Gadfly wasn't pleased with the Philadelphia Inquirer last week, as the paper saw only bad news in the Philadelphia School District's decision to take back six of the 38 schools that have been managed by private op
If you're the type of Flypaper reader who only has time for the latest postings, not those published a whole two hours ago and invisible without scrolling, I commend to you Liam's update to this post; after reading it, I think you'll agree, you'll be better informed about blogging etiquette a
Checker takes to the Wall Street Journal's op-ed pages to communicate to Ohioans this message: Wake up.
As a fellow insect-themed edu-blog, we feel a certain kinship with our friends at BoardBuzz, produced by the National School Boards Association.
Performance-based pay (PBP) programs for teachers have been??growing, especially since the advent of the federal Teacher Incentive Fund program a couple years ago. ProComp out of Denver is probably the best known PBP and rather unique since it's being funded by a $25-million mill levy approved by taxpayers.
A new AP poll out today spends some time asking respondents about the state of public schools.
Video footage from the panel discussion of Fordham's recent report, High-Achieving Students in the Era of No Child Left Behind, is now online for your viewing pleasure:
Does anyone out there believe that the dramatic test-score increases coming out of the Empire State are legitimate? Sol Stern, for one, highly-knowledgeable on all educational goings on in New York, is with the naysayers.
The newest issue of The Economist has a piece on international comparisons that offers a couple interesting lessons. The first is to be wary of them.
The newest Gadfly is up. Amber's editorial is a fair-minded evaluation of the relevant research that seeks to clarify whether school-based childcare centers are a smart idea. She finds in favor of common sense.
...that William F. Buckley, Jr., spoke no English until he was seven years old? Spanish was his first language, French his second. We read volumes about the need to offer pre-K in large part to ensure that a pupil begins Kindergarten??in possession of words the number of which does not substantially trail that of those at the beck and call of most of his classmates.
From: U.S. Department of Education [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:06 PM To: U.S. Department of Education Subject: FYI - Reading First Letter from Secretary Spellings
We were pretty busy yesterday with our event, so I didn't get the chance to comment on a surprising advertising supplement in Wednesday's Washi
I'd wager that stupid immigration policies, which George Will assails in today's Washington Post, pose a much greater threat to long-term American competitiveness than sub-par
The X Prize Foundation is teaming up with British telecoms giant BT to expand its offerings. The Financial Times says
Don't miss this important new study by the National Council on Teacher Quality regarding the preparation of competent elementary-school math teachers. Titled No Common Denominator, it finds, after reviewing a national sample of ed-school-based undergraduate teacher prep programs, that fewer than 15 percent of them require enough of the right kinds of courses. It names names, too!
Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal (see above) earned a victory last week when the state legislature voted to implement a voucher program for New Orleans that he supports. The bill, which received bipartisan support, introduces a venture that will start small (maximum participation is 1,500) and offer vouchers only to students in grades k-3. But its accountability measures are promising.
This is school-reform week in the Bay State, where Governor Deval Patrick is finally announcing a series of policy proposals that would amount to the biggest changes in state education law in fifteen years. What's not clear is whether these will be, ahem, changes we can believe in, or whether the legislature will even find the money to fund any of them.
Perhaps a few Texans have been reading our report on the flaccidity of most alternative-certification programs for teachers.
New Orleans, June 25, 2008: In all the obvious ways, this week's National Charter Schools Conference resembled other major conclaves in big-city convention centers: thousands of people being beckoned by hundreds of "exhibitors" with their stands, stalls, slick pitches, and free samples, as well as by dozens and dozens of "break out" sessions on every imaginable topic.
Kristen Graham of the Philadelphia Inquirer begins her reportage about the city's experiences with private operators of public schools with this sentence: "In a blow to the Philadelphia School District's historic privatization experiment, the School Reform Commission voted yesterday to seize six schools from outside managers and warned them that they are in danger of losing 20 others i
Directed by Alan Raymond and Susan RaymondHome Box OfficeJune 2008
Construction workers hurting from the roiled real estate market should head to Los Angeles, where the school district is feverishly adding square footage even as its enrollment declines. The Los Angeles Unified School District has lost 57,000 students over the past decade; fewer families are moving to the city and the Latino birth rate has fallen.
How dismaying to read about the 17 girls at Gloucester (MA) High School who, some say, made a pact to become pregnant together. What about finishing high school? Going to college?
Center for American ProgressJune 2008
The often educational Sherman Dorn believes that this recounting betrays an ahistorical mindset because "the early 1970s [were] a time when everyone was complaining about the misbehavior and immorality of youth." If the topic of discuss
Not really. But Rick Hess and Jay Greene do??see problems with Florida's Amendment 9, which teachers' unions and their allies are trying to keep off November's ballot.
Fordham hosted a panel event this morning about our recent report, High-Achieving Students in the Era of NCLB.
