Commentary
Managing School Districts for High Performance
Stacey Childress, Richard F. Elmore, Allen S. Grossman, Susan Moore Johnson, eds.Harvard Education Press2007
Commentary
More blood on China's hands
It is wrong to condemn children to bad schools. But it is dastardly to teach them in unsafe, shoddily-constructed buildings. The Chinese authorities are, it seems, quite guilty of the latter offense. Of the 61,000 people whose lives were ended by the recent earthquakes in Sichuan Province, over 10,000 were children crushed while attending class.
Commentary
Cut-score cacophony
Yet another example of a state backing away from high standards. A committee, composed largely of Georgia teachers, included challenging new questions in the state's sixth- and seventh-grade social studies exams. Then, Georgia's Board of Education raised by nine points the score needed to pass those tests.
Commentary
Paying for A's: An Early Exploration of Student Reward and Incentive Programs in Charter Schools
Margaret RaymondCenter for Research on Education Outcomes, Stanford UniversityApril 2008
Commentary
Good grammar
Capping off a debate described by one politician as "contaminated and a circus," the Texas Education Board last week endorsed a back-to-basics approach to reading comprehension and grammar in the English standards for the Lone Star State.
Commentary
Commentary
So Much Reform, So Little Change: The Persistence of Failure in Urban Schools??
Charles M. PayneHarvard Education Press2008
Commentary
A drag on standards Down Under
The drive to lower standards can take on ridiculous guises. See, for example, the case of 18-year-old Australian Nicholas Benjamin Siiankoski, who recently pleaded guilty to possession of Ecstasy. Justice George Fryberg sentenced him to three years' probation and 100 hours of community service. But the judge also added an interesting twist to the punishment.
Commentary
Obama on offense
Yesterday, Barack Obama decided to capitalize on John McCain's total, no-caveats embrace of No Child Left Behind. The Illinois Senator, speaking at the Mapleton Expeditionary School for the Arts: "I believe it's time to lead a new era of mutual responsibility in education...
Commentary
Rheewind on school funding
Why is District of Columbia schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, the darling of education reformers (usually including us), eliminating one of the few promising features that greeted her in the D.C. public school system? Is she a control freak, even when she shouldn't be?
Commentary
OutMATCHed
This over-the-top, the sky-is-falling article from the Boston Globe is yet more evidence that the concept of "standards" has taken a beating in public discourse.
Commentary
Lampkin vs. McCluskey
Mark Lampkin, executive director of ED in '08, responds here to an earlier attack, launched by the Cato Institute's Neal McCluskey,??on ED in '08's priorities.
Commentary
Dumbest generation also lazy/unchallenged
Mark Bauerlein, author of this book about dumb people and the harm they do, has the numbers.
Commentary
???No Child,' No Problem, No Standards
On the front page of today's Washington Post is a feel-good story about Ocean City Elementary, a Maryland school in which 100 percent of the students passed the state's math and reading tests.
Commentary
It's official: Zelman's out
A post from guest blogger and Fordham Vice President for Ohio Programs & Policy Terry Ryan.