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Hidden costs
Last week the Wall Street Journal editors defended D.C.'s voucher program after the Washington Post reported that its days could be numbered.
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Not sharp at all
A lot of normally smart and generally sincere??people have just made the dreadful blunder of affiliating themselves with Al Sharpton, one of America's more unlovable figures, whose fingerprints can be found on an appalling list of divisive, racist, anti-Semitic, violent,??and often bloody episodes over the past quarter century.
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Brooks on Obama and education
David Brooks writes today about the rift in left-leaning education circles. He rightly notes that one group, ostensibly bolder and broader, is actually, um,??regressive-er.
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What a wonderful world this would be
In a New Criterion article, Alan Charles Kors, a professor of history, points out the misperceptions that many college faculty members harbor. If only their presumptions were true!
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Biting the hand that feeds
Naomi Schaefer Riley takes it to the college-entrance-tests-are-biased crowd--especially those within it who profit from the very tests they decry.
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Searching for the Afro-centric content standard in the curriculum pacing guide...
Students and teachers are up in arms that Karen Salazar was fired??from a Los Angeles high school for "encouraging political activism among her students," namely by accusing the LAUSD of denying students "basic human rights" and "doing it on purpose in order to keep them subservient [a
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Do not pass go
Lawmakers, principals, teachers, and parents clearly find it hard to hold back struggling pupils, whether they're failing high school exit exams or elementary school grade-level tests.
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False alarmism
Last month, the Washington Post's Jay Mathews mustered strong evidence and taut logic to contest some of the more questionable claims surrounding the prospects for America's economic competitiveness.
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Supa Dupa Fly
In this week's Gadfly, published mere moments ago, one can find a riveting examination by Checker of what we mean when we talk about "international benchmarking." We pull no punches regarding Eleanor Holmes Norton and the
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Rift
Greg Toppo's story in??USA Today about the rift between two segments of left-leaning education types is noteworthy. Education has for some lengthy period been relegated to the outskirts of political conversation, and it's refreshing to see it command a little spotlight, however briefly.
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Vouchers in LA
"In a major legislative success for Gov. Bobby Jindal, the Louisiana Senate voted 25-12 Wednesday for a bill that would let up to 1,500 low- to middle-income students in New Orleans attend private schools at taxpayer expense." Article here.
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John McCain takes my advice, and then some
I've been arguing lately that John McCain needs to distance himself from NCLB, because it's unpopular with his base and, increasingly, with the general public.
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This Week's Fordham Factor: Manifestoes
Mike and Christina discuss a recent rash of education reform proposals. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKibmnVrC4M
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The New York Narcissus
Regarding the news that Al Sharpton and Joel Klein will team up to bring fresh ideas into education, unions be damned, New York teachers union head Randi Weingarten had this to say:
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What do we mean by "international benchmarking"?
You've heard it a hundred times: "We really need to benchmark our education standards to the best in the world," or words to that effect.
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Norton hears a boo
"We have to protect the children, who are the truly innocent victims here." Absent context, one might guess that Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's non-voting congressional delegate, was decrying, say, the inadequacy of the nation's response to child abuse. Not so.
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No small feat
More glum feedback for the Gates Foundation's pricey initiative to create and support small schools--and others enraptured with smallness per se as an education reform strategy.
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The professionals
Teachers, we are told (mostly by teachers) are professionals--and they require treatment befitting such. Alas, the facts don't always support the claims.
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Many States Have Taken a "Backloaded" Approach to No Child Left Behind Goal of All Students Scoring Proficient
Naomi Chudowsky and Victor ChudowskyCenter on Education PolicyMay 2008
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Debatable
When Gadfly wrote, "Despite what our good friend Jay Mathews tells you, AP is not for everyone," he didn't expect that the selfsame Jay Mathews would then challenge him to a duel. Only in words, mercifully.
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Allocation Anatomy: How District Policies that Deploy Resources Can Support (or Undermine) District Reform Strategies
Marguerite Roza, School Finance Redesign Project, Center on Reinventing Public EducationMay 15, 2008
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History opens eyes
Bill Bennett's superb two-volume U.S. history, America: The Last Best Hope, is beginning to be adopted as a text by school systems and is now accompanied by all manner of useful educator tools and its own hefty, bumptious (like Bennett himself) history-education-makeover project.
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Ben Franklin would cry
Another day, another state content to let its kids continue to earn meaningless high school diplomas.
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Change we can disagree in
It's true--it's tough to predict the future. Of course, that doesn't mean we should be content to let the progression of technology sweep us up and take us where it may.
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Salt in Booker's wounds
A few weeks ago at the NewSchools Venture Fund summit, Newark Mayor Cory Booker's jealousy about Washington mayor Adrian Fenty'
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Progress toward what?
The last paragraph of Coby's latest post,??directly below,??contains this: "But once they're washed downriver by the unyielding tide of technological progress, they'll sound as quaint as Socrates' reminiscences about the days before writing." Progress has both a quantitative and qualitative definition, and one wonders if Coby doesn't concentrate overmuch on the former.
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Hyperbole at its finest
Education Week reports today that data collected from the states by the U.S. Department of Education show the percentage of core classes in the nation taught by highly-qualified teachers is around 94 percent for 2006-2007.