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Top o' the pack
No Child Left Behind's reauthorization process has barely begun, yet the surfeit of coverage and commentary is enough to make Gadfly think about flying south for winter's remainder.
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Texas lead 'em
They say everything's bigger in Texas. And now, that adage is starting to apply to education expectations, too. Dallas's Superintendent Michael Hinojosa has redefined the role of the principal to involve less paper pushing, more academic oversight, and creative problem-solving.
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Fenty not feigning takeover
When Adrian Fenty paid a visit to New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg late in 2006, he received some candid advice on taking control of K-12 city schools. Bloomberg urged the then want-to-be mayor to act quickly, and unilaterally. "You don't run things by committee," he told him. "You don't try to come to consensus when it's our children's future."
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Quality doubts
Some parents in Michigan were none too pleased by the conclusions reached in Education Week's Quality Counts 2007: From Cradle to Career, especially by the report's "Chance-for-Success Index," which m
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The English Reader: What Every Literate Person Needs to Know
Diane Ravitch and Michael RavitchOxford University Press2006
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Class divisions
There's been plenty written about the overloaded high school kid who maintains a 4.0 GPA in a full line of A.P. courses, has swim practice before school and cello practice after, and is president of the class Sudoku Society and the Young Francophiles Club.
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Turning Brick-and-Mortar to Gold
Ohio’s large urban districts are undergoing a painful transition, similar to the one already experienced by many of the state’s big manufacturers, from sprawling organizations with a corner on the market to shrinking systems struggling to compete for fewer and fewer customers.
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Focus on Instructional Time, Not School Days
In one of his last official acts as Ohio’s top executive, Governor Taft used a line-item veto to purge a provision added to the Ohio Core legislation that would have affected the school calendar. Taft vetoed language allowing schools to operate for a minimum number of hours instead of days for fear that some school districts would move to a four-day week.
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Adjusting to the Spotlight
Collective bargaining agreements between school districts and teacher unions have rarely made it into the public spotlight—at least until now.
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KIPP Columbus Executive Director Position
The KIPP Foundation is seeking an accomplished leader to create a cluster of KIPP schools in Columbus, Ohio.
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Lame Duck Soup
Members of the 126th Ohio General Assembly recently packed up their bags and went home—some of them for good. But not before a flurry of activity, sometimes extending late into the night, with Republican legislators scrambling to take full advantage of the final weeks of Governor Taft’s tenure.
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National School Safety Expert to Speak at Dayton Seminar
Kenneth S. Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services and author of Classroom Killers? Hallway Hostages?
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From the Cradle to Career: Connecting American Education from Birth through Adulthood
This year’s Quality Counts evaluates state efforts to create education systems whose curricula are aligned from preschool to adulthood. The result is a host of state rankings, many of them tied to the report’s Chance-for-Success Index, which includes 13 indicators spanning a student’s lifetime.
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Bumping convention
Gadfly was buzzed even before the champagne started flowing New Year's Eve, thanks to a late-December story in the Christian Science Monitor. It profiles Betsy Rogers of Alabama, winner of the 2003 National Teacher of the Year award. After receiving it, she transferred to the perennially struggling K-8 Brighton School just outside Birmingham.
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Reforms that add up
Although Massachusetts students lead the nation in math scores, state education officials are nervous-less than 50 percent of Bay State youngsters demonstrate a solid command on national math tests, and elementary math scores on MCAS exams have not risen in two years.
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Where no man has gone before
When Captain Kirk waffled over whether to open relations with the Klingon Empire, Spock encouraged engagement by noting, "Only Nixon could go to China." Were the wise Vulcan advising education policymakers, his words would be much the same: "Only a true conservative can push national standards." And according to National Public Radio, that's exactly what's starting t
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"Alternative" Charter School Authorizers: Playing a Vital Role in the Charter Movement
Louann Bierlein PalmerProgressive Policy InstituteDecember 2006
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Is No Child Left Behind's birthday worth celebrating?
For almost five years now, I've considered myself a supporter of the No Child Left Behind Act. And not just the casual flag-waver variety. Much of that time I spent inside the Bush Administration, trying to make the law work, explaining its vision to hundreds of audiences, even wearing an NCLB pin on my lapel. I was a True Believer.
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New Year's predictions and resolutions
Inspired by the good work of our Washington Insiders (see here), Gadfly screwed up his courage to offer these predictions about what America's ten most influential ed-policy organizations (so says the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center) will ac
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