Commentary
Texas wrangler
Remember the mid-1990s, when pruning regulations and focusing on results was all the rage? Like so many education-reform movements, it's skipped town like a Texas twister.
Commentary
Winerip's last whine
We'll try to hide our grin as we note the end of Michael Winerip's education columns in the New York Times. Over the past four years, he somehow managed to travel the country reporting about K-12 education and never deviate from his initial, illogical perceptions (see here).
Commentary
Note to Mexico: Education instead of emigration
Mexico's presidential election brought a rare consensus in the U.S. press.
Commentary
The trouble with "The Trouble With Boys"
Look around you--everywhere, even on the front page of the New York Times, boys are failing. Young men are in trouble. And everyone's trying to figure out why.
Commentary
The wheels on the Lincoln go round and round
School buses have never been particularly comfortable, efficient, or hip. So how would Mickey Velilla make the morning commute easier on students? Let them take limos.
Commentary
Pirates of Canberra
Who was Captain Cook, and what did he discover? Prime Minister John Howard wants young Aussies to know this and much more, and is calling for a "root-and-branch renewal of the teaching of Australian history... and the way it is taught." Education Minister Julie Bishop tacks with him, complaining that history is currently presented in vague themes, and "squashed...
Commentary
Please stay together--for the children
Will the marriage of Paul Vallas and Philadelphia's School Reform Commission (SRC) soon end in divorce?
Commentary
Days of Reckoning: Are States and the Federal Government Up to the Challenge of Ensuring a Qualified Teacher for Every Student?
Phyllis McClure, Dianne Piché, William L. TaylorCitizens' Commission on Civil RightsJuly 2006
Commentary
Low-country spoil
Having recently returned from a conference in North Africa, I found your State of State World History Standards awaiting me.
Commentary
Social Studies in Our Nation's Elementary and Middle Schools: A National Random Survey of Social Studies Teachers' Professional Opinions, Values, and Classroom Practices
James S. Leming, Lucien Ellington, and Mark SchugCenter for Survey Research and Analysis, University of ConnecticutMay 2006
Commentary
Almost had it
Your characterization of the Education Week methodology (see here) as analyzing "the percentage of 9th graders who completed high school four years later" isn't quite correct. The formula on page 12 of the Ed Week report does, indeed, make use of dropout rates from grade