Commentary
The High School Transcript Study: A Decade of Change in Curricula and Achievement
Robert Perkins, Brian Kleiner, Stephen Roey, and Janis Brown, Westat and National Center for Education StatisticsApril 2004
Commentary
Inquirer and Gadfly wrong on teacher data release
The suggestion that the Pennsylvania Department of Education is "refusing" to release district-by-district data or public information is just not accurate ("Secrecy vs. sunshine"). The controversy began when the School District of Philadelphia asked the Department to produce an interim report.
Commentary
NCLB bringing change to the windy city?
The Sun-Times reports that Chicago students who used the school-choice provision of No Child Left Behind to transfer from weak to stronger schools showed gains in reading and math. Further, the transfers didn't harm either the schools they left or the schools they entered, according to a study performed by the Chicago Board of Education at the paper's request.
Commentary
The Nation shifts paradigms
Writing in The Nation, Stanford professor Claude Steele makes a number of points about the "ability paradigm," his term for the testing system that assesses the academic readiness and achievement of individual students, guides placement decisions (such as whether a student will go on to the next grade level or a competitive college), and guides political and social decisions as to how
Commentary
Rocky Mountain high-er education
The Colorado legislature has passed, and Governor Bill Owens is expected to sign, a bill creating a voucher program for higher education in that state. The new program will give Colorado students $2,400 to spend on up to 140 credit hours at state colleges and universities. It will also loosen some of the arcane?and ruinous?funding regulations that Colorado colleges labor under.
Commentary
Commentary
Adam Smith Institute
As its name suggests, this is a free-market research institute, based in London, that includes a strong education-policy program and has issued a number of provocative papers and reports by the likes of James Tooley and Chris Woodhead. Though (understandably) UK-oriented, much of what it has to say has broader applicability, so you may want to become acquainted.
Commentary
This is your brain on phonics&
The Wall Street Journal this week highlighted a new study (by acclaimed reading expert Sally Shaywitz) published in the journal Biological Psychiatry that used magnetic resonance imaging to measure the brain activity of poor readers and gauge the brain wave effects of an intensive phonics program.
Commentary
Panel says no to Yecke
In Minnesota, a state Senate committee voted yesterday along party lines to reject the nomination of Cheri Yecke to be state superintendent. Her apparent sin? Being too "controversial," which is code for getting useful things done.
Commentary
Scoring points on Columbine
As we know, K-12 education is beset by snake oil and flim-flam. Usually, we don't bother to comment, on grounds that life is too short, that it's best not to draw attention to nonsense, that it's bad for our digestions, etc.But sometimes, there crops up an example of meretriciousness so obnoxious we must take note. Thus it is with "High Test Scores?
Commentary
Commentary
D.C.: Back to the drawing board
This week, the District of Columbia City Council rejected Mayor Anthony Williams's proposal to take control of the District's public school system (the wretchedness of which we have spilled much electronic ink documenting; see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=124#1554,
Commentary
Taking short cuts on teacher quality
After months of increasingly shrill criticisms directed at No Child Left Behind, recent news out of Pennsylvania (see "Secrecy vs. sunshine" below for more) offers a painful but healthy reminder of what motivated anyone to pass such a law in the first place.
Commentary
Fighting violence in schools the PC way
After the massacre at Columbine High School five years ago, lawmakers and school boards across the land scrambled to prevent similar atrocities. In California, that led to Assembly Bill 537, the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000.
Commentary
How District Leaders Can Support the New School Strategy
Bryan Hassel, Valaida Fullwood, and Michelle Godard Terrell, Public ImpactJanuary 2004 Facilities Financing: New Models for Districts that are Creating Schools NewBryan Hassel, Katie Walter Esser, Public ImpactFebruary 2004
Commentary
Commentary
Washington Education Association snubs its own
Last Saturday, the Washington Education Association's (WEA) political action committee voted to withhold support for Terry Bergeson, a former WEA president, now running for a third term as the state's school chief.
Commentary
Secrecy vs. sunshine
Some of us expect the greatest education reform benefit that No Child Left Behind is likely to yield to be the onrushing flood of information about school, district, and state performance.
Commentary
Robin Hood files for bankruptcy
On Tuesday, lawmakers in Texas began a special 30-day session to discuss Republican Governor Rick Perry's sweeping new school finance and property tax cut plan. The proposal would reform the current system, which takes money from "property rich" districts and distributes it to "property poor" districts.
Commentary
Commentary
More Math, Please: The Surprising Consensus on Math Among Parents, the Public, and Business Leaders in Two "New Economy" States
Mass Insight EducationApril 2004
Commentary
Manipulating history teachers
If America's history teachers were broadly educated, deeply knowledgeable about the content that they're responsible for imparting to students, and free to draw their information, textbooks, and other instructional materials from whatever sources they judge best, all within a framework of sound academic standards and results-based accountability - under that dreamy scenario there'd be no reason
Commentary
Nebraska: Mo' money, less accountability
It's no secret that some states and districts have threatened to decline federal Title I funding to avoid the accountability provisions of NCLB. That is, of course, their choice to make. The state of Nebraska, however, has taken a more underhanded route, working hard since the passage of the law to have it
Commentary
Curbing grade inflation at the Ivies
Between 1971 and 2000, the average GPA at Princeton rose from 2.99 to 3.66. By 2002, only 5 percent of seniors graduating from that eminent institution earned less than a B-minus cumulative GPA.
Commentary
Tax credits over vouchers?
Brian Anderson, editor of the estimable quarterly City Journal, argues here that tax credits for private school tuitions have a brighter political future than vouchers. He's also sensitive to new roadblocks placed in the way of vouchers by the Supreme Court's ruling in Locke v.
Commentary
Opportunity and Responsibility for National Board Certified Teachers
Andrew J. Rotherham, Progressive Policy InstituteMarch 2004
Commentary
When in doubt, spend more money
In 1993, the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) in New York City filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming that New York State had failed to live up to its constitutional obligation to provide a "sound, basic education" to all its students.
Commentary
Redefining gifted education
Most people can agree on two propositions: that programs for gifted youngsters are a good thing, challenging the fast learner more than the standard curriculum, so long as they have high standards and expectations for participating students. And that such programs should be readily accessible to students of every race. But what happens when those two principles come into conflict?
Commentary
School discipline, revisited
Checker Finn's editorial on "The Discipline Paradox" discussed several difficulties of maintaining classroom order - particularly when a classroom contains some students who don't want to learn.
Report
Curriculum & Instruction
The Stealth Curriculum: Manipulating America's History Teachers
Widely used supplemental materials may be dangerous to educational health! These works often include hefty doses of political manipulation and ideological bias, courtesy of their authors. This study casts a wary glance toward materials that seldom come under scrutiny. This study is the fifth in a series dedicated to reforming social studies education.
