Commentary
Fragile Futures: Risk and Vulnerability Among Latino High Achievers
Patricia GándaraPolicy Information Center, Educational Testing ServiceDecember 2005
Commentary
NCLB's Majority interest
Ed policy gurus are buzzing this week about Rep. John Boehner’s unexpected ascent to House Majority Leader. Boehner (R-Ohio) is the former House Education Committee chairman, and his departure has many wondering how this move will affect NCLB and its impending reauthorization, as well as scads of other programs. So far, the news is good. NCLB proponent Rep. Howard P.
Commentary
Danger: High-flying students
In addition to ensuring that all kids succeed academically, No Child Left Behind aims to make schools safer. But when crafting this part of the law, the feds overlooked a major hazard: cheerleading. According to the Columbus Research Institute, cheerleading participation between 1990 and 2002 increased by a mere 18 percent.
Commentary
Explaining Student Performance: Evidence from the international PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS surveys
Jens Henrik Haahr, et al.Danish Technological InstituteNovember 2005
Commentary
The mad, mad world of education research
"What? Me Worry?" Alfred E. Newman, Mad Magazine's mascot since the late 1950s, delivered this signature line whenever the world around him was going, well, mad. So, too, it seems, those working in the field of educational research.
Commentary
The President's Budget: A thought experiment
Conventional wisdom posits that the President’s 2007 Budget is nothing but a collection of recycled education policies (and cuts). The same old private-school choice proposal that never goes anywhere. The same high school reform plan that crashed and burned in 2005.
Commentary
Forgotten Heroes of American Education: The Great Tradition of Teaching Teachers;
Edited by J. Wesley Null and Diane RavitchInformation Age Publishing, 2006;Henry T. Edmondson IIIISI Books, 2006
Commentary
Will learn for iPods
Introducing another bad idea in contemporary K-12 education. The New York Times reports that many schools, plagued by truancy (and attendant problems both with test scores and state funding formulae), now bribe kids to come to class. At Chelsea High School, located in an impoverished community outside Boston, students earn $25 for each quarter of perfect attendance.
Commentary
Pride and progress
Jay Mathews tells a touching story of struggle and triumph, chronicling a low-income Alexandria (VA) school’s battle to meet NCLB’s adequate yearly progress (AYP) definition. Since it found itself on the “needs improvement” list in 2004, and losing students to other, better-performing schools, Maury Elementary School embraced wide-reaching internal reforms.