Commentary
Diplomas Count: An Essential Guide to Graduation Policy and Rates
The Graduation Project 2006Education Week/ Editorial Projects in EducationJune 22, 2006
Commentary
A National Dialogue: Commission Report: Draft
The Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher EducationJune 22, 2006
Commentary
Charter schoolyard politics
New York has seen much mud-slinging and blame-shifting this week as the charter crowd seeks to explain why the legislature had the chutzpah to complete work on the state budget without raising the statewide charter-school cap from 100 to 150 schools, as urged by both Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki.
Commentary
Coleman crackles
When buying fireworks this weekend, don't forget to throw a box of birthday candles into your shopping basket. It's the 40th anniversary of the Coleman Report, which was released Fourth of July weekend 1966 to "deafening silence." Why the tepid initial response?
Commentary
More on Gore
Thank you for your thoughts on Al Gore's film and the lack of multimedia tools in education.
Commentary
Facing backward on his horse, Kozol rides again
Once upon a time, Jonathan Kozol played a formative and constructive role in my career.
Commentary
For school equality, try mobility
Dumb liberal ideas in education are a dime a dozen, and during my time as superintendent of Houston's schools and as the United States secretary of education I battled against all sorts of progressivist lunacy, from whole-language reading to fuzzy math to lifetime teacher tenure.
Commentary
High cut scores
While chattering education reformers bicker about standards, accountability, and how to spend Warren Buffet's billions, Japanologist Boyé Lafayette De Mente is busy attacking the achievement gap the old fashioned way: by cutting off its head with a Samurai sword.
Report
School Finance, Governance
Fund the Child
Everyone agrees that education funding today is a mess. But a broad, bipartisan coalition now urges a new method of funding our public schools--one that finally ensures the students who need the most receive it, that empowers school leaders to make key decisions, and that opens the door to public school choice. It's a 100 percent solution to the most pressing problems in public school funding--and it's called Weighted Student Funding.
Commentary
Voucher villains - or vitriol?
Listen to Ohio's media and we'll forgive you for thinking the Buckeye State's new voucher program is going down in flames. After all, newspapers are giving lots of ink to low initial student sign-ups for the program-so far 2,600 of the 14,000 available vouchers have been spoken for (there will be another sign-up period in late July and early August).
Commentary
High School Reform and Work: Facing Labor Market Realities
Paul E. BartonEducational Testing ServiceJune 2006
Commentary
Why Kids Can't Read: Challenging the Status Quo in Education
Rowman & Littlefield EducationEdited by Phyllis Blaunstein and Reid Lyon2006
Commentary
D.C. coopetition
Gadfly's hometown has suddenly turned into education reform nirvana. Last week we reported that competition from charter schools spurred the District of Columbia Public Schools and its teachers union to sign a reform-minded contract. Now comes news that the D.C.
Commentary
Fluff piece
When third-grader Nathaniel Barrios asked at home for a Fluffernutter sandwich (a sandwich of peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff), his father, Massachusetts State Senator Jarrett T. Barrios, was flabbergasted.
Commentary
Hawkeye hijinks
The U.S. Department of Education recently laid the smack down on Iowa, threatening to severely limit its federal funding if it didn't make new elementary school teachers pass a standardized test, as required by NCLB's "highly qualified teachers" provision. Pinned to the mat, state education officials will require all teacher candidates to take and pass the Praxis II beginning in 2007.
Commentary
Accountability stew
Governor Jeb Bush is breaking out the fricasseed alligator tail to celebrate the recent announcement that a record 75 percent of Florida schools received As or Bs under the state's "A+" accountability system. Hold on, say the feds-NCLB data show that nearly three-quarters of Sunshine State schools didn't make AYP, including 1,233 that earned As or Bs according to the state's rating system.
Commentary
Bombing history in the Beehive State
After reading your latest report, The State of State World History Standards 2006, I was disheartened but not surprised by the failing grade my state, Utah, received. Our youngest child just graduated with honors from high school.
Commentary
Al Gore, master teacher
As hurricanes spawn tornadoes so has An Inconvenient Truth spawned articles about Al Gore: his political ambitions, his resilience, his newfound charisma, his biomass.
Commentary
Who's Proficient Now?
According to preliminary test results for the 2005–06 school year, more Ohio students are reaching “proficiency” on state exams than ever before. So schools are doing a better job, right? Wrong.
Commentary
Tougher Diploma Requirements Marching Down the Aisle
Even as 2006’s high school graduates donned cap and gown this spring, school officials and teachers were wondering how many fewer outfits would be required next year.
Commentary
Parents Vouch for Better Education
Many Ohio newspapers are reporting that the state’s new voucher program, EdChoice, which students begin benefiting from this fall, is faring poorly.
Commentary
Challenged Index: Why Newsweek's List of America's 100 Best High Schools Doesn't Make the Grade
Andrew J. Rotherham and Sara MeadEducation Sector, February, 2006 This report takes a hard look at what it means to make Newsweek’s recent list of best high schools in America.
Commentary
Charter School of Hard Knocks
The state’s first “conversion” charter school, Dayton’s World of Wonder (WOW), apparently decided it had been out in the cold for too long.
Commentary
From One Librarian to Another
On June 5, the Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries announced grant awards of up to $5,000 for 206 schools across the nation to develop or expand their library collections. Two of the seven charter school recipients were Ohio’s very own Dayton View Academy and the Early Childhood Development Center in Cleveland.
Commentary
Test tubes
Education Week recently reported that, though the 2005 Science NAEP exam showed more low-achieving 4th grade students scoring at the "basic" level, results are stagnant or worse in all grades at the "proficient" and "advanced" levels. What does that mean?
Commentary
Spicy Chile
Chile's country-wide education protests are now over. The fallout from the three-week crucible that saw nearly 800,000 students take to Chile's streets (sometimes violently), however, will not be soon forgotten. The walkouts began innocently enough, with students asking the government to provide free bus passes and to waive university entrance exam fees.
Commentary
Why American Students Do Not Learn to Read Very Well: The Unintended Consequences of Title II and Teacher Testing
Sandra StotskyThird Education Group ReviewVol. 2, No. 2, 2006
Commentary
Key Issues in Studying Charter Schools and Achievement: A Review and Suggestions for National Guidelines
The Charter School Achievement Consensus Panel; Julian Betts and Paul T. Hill, Principal DraftersCenter on Reinventing Public EducationMay 2006
Commentary
Buzz kill
A new front has opened in the cell phone wars. In a ring tone realm once ruled by Fur Elise and the latest jam from 50 Cent (aka Fiddy), a new craze has taken center stage-"Teen Buzz," the almost-silent cell phone alert.
Commentary
Condition of education 2006
The National Center for Education Statistics doesn't always do right by its annual "Condition of Education" report (COE), which has sometimes been humdrum and sometimes dizzy from pro-administration spin.