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Displaying 61-90 of 501 results
Commentary
11.7.2007

Not-so-choice developments

Tuesday brought two notable events on the education-choice front, one a clear setback, the other a surprise whose significance is yet to be determined.

Commentary
11.7.2007

Brooklyn dreams

Explain this: Two public schools, one in the South Bronx and one in Harlem, academically outperform most of their counterparts in much wealthier Park Slope, Brooklyn. Stumped? The answer, of course, is that the two schools in question, KIPP Academy and Harlem Village Academy, are charter schools--and damn good ones at that.

Commentary
11.7.2007

Bubble kids

Charles Sykes ends his op-ed about over-protectiveness, which appeared in today's Wall Street Journal, with a quote from the Duke of Wellington: "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton." In other words, childhood competition shapes a nation's character.

Commentary
11.7.2007

Buckeye blues

The charter-school scene in Ohio is not one in which education reformers can take pride.

Commentary
11.7.2007

Step away from the baby

Why are the presidential candidates generally ignoring education, even when the issue consistently ranks atop voter concerns (in a recent Pew survey, ed came out above jobs, social security, and even terrorism)? Might the 17 aspirants eschew the subject because middle-class voters, while they certainly care about education, are generally content with their children's schools?

Commentary
11.7.2007

Divided we rise

Once upon a time, elementary school teachers separated their classrooms into bluebirds and redbirds, fast readers and slow. It was called ability grouping and was an obvious, pragmatic, and effective way to differentiate instruction for students.

Commentary
10.31.2007

Bay watch

The Bay Area's science and technology sectors are booming. But in the public schools, it's a different story. Some 80 percent of 923 area elementary-school teachers surveyed said they spend less than one hour per week teaching science, and 16 percent said they spend no time on science at all.

Commentary
10.31.2007

All in the family?

The latest report from ETS, The Family: America's Smallest School, is packed with data that show how a child's educational achievement is correlated with his family situa

Commentary
10.31.2007

Steamed crabs and low expectations

There's something disconcerting about those who fight to make high school diplomas worthless, particularly when they claim to have the kids' best interests at heart.

Commentary
10.31.2007

Slow to change

Como Elementary School in the Mississippi Delta may truly be one of the worst schools in the land. Its test scores are at the bottom of the state, and the state's scores are last in the nation. But a mere twenty minutes west of Como, across the Arkansas state line, things are looking up.

Commentary
10.31.2007

Journalistic license?

Looks like Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Alan Borsuk made it only a few sentences deep into this new study from the conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

Commentary
10.31.2007

Judging schools

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

It's fairly widely agreed nowadays that schools should be judged by, and accountable for, their results, not just their intentions, services, or inputs.

Commentary
10.31.2007

Don't be fooled

Michael Petrilli's assessment of national testing is good as far as it goes. Conservative enthusiasm for national testing is favorable as long as there is a presumption that the things tested are rigorous and the grading objective.

Commentary
10.30.2007

World's best school systems look for the best and brightest to teach

Mike Lafferty

The Ohio teacher misconduct scandal is moving forward in predictable ways with the governor and the General Assembly scrambling to do something, the state teacher unions asking them not to go too far, and the Ohio Department of Education and various local school boards looking befuddled at best.

Commentary
10.30.2007

FREE charter school board member training November 30

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, the Educational Service Center of Franklin County, and the Ohio Department of Education are presenting "Charter School Board Governance 101" in Columbus on Friday, November 30.

Commentary
10.24.2007

The sun shines on charters

The Florida Board of Education last week granted the Florida Schools of Excellence Commission the new power to authorize charter schools in almost every district in the state. Bravo. Authorizing in Florida had, until now, been the domain exclusively of local school boards.

Commentary
10.24.2007

Forgetting those who are left behind?

In the October 11th Gadfly, Michael Petrilli reviews what he calls a "blockbuster" report. Although quite valuable, the report in question falls well short of blockbuster status.

Commentary
10.24.2007

Education creep

A fortnight ago in the Wall Street Journal, the outgoing president of the American Enterprise Institute, Chris Demuth, wrote, "It is a great advantage, when working on practical problems, not to be constantly doubling back to first principles."

Commentary
10.24.2007

Simpler than it seems

At the end of every school year, many parents compare notes about teachers and then start lobbying to get their children into the best instructors' classrooms during the next year. Principals hate it, but a new report by the private consulting firm McKinsey & Co. indicates yet again that parents have the right idea. Great teachers make a difference.

Commentary
10.24.2007

Conservatives love national testing

Michael J. Petrilli

A decade ago, when President Bill Clinton's "voluntary national test" proposal was crashing on the rocky shores of a Republican-controlled Congress, Fordham's Checker Finn quipped that national testing was doomed because "conservatives hate national and liberals hate testing."