joseph Viteritti, Political Science QuarterlySummer 2003
A fascinating Education Week profile features Mike Antonucci, author of the Education Intelligence Agency's invaluable weekly Communique on doings within the teacher unions (http://members.aol.com/educationintel/communique.htm).
In May, Gadfly reported that the Los Angeles teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, had managed to unseat several reform-minded members to win back the majority of the Los Angeles Unified School District School Board [see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=24#103].
The Long Beach (CA) Unified School District has received this year's $500,000 Broad Prize for Urban Education, the nation's largest education prize. This prize recognizes urban school systems that have made the greatest strides in shrinking the achievement gaps among ethnic and socioeconomic groups.
A state's academic standards are the recipes from which its education system cooks. A gifted chef may produce tasty dishes without great cookbooks, but most people's food isn't apt to be much better than its recipes.
There's nothing like a little old-fashioned blackmail. . . . The Wall Street Journal reports that education unions are increasingly turning to powerful allies in their fight against education privatization and outsourcing: public employee retirement funds and their billions of investment dollars.
Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, Simon and SchusterOctober 2003
John R. Logan, Deirdre Oakley and Jacob Stowell, Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research, Harvard UniversitySeptember 1, 2003
Is there any subject as disheveled, distorted and dysfunctional as social studies? As part of our continuing effort to revitalize the subject of social studies, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute offers Effective State Standards for U.S. History: A 2003 Report Card. This groundbreaking and comprehensive state-by-state analysis of K-12 education standards in U.S. history was prepared by Sheldon Stern, historian at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston for more than 20 years. It evaluates U.S. history standards in 48 states and the District of Columbia on comprehensive historical content, sequential development, and balance.
This week, a draft of New York State's five year report on charter schools was presented to the governor and legislature.
Florida voters take note! The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a report this week that's chock full of interesting findings about schools and reform strategies around the world. Among the more interesting results, the OECD report found that class size reduction is not the cure-all reform that many want it to be.
This fascinating new report starts with the well-known fact that poor, urban, and minority classrooms are less apt to be staffed by highly qualified teachers, then challenges the conventional wisdom that such people generally shun jobs in "hard to staff" places. Turns out that's not true. Plenty of well-prepared and qualified teachers APPLY for such teaching posts. But they don't get hired.
When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Zelman v. Harris, I thought the ruling would have little impact on the school choice debate because it dealt only with constitutionality, not the politics of actually passing a voucher bill. Now events in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere make me think I was wrong.The voucher debate has changed since Zelman.
The lively debate over a proposed federal voucher program for needy children in the District of Columbia has re-surfaced a familiar issue. In today's guest editorial, Andy Rotherham calls it ensuring "accountability" for private schools receiving voucher-bearing students.
Most businesses, when faced with a budget crunch, pare non-essential activities to save money. Firing essential staff is generally a last resort. In schools, however, teachers are often the first to go when money gets tight.
Bradley Portin et al., Center on Reinventing Public Education September 2003
Education TrustSeptember 3, 2003
Jay Greene and Greg Forster, Manhattan Institute September 17, 2003
Jeffrey Mirel, University of Michigan Paedagogica Historica, Volume 39, No. 4 August 2003
