Displaying 1-30 of 39 results
Commentary
10.26.2005

The two faces of No Child Left Behind

Chester E. Finn, Jr., Madeleine Will, Michael J. Petrilli

If there's one memorable takeaway from last week's release of the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results in reading and math, it's a timeless one: incentives work. They alter behavior in education and government, just as they do in capitalism. Unfortunately, they don't always alter behavior for the better.

Commentary
10.26.2005

Un-exceptionalism

Education's labor market is finally starting to exhibit the flexibility - and churn - common in other sectors of our economy. Population booms in Las Vegas and retirement trends in Chicago have prompted officials to recruit a different breed of teacher.

Commentary
10.26.2005

Up or down at Edison?

I'm a regular reader of the Education Gadfly and Checker's columns and would like to clarify a statement made three weeks ago concerning Edison Schools.  In your editorial announcing Dick Carpenter's

Commentary
10.26.2005

Row about streams

Ben Bernanke (President Bush's pick to lead the Federal Reserve) wasn't the only economist receiving front-page, above-the-fold treatment in the Wall Street Journal this week.

Commentary
10.26.2005

Seattle's worst

The Gates foundation has learned some lessons - and Seattle's public schools are poorer for the experience. In 2000, the foundation made a series of high-profile, five-year, multi-million-dollar gifts to districts deemed capable of bringing about significant change in their schools. Seattle received $26 million at the time, but it most likely won't be receiving any more.

Commentary
10.26.2005

Let me make one thing perfectly clear

Question: If you're the superintendent of a district labeled "in need of improvement" under NCLB, are you allowed to offer federally funded tutoring directly to students? Answer: No—unless, of course, your name is Arne Duncan and you run the Chicago Public Schools. Then the answer is yes.

Report
10.24.2005
Curriculum & Instruction, Standards

Less Than Proficient

Michael J. Petrilli, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Paul Gross

Almost every week a new report or commission decries the decline of America's preeminence in science, and calls for the nation's education system to raise standards in order for our economy to remain competitive with the rest of the world. Within this context, the National Assessment Governing Board is preparing to launch a new science assessment for 2009. Curriculum developers and textbook writers are likely to follow its lead. Fordham couldn't help but wonder: is the draft science Framework up to the challenge? Using much the same criteria applied in the Foundation's state science standards reviews (due out this December), our reviewers answered: no. As author (and esteemed biologist) Paul R. Gross wrote, The Framework is an interesting start, but there is much work to be done if it is to achieve its potential usefulness.

Commentary
10.19.2005

What 'cha reading?

Mark Bauerlein

[Editor's Note: The following editorial draws on the 2004 long-term trend NAEP results. These should not be confused with the 2005 "main NAEP" reading results discussed in our October 19 press release, Gains on State Reading Test Evaporate on 2005 NAEP.]

Commentary
10.19.2005

Sex, drugs, and Mickey Mouse

"Seniors of Kellenberg Memorial High School - You've just had your prom cancelled. What are you going to do now?" Why, go to Disney World, of course. It seems the $20,000 rental house in the Hamptons and liquor-loaded chauffeured limousines became simply too much for the principal of Long Island's tony Catholic high school to accept. So he called the whole shebang off.

Commentary
10.19.2005

Stemming the tide

District schools in Columbus, Ohio, are finally exploring ways to bring students back into the fold. Why now? Because the exodus of students to charter schools is hitting the district in its pocketbook. Last spring, the district set its budget for 2005-2006 based on an estimate of 6,200 students taking the charter option. But so far this year, it's looking more like 7,100 students.

Commentary
10.19.2005

Charter schools rising

Even as Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and President Bush were struggling to shine the best possible light on (the mostly disappointing) 2005 NAEP scores (The Nation's Report Card), charter school supporters have reason to celebrate.

Commentary
10.19.2005

Entrance requirements - not just for college anymore

To Idaho, now, where the state Board of Education wants to implement high school entrance requirements. If enacted, all eighth-grade students would need to earn a cumulative C average in four subjects and pass pre-algebra before moving on. Those who do not will - presumably - be retained for another year. That's the catch, though.

Commentary
10.19.2005

A new wave of home schooling

The number of home schoolers is on the rise, thanks to the combined impacts of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Displaced residents, many grown tired of placing their children in new surroundings, have decided to take on the education burden themselves. In Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana's southern-most, school officials estimate that some 800 families are taking the do-it-yourself route.

Commentary
10.12.2005

Today's lunch? Perfectly offal.

Those who lament the often sorry state of American public education may content themselves with this Pyrrhic victory: American students don't eat raw innards at school, at least not yet. The word out of New Zealand, however, is that that country's students do, indeed, feast upon entrails in the classroom.

Commentary
10.12.2005

Unintended, but consequential

Talk about your unintended consequences. The No Child Left Behind Act made performance test scores transparent so that parents could make good decisions about their children's education and could put pressure on schools to pay attention to the needs of all of their students. The law's writers couldn't have foreseen pupils using the test scores to berate one another.

Commentary
10.12.2005

Charters for New Orleans?

Good news is hard to come by in New Orleans these days, but this might qualify: the Orleans Parish's school board has agreed to charter all 13 schools in the city's West Bank.

Commentary
10.12.2005

Counting on faith

Strong self-esteem and personal ambition aren't lacking in American high school students, but the developed intellectual capacity to achieve those ambitions often is. A new study by the U.S.

Commentary
10.12.2005

Lefties for charters

Mayor Nagin isn't the only Democrat showing signs of interest in charter schools. The Los Angeles Times profiles Green Dot charter schools founder (and "Rock the Vote" creator) Steve Barr and his campaign to take over a struggling high school in L.A. Who are his strongest opponents?

Commentary
10.12.2005

End of reform in Gotham?

Sol Stern

When negotiations over a new labor contract between New York City's public school system and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) got under way last year, Joel Klein went straight for the jugular. Schools chancellor Klein looked intent on slaying the dragon of obstructionist teacher unionism right in its birthplace.