Commentary
High School Graduation in Texas: Independent Research to Understand and Combat the Graduation Crisis
Christopher B. SwansonEditorial Projects in Education Research CenterOctober 2006
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Courting Failure: How School Finance Lawsuits Exploit Judges' Good Intentions and Harm Our Children
Edited by Eric A. HanushekHoover Institution's Koret Task Force on Education2006
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Struggling schools in New Orleans are not charters
Last week, in "A dose of reality," Gadfly mistakenly wrote that a number of New Orleans charter schools were struggling. In fact, none of the fraught schools to which we referred were charters. Our mistake.
Commentary
Hit the deck!
The first rule of combat is to avoid cross-fire. But the newly appointed Los Angeles superintendent, retired Navy Vice Admiral David L. Brewer III, already finds himself squarely in the middle of it.
Commentary
Absent minded
After five months of negotiations, the Buffalo Board of Education voted 5-4 last week to base 10 percent of students' report-card grades on attendance. Thus, kids with five or more unexcused absences will receive zeros, meaning the highest grade they can then receive in any subject is a 90.
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(Brain) power shortage
The twenty-third permutation of the MetLife teacher survey series, which annually compiles data on teacher attitudes across a range of topics, recently emerged and was mostly ignored.
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Typical
Regarding last week's News and Analysis ("An apple from the teachers," 10-12): Typically, you make it sound like it's an "either/or" situation.
Commentary
Tales from the crypt
Hands-on learning can be a good thing. But when Candace Longworth, a biology teacher at Rocky Gap High School in Bland County, Virginia, snuck into a cemetery vault with two students and photographed them handling human bones, she may have taken the concept a bit too far.
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Teacher quality problemas
Sadly, despite its promising name, Pablo Neruda's Elementary Odes contains no advice for improving his country's educational system. Too bad, because Chile could use some help. Once again, the country is being riled by sporadic protests--by students and teachers alike--over education.
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The road to quality
Policymakers across the country are struggling with issues of charter school quality. Even well-intentioned, reform-minded leaders aren't sure what to do when many of their charters veer off track. Ohio is no exception.
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Highly overqualified
Sarah Whittier, 53, has received a doctorate in English and a statewide award for excellence in teaching.
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Inadequate logic
When New York's intermediate court decreed earlier this year that the state must appropriate upwards of five billion dollars more to the Big Apple's schools--thereby creating the conditions for "adequate" education--the state appealed. Oral arguments wrapped up Tuesday.
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An apple from the teachers
I live in Takoma Park, Maryland, a.k.a. "The People's Republic." An inner-suburb adjacent to the District of Columbia, it's generally known to be to the left of Berkeley, Madison, and Ann Arbor. In the 1980s, our town was home to a communist mayor. Even our local pet food store is organic.
Commentary
CSRQ Center Report on Middle and High School Comprehensive School Reform Models
American Institutes for ResearchOctober 2006
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A dose of reality
Education reformers found a silver lining in the Katrina tragedy when Louisiana officials announced that charter schools would play a central role in the rebirth of New Orleans's education system.
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Peer pre$$ure
Team spirit is paramount in the eyes of teachers at Bellaire Elementary in Hurst, Texas. That's how they explain their decision to reject--by a vote of 45 to 2--a $90,000 merit pay grant from the state. Texas's pay-for-performance plan is the biggest in the nation, rewarding high-performing teachers in high poverty schools.
Commentary
Commentary
Reporting on reading
Thank you for Michael Petrilli's article on the Reading First brouhaha ("Reading Last," September 28). I am a parent in Arlington, Virginia.
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School house walk
School choice is a good thing. But what about when it leads to racial isolation? In Pinellas County (St. Petersburg) Florida, a district rule capping black enrollment in any given school at 42 percent has been around since 1971. But it ends this year.
Commentary
The Insiders: How Principals and Superintendents See Public Education Today
Public AgendaOctober 2006
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Campus progress 101
It was big news when, a couple of weeks ago, the interests of Harvard University's Public Relations department aligned with the interests of its Noblesse Oblige department, and did so without apparently discomfiting its departments of Admissions and Finance.
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Delinquent daddies
Teachers are used to hearing creative excuses for tardiness. But only at New York City's Manhattan School for Children might one hear such protestations as "I was up all night finishing some important paperwork for Trump," or "I had a late reservation at Joel Robuchon's new spot." Precocious students? Not quite.
Commentary
All aboard the charters?
Charter schools have taught us much. Since Minnesota enacted America's first charter law in 1991, 39 states have followed suit and eager school reformers have created some 4,000 of these independent public schools. About 3,600 are still operating today, enrolling approximately a million kids, 2 percent of all U.S. elementary and secondary pupils.
Commentary
Freedom From Racial Barriers: The Empirical Evidence on Vouchers and Segregation
Greg ForsterMilton and Rose D. Friedman FoundationOctober 2006
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Leading for Learning
In 2005-06, 8,446 schools and 1,624 districts nationwide failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as required under the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Many states are scrambling to improve student achievement before districts and schools face state and federal sanctions (Columbus Public Schools alone has 45 schools in this predicament).
Commentary
Using Data in the Central Office and the Classroom to Improve Student Achievement
Think performance statistics and longitudinal databases are just pillow talk for policy wonks? Don't tell the Data Quality Campaign (DQC), a national educational collaborative promoting better data collection and data-driven practices.
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Politicians Ignore Education Funding Realities
Recent campaign rhetoric and debate exchanges about education funding between gubernatorial candidates Ken Blackwell and Ted Strickland have been disingenuous at best.
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Call for Presentations
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools welcomes proposals for presentations during the 2007 National Charter Schools Conference. The conference will be held April 24 - 27 in Albuquerque, New Mexico and will celebrate the 15th anniversary of the opening of the first charter school.
Commentary
Leading for Learning
In 2005-06, 8,446 schools and 1,624 districts nationwide failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as required under the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Many states are scrambling to improve student achievement before districts and schools face state and federal sanctions (Columbus Public Schools alone has 45 schools in this predicament).
Commentary
All Aboard the Charters? The State of a Movement
Charter schools have taught us much. Since Minnesota enacted America's first charter law in 1991, 39 states have followed suit and eager school reformers have created some 4,000 of these independent public schools. About 3,600 are still operating today, enrolling approximately a million kids, 2 percent of all U.S. elementary and secondary pupils.