Commentary
Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk
Richard H. Hersh and John Merrow, editorsPalgrave Macmillan, publishers2005
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Focusing on Student Performance Through Accountability
Alicia Diaz and Joan Lord, Southern Regional Education Board2005
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High school reform redux
At their mid-summer meeting last month, the governors rededicated themselves to high school reform - and sought to demonstrate that commitment by asserting near-consensus on a uniform definition of completion rates, one that, properly done, could go a distance toward standardizing America's miserably uneven and often dishonest data on high school graduates and dropouts (see Gadfly comm
Commentary
Making Progress Toward Graduation: Evidence from the Talent Development High School Model
James J. Kemple, Corinne M. Herlihy, and Thomas J. Smith, MDRCMay 2005
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Parental Choice as an Education Reform Catalyst: Global Lessons
John Merrifield, Cato InstituteJune 2005
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Mayhem in the middle
Middle schools, like middle children, are just plain misunderstood. There is pretty clear evidence from the recent NAEP results that middle schools are where academic achievement in America falters and begins its accelerating decline, as the Los Angeles Times argues in a cracker-jack editorial this week.
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Merit pay: Not so fast, governors!
Merit pay for teachers has gotten a lot of play recently (for examples, see here). Without a doubt, the principle that some teachers ought to get paid more than others has gained political currency around the country.
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Success has a handful of admirers
Two weeks ago we noted, "Success has a thousand fathers and many will try to claim credit" for the good news about rising NAEP scores (see here).
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Getting "The Mission"
In the latest City Journal, Kay Hymowitz discusses Bill Cosby's parenting-power crusade among poor African-Americans and links it to the failure of government social welfare programs to close the education and economic gaps. A typical Cosby rant: "Proper education has to begin at home. . . .
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Governance, Private School Choice, Standards
Fwd: It's All About the Kids
In just more than five years, Mary Anne Stanton has led 13 Catholic schools from high-poverty Washington, D.C. neighborhoods into a consortium that has not only strengthened each school's financial health, but has also greatly improved the academic performance of the children the schools are charged with educating. To get there, she's installed a new standards-based curriculum, shaken up old bureaucratic approaches, and streamlined operations. In its latest Fwd: Arresting Insights in Education, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation presents a compelling story of just how much change can be made by one determined school leader with a vision.
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Still swimming in Lake Wobegon
It's not easy today even to recall the stir created in 1987 when an obscure West Virginia physician and his never-heard-from-before one-man advocacy organization called "Friends for Education" released a little study titled "Nationally Normed Elementary Achievement Testing in America's Public Schools: How All 50 States Are Above the National Average." Swiftly dubbed the "Lake Wobegon report" af
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Profile of Alternative Route Teachers
Emily C. Feistritzer, National Center for Education InformationJuly 2005
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Less Dewey, more Shakespeare
In the newest edition of MassINC's CommonWealth magazine, Sandra Stotsky elucidates the well-known problems of teacher education (see Arthur Levine's highly-critical piece, "Educating School Leaders") and offers pragmatic advice for Massachusetts policy makers.
Commentary
Live free and die
It was a bad omen for the Free State when the Old Man of the Mountain fell off, but this is even worse: New Hampshire's very first charter school, Franklin Career Academy, is closing for want of state funding. The state commissioner of education, Lyonel Tracy, explained that there was nothing wrong with the school: "The students were doing well.
Commentary
Success has a thousand fathers
Last week, offering up some "First thoughts on the NAEP" (see here), we noted that "Success has a thousand fathers and many will try to claim credit" for the good news about achievement gains amongst 9-year-olds.
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How about "deferred intelligence"?
Even the hard-knock Brits are sometimes subjected to the touchy-feely politics of their own education establishment. At next week's annual conference of the Professional Association of Teachers, Liz Beattie, a retired school teacher, will recommend that the word "fail" be abolished from classrooms and replaced with the less offensive "deferred success." Ms.
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Good news on grad rates
No, the percentage of kids graduating hasn't gone up, but after years of prodding by reformers on the left and right - especially Jay Greene, the Education Trust, and the Urban Institute - 45 governors have committed to a common formula for calculating the rates themselves. Worth celebrating, yes, but turning their promise into reality will be no small task.
Commentary
The Quest for Quality: Recruiting and Retaining Teachers in Philadelphia
Ruth Curran Neild, Elizabeth Useem, and Elizabeth Farley, Research for Action2005
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Tutors for tots
We're not sure whether to cheer or jeer. As the Wall Street Journal's June Kronholz reports, the tutoring industry is setting its sights on the Barney set. Sylvan expects to enroll four-year-olds in each of its learning centers by winter; Kaplan's SCORE! centers already teach over 15,000 children from ages four to six. It's a growth industry, but is it a good idea?
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Union abuses south of the border
According to the Washington Post, Mexico's largest teachers' union (also the largest union period in Latin America) has created "a monstrous system of perks and patronage" that has basically made it impossible for teachers to be fired, even if they rarely show up for work.
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Yecke to American Experiment
Bloodied but unbowed, Cheri Pierson Yecke - whose nomination as Minnesota's education chief was defeated on a party line vote marked by the worst kind of partisan rancor (see Gadfly, Volume 4, Number 17) - has joined the Center of the American Ex
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You couldn't pay me to work there
We hear it again and again: Americans aren't learning the skills they need to compete in the 21st century. How to prove this theory? Well, follow the money, or in this case, the yen. Toyota, after months of speculation over the destination of its new plant, this week opted for Ontario, reportedly turning down hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies from several American states.
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Off with their poster contest!
In this month's American School Board Journal, Susan Black describes her tenure as director of curriculum and instruction for a Midwestern city school district.
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First thoughts about the NAEP
It won't do to be churlish about today's NAEP long-term trend results. But neither should we be gaga. Here are Gadfly's first reflections, with more to come in later editions.
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Ensuring quality
Let's call it failing upward: This year, a South Carolina middle school teacher charged with helping students cheat on the state's standardized test was inadvertently rewarded for her actions with a new job (and $5,000 stipend) teaching other educators how to be effective math instructors.
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Pay us more? No thanks!
Several years ago, the Florida Legislature created a mandatory merit pay policy for public school systems statewide. At the time, the legislature (naively) allowed districts to set their own eligibility requirements. The St.
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Protests and paranoia
One senses mounting desperation among the more vociferous opponents of No Child Left Behind. Consider, for example, the "protest songs" unveiled at the National Education Association's recent convention. What fun for all concerned. What a trip. Oh, for the heady days of revolution, when music could change the world!