Commentary
Private Schools for the Poor: A Case Study From India
James Tooley and Pauline Dixon, Centre for British TeachersMay 2003
Topics
Commentary
Standards-based Middle Grades Reform in Six Urban Districts, 1995-2001
The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation2003
Commentary
Hispanic Youth Dropping Out of U.S. Schools: Measuring the Challenge
Richard Fry, Pew Hispanic CenterJune 2003
Commentary
D.C. vouchers: past the point of no return?
Color us na??ve, but it seems like the stars may be aligning for a serious test of school vouchers in the District of Columbia. Tuesday, the House Government Reform Committee held hearings on a bill (H.R. 2556) that would provide private school tuition scholarships of up to $7,500 to low-income children in the nation's capital. Testifying in support were Secretary of Education Rod Paige, D.C.
Commentary
Civics and history bill moves forward
Senator Lamar Alexander's excellent bill to create national academies to strengthen education in civics and history for both teachers and high school students has sailed through the Senate.
Commentary
Making the Michigan cases moot
It happens that the Supreme Court's decision in two affirmative action cases came out just days after the release of the latest reading results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The latter show clearly that America still faces a wide education achievement gap between white and minority students.
Commentary
Support for graduation requirements not what it seems
While you're right that more than 80 percent of Americans support graduation requirements in theory [see "Resist urge to 'refine' graduation testing"], when faced with the reality of the impact on their communities and children, support will inevitably drop.
Commentary
Higher standards or grade inflation?
In what may prove a classic case of unintended consequences, California school districts, in a supposed effort to raise standards, are launching "No-D" grading policies, which require students to earn a C or better to pass a course.
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Commentary
Teach for America caught in AmeriCorps cuts
This week, the national service program AmeriCorps announced that it has been forced to make drastic cuts in its grant programs, due to past-year overruns and a continuing impasse on how it accounts for the education awards earned by members.
Commentary
Four Wars
No, this is not about Iraq but about four raging education battles, three in Washington and one in academe, all with mega policy implications. On the surface, each looks like a conflict between "keep it the way it is even though it isn't working" and "change it even though that'll be disruptive." Not far below is a tussle over - what else? - jobs, power, money, influence, and legitimacy.
Commentary
Accountability rollback in CA
Last month a study predicted that 20 percent of California's class of 2004 may fail the state's high school exit exam due to inadequate preparation.
Commentary
A grand bargain on teacher pay?
Matthew Miller thinks he's got the answer to teacher shortages in America's toughest schools - and maybe he does, since he's brought to the table both teacher union president Sandra Feldman and Fordham president Chester Finn.
Commentary
Performance-Driven Budgeting: The Example of New York City's Schools
Dorothy Siegel, ERIC Digest 168 May 2003
Commentary
The Performance of California Charter Schools
Margaret E. Raymond, CREDO, Hoover Institution at Stanford UniversityMay 2003
Commentary
Teaching Children to Read: The Fragile Links Between Science and Federal Education Policy
Gregory Camilli and others, National Institute for Early Education
Commentary
Research Perspectives on School Reform: Lessons from the Annenberg Challenge
Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown UniversityMarch 2003
Commentary
Is history, history?
An unintended consequence of the No Child Left Behind Act is that, due to the pressure to boost pupil achievement in reading, math, and science (the subjects tested under the federal law), schools are neglecting other valuable subjects, not least of which are history, civics, and geography - aka "social studies." Maryland, for example, no longer mandates assessments in history and social studie
Commentary
High School Issue Papers: For Youth and Adult Groups Organizing to Transform High School Education in the United States
In an effort to refocus attention on high schools - "the weakest link in a troubled education system" - the reform group Research for Democracy compiled this series of short essays on high school reform. Though their recommendations and research are not earth shattering, they underscore the need for higher standards and increased accountability for student achievement and teacher quality.
Commentary
A victory for NCLB, at what cost?
Tuesday, President Bush announced that all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico now have federally approved accountability plans in place and thus are in formal compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act.
Commentary
Resist Urge to "Refine" Graduation Testing
This month and last, as also happened during May-June 2002 in what threatens to become a new seasonal ritual, efforts to adopt state graduation testing are under fire. Nevada has announced that 12 percent of its 12th graders may not graduate. Florida reports that 13,000 students may be denied diplomas, while the number in Massachusetts is said to be 5,000. Parents are reportedly furious.
Commentary
Sabotage in the certification fight
The level of combat in the teacher certification wars escalated this week as the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) announced that the field test of its "Passport to Teaching" certification exam had been compromised by leaks to ABCTE opponents. (This new test is being developed as an alternative to traditional education school certification.
Commentary
Vouchers for Special Education Students: An Evaluation of Florida's McKay Scholarship Program
Jay Greene and Greg Forster, Manhattan Institute's Center for Civic InnovationJune 2003
Commentary
Beyond the Pipeline: Getting The Principals We Need, Where They Are Needed Most
Lee D. Mitgang, The Wallace Foundation2003
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Commentary
Efficiency, Bias, and Classification Schemes: Estimating Private-School Impacts on Test Scores in the New York City Voucher Experiment
Paul E. Peterson and William G. Howell, Harvard UniversityJune 12, 2003
Commentary
Must the statistics commissioner be lobotomized?
Controversy is brewing over President Bush's choice of sociologist Robert Lerner as the next Commissioner of Education Statistics and the Senate may well fuss about him during the confirmation process. He happens to be a first rate scholar with two decades of distinguished work under his belt, much of it in education and much of it relying on - believe it or not - federal education statistics.
Commentary
How Within-District Spending Inequalities Help Some Schools to Fail
One more area in which American schools and districts are less than transparent: the budget. In this working paper, presented at a recent Brookings conference on "The Teachers We Need," the University of Washington's Marguerite Roza and Paul Hill work from the bottom up to construct real school-by-school teacher salary figures in four districts, rather than relying on district-wide averages.
Commentary
New Head Start legislation: Now with 80 percent less reform!
Having introduced sweeping legislation to revamp the Head Start program on May 23 (the School Readiness Act of 2003), House Republicans have spent the past three weeks slowly rolling back its most important reforms.
Report
Charter Schools
Charter School Authorizing: Are States Making the Grade?
This new report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute is the first significant study of the organizations that authorize charter schools. The report examines 23 states and the District of Columbia to determine how supportive they are of charter schools, how good a job their authorizers are doing, and how policy makers could strengthen their states' charter programs.
