Here's a quandary. All four elementary schools in New London, CT have failed to make adequate yearly progress for two or more consecutive years. Unable to offer intra-district school choice, the school system is required under NCLB to ask neighboring districts to offer inter-district choice. And so New London did--and got "no takers" from any of its eighteen surrounding districts.
Three cheers for DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. After a grueling attempt to bribe the Washington Teachers' Union into accepting a generous new pay scale accompanied by teacher accountability, she has decided unilaterally to remove ineffective teachers without waiting for the WTU to assent.
Back in April, a trinity of events called attention to the worsening plight of America's faith-based urban schools: Pope Benedict's visit, particularly his Catholic University address; the White House Summit on Inner-City Children and Faith-based Schools; and, of course, the Fordham Institute's stellar publication,
The "judgment" of the presidential candidates has become a major issue in this year's campaign, perhaps because citizens are worried about the dearth of judgment on display in American society. Case in point: a Kansas City charter school teacher who recently posted a video to YouTube featuring his fatigues-clad students chanting in support of presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Paula J. Carreiro and Eileen Shields-West, eds.Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.2008
M.J. Bryant, K.A. Hammond, M.M. Bocian, M.F. Rettig, C.A. Miller, R.A. CardulloScience MagazineSeptember 2008
Our favorite national initiative may be history, but education is alive and kicking in the good ole states. A whopping fifteen of them will have an array of legislative referendums, constitutional amendments, and citizen initiatives on their ballots this November.
Video games might help kids develop more than overgrown thumb muscles, reports the New York Times. Increasingly, publishers and educators are using video games to bait students into opening that ancient relic known as a book. This is, to an extent, laudable: schools should prepare students for the (digital) future, and teachers should strive to make learning relevant and engaging.
