Topics

Displaying 241-270 of 448 results
Commentary
6.15.2005

Doing choice right across the pond

In this month's Policy Review, Paul Hill chronicles one key element of Britain's two-decade old education reform strategy, one that does an imaginative job of blending private largesse, innovation and management expertise with public education.

Commentary
6.15.2005

Clarifying the murky waters of SES

On Monday, the Department of Education released extensive new guidelines for states, districts, and providers of supplemental educational services, a complex, contentious and confused area of NCLB. States have complained that they were unclear on how best to implement the SES provisions of the law and needed more guidance.

Commentary
6.15.2005

Lyon into the lion's den

G. Reid Lyon, champion of research-based reading instruction (i.e. Reading First) at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and adviser to the Bush administration on scientifically proven effective reading programs and much much more, is leaving his government post to join a private-sector effort to develop alternatives to traditional schools of education.

Commentary
6.15.2005

Milwaukee vouchers under a microscope

This week, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel features a week-long qualitative assessment of that city's landmark voucher program. Reporters visited 106 of Milwaukee's 115 "voucher schools" and emerged with an interesting but mixed story.

Commentary
6.15.2005

Islam in the news

Islamic schools are in the news this week. Time profiles an Islamic pre-K-12 school in suburban Chicago that has a mainstream curriculum and typical after-school activities, but also maintains traditional Islamic practices like dress codes, separation of the sexes, and regular prayer and Koran studies.

Commentary
6.8.2005

This textbook brought to you by MTV

The Toronto Star reports that McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd. is considering selling advertising in college textbooks, the better to target free-spending college students. The company claims the ads are intended to bring "beneficial corporate and social awareness campaigns to the students." Gadfly sees infinite potential in this innovation.

Commentary
6.8.2005

Battle royale: teacher training

In the Journal of Teacher Education, Rick Hess writes that there is nothing unpredictable or even surprising about the debate over teacher training.

Commentary
6.8.2005

Broad reforms

This week in the Los Angeles Times, Naomi Schaefer Riley describes the Broad Foundation's fellowship program that puts young, skilled executives from the private world into top positions in urban school districts.

Commentary
6.8.2005

Friedman and vouchers

In the Wall Street Journal, Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman describes the history of the voucher movement, its philosophical foundations, and why choice in education is even more important today.

Commentary
6.8.2005

The Condition of Education 2005

National Center for Education StatisticsJune 2005The latest edition of NCES's vast, annual, congressionally-mandated Condition of Education (COE) has landed in our mailbox. Like everyone else, we're trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in this vast compendium. For starters, a few items of note:

Commentary
6.8.2005

Learning to Lead: What Gets Taught in Principal Preparation Programs

Frederick M. Hess, Andrew P. Kelly, Harvard University Program in Education Policy and Governance May 2005Textbook Leadership? An Analysis of Leading Books Used in Principal PreparationFrederick M. Hess, Andrew P. Kelly, Harvard University Program in Education Policy and Governance May 2005

Commentary
6.8.2005

The shape of things to come

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

The Association of Educational Publishers (www.edpress.org) asked me and several others to gaze into our crystal balls and identify five "trends/factors/events that will (or should) have significant impact on the substance and delivery of educational content over the next five years." This turned out to be an interesting exercise, the results of which I off

Commentary
6.1.2005

The AFT on standards

The spirit of Albert Shanker lives on, at least some days it does, at the union he once led. The latest edition of AFT's American Educator focuses on NCLB and concludes that accountability and standards are the right approach, but that substantial changes are required in the law - fix it, don't scrap it.

Commentary
6.1.2005

Two impressions

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Japanese education reform redux

Commentary
6.1.2005

Rediscovering liberalism

In this week's New Republic, Robert Gordon, a former Kerry education advisor, indicts his own party for straying from its egalitarian ideals and losing credibility on education policy. America's education system is obviously flawed, Gordon alleges, yet Democrats can only defend the failing status quo or attack any plans that don't involve more blank checks to the current system.

Commentary
6.1.2005

Shaking it up in Sacramento

He's baaaaaack. Alan Bersin, deposed San Diego superintendent - a victim of a fierce union effort to undo reforms that were overturning settled ways of operating (see here) - has been named California Secretary of Education by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Commentary
6.1.2005

Chronicling the voucher kids

As the voucher flurry of 2005 winds down (see here and here for recent news), a few new developments have popped up.

Commentary
6.1.2005

Suing their way to the top

In the past, being valedictorian of one's high school class was mostly an opportunity to subject the assembled graduates and well-wishers to a string of mindless clich??s.