Oden for Obama

Update: The NBA's number 1 draft pick is against???i.e., not supportive of, never has been and never will be,

Seattle times tables

Students in Washington State have had to deal with some dismal math standards (we gave them an F in 2005). Finally, last year, the legislature decreed that those standards should be reviewed and if necessary revised.

Cross the unions: Yes he can?

It is not per se wrong to enjoy watching movie star Scarlett Johansson sing breathily about change in America. Millions have, in fact.

Anchors away

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee seems to understand the "fierce urgency of now." The third part of PBS education correspondent John Merrow's fine ongoing series of reports on Rhee's efforts to turn around the D.C.

Speakeasy

We learn from Britain that requiring those whose fluency in a foreign language is being tested actually to speak in that language is "too stressful." This week, the U.K.'s Qualifications and Curriculum Authority abolished oral examinations for students taking foreign-language GCSE exa

Partial Win for Sunshine State

Florida's State Board of Education this week approved newly revised science standards after a long process that, in its final stages, turned contentious over the subject of evolution, a recurrent problem topic for Florida as for several other states. The 4-3 vote enshrined evolution in the Sunshine State's curriculum.

Teachers' union psychology 101

Fordham's latest report, The Leadership Limbo, is a valuable resource. It's inevitable, though, that I approach this issue from a somewhat different angle, considering what I do: focus on and cover the inner workings of the teachers' unions.

Three cheers for dead, white men

Dead, white male authors are much maligned but not forgotten. Thousands of educators continue to teach F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby, for example, despite repeated salvos from the forces of political correctness.

Closing the Expectations Gap 2008

Achieve, Inc.February 2008

Gadfly021408

Improving Teaching Through Pay for Contribution

Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. HasselNGA Center for Best Practices2007

Insecticide in our schools

Gadfly was repulsed, horrified, stunned to learn that several of his cousins, crickets to be precise, were recently consumed by a Florida middle-school principal in celebration/lamentation of his students' academic success.

Mike Huckabee: The next great education secretary?

After his victories in this week's Potomac Primary, Senator John McCain is predicted to have greater than a 90 percent chance of sealing the GOP presidential nomination, according to the Iowa Electronic Markets.

Open wide

Before Sol Stern's City Journal article pitting "instructionists" against "incentivists," there was Ted Kolderie et al's white paper contrasting "innovation with school and schooling"

Taking tests too far

High-stakes tests are useful in a lot of ways. This isn't one of them. According to the Palm Beach Post, several of Florida's previously fired teachers are being reinstated after an appellate court found that their students' test scores were not factored into the dismissals. A state law requires that student performance be part of any teacher evaluation.

The Leadership Limbo

It's no real surprise that, after years of lurking menacingly in the shadows, The Contract has emerged into the spotlight, indeed has leaped to the top of the education policy agenda. Sooner or later, the purveyors of any number of flavors of school reform were bound to see their prospects entangled with teachers' collective bargaining agreements.

When Research Matters: How Scholarship Influences Education Policy

Edited by Frederick M. HessHarvard Education PressFebruary 2008

Dropping coin

A statewide task force in Maryland recommends requiring youngsters to stay in school until the age of 18 (today's pupils can leave legally at 16). This move, promises the task force, will keep more Old Line State students from dropping out, which may or may not be true.

Entering unchartered waters

Is the charter movement--which has sputtered along, making steady but slow progress--finally ready to kick it into high gear? Signs in New York point to yes, say USA Today's Richard Whitmire and Eduwonk Andy Rotherham.

Dayton: a tale of two cities

As someone who has been working and living in Dayton for the past seven years, I am constantly reminded of the fact that there are, in fact, two Daytons.

School boards: fish, cut bait, or get out of the way

Mark Twain once quipped that God, for practice, first made idiots. Then he made school boards.

The devil is in the details

In his second State of the State address, Governor Strickland kept with his tradition of not distributing hard copies of the speech ahead of time and not providing supplemental information about his proposed programs and policies.

Times never change, bad news is never welcome

In June, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute released a study of Ohio's teacher pension system entitled Golden Peaks and Perilous Cliffs: Rethinking Ohio's Teacher Pension System (see here). In the report's introduction the institute's president, Chester E.

Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform since Sputnik

Chester E. Finn, Jr.Princeton University Press2008

Wauseon school has four-legged counselor

WAUSEON, Ohio--New members of a school's staff sometimes can take some time to work in, although it's easier when a new staffer has four legs, like Kramer, the new counselor at Burr Road Middle School.

Education/Evolving predicts the future

Wondering what the future holds for public education? Then check out Education|Evolving's predictions and proposals in "The Other Half of the Strategy: Following up on System Reform by Innovating with School and Schooling."

about charter-school mediocrity

Robert A. Douglas of the Richard Allen Schools responded to an editorial Checker Finn wrote laying out his 10 factors of charter-school mediocrity in the December 12 Gadfly.You laid out 10 factors that you said contributed to charter school mediocrity. You didn't say anything what part the curriculum plays.

about high-school reform

Colleen D. Grady, of the State Board of Education, responds to Terry Ryan's opinions concerning high-school reform:I agree with your list of five keys to high-school reform but felt you stopped short of a couple of crucial ideas.

London fogged

In 1965, then British Education Secretary Anthony Crosland said, "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every f***ing grammar school in England." He didn't, but his heirs are still trying. English grammar schools are selective state-run schools; students must pass an exam to attend them.