Commentary
The recipe for success?
The Wall Street Journal examines why Finland's laid-back education system leads the world. Long story short, nobody knows.
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Curriculum & Instruction
Ignorance is not bliss
Are we rearing a nation of ignorant students? This is the question posed in the latest report, Still at Risk, by Fordham's sister organization, Common Core.
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BOOK IT! it's not
An interesting press release popped up in my inbox today. An excerpt: With 13 million children living in poverty in the United States, US Airways has made a bold step to help end the cycle of poverty through a new cause partnership with Reading Is Fundamental. Today, US Airways and RIF are launching the ???Fly with US. Reading with Kids."
Commentary
Why Asian students do better in math
It may not be simply that they study harder (though anecdotal evidence suggests they do).
Commentary
Teachers gone wild
A recent study finds that one-third of American teenagers regularly post offensive language or manipulated images on the web, and over 25 percent of these online pranks target teachers and principals. Such hi-jinks are not always a laughing matter.
Commentary
What a difference a mile makes
Broad Acres and Adelphi elementary schools are neighbors serving an impoverished corner of the Washington, D.C. suburbs that is home to thousands of recent immigrants.
Commentary
The opacity of hope
We stand corrected. Last week, Gadfly posited that perhaps Barack Obama has an open mind when it comes to school choice.
Commentary
Rather unreasonable
Common Core, an organization devoted to bringing content-rich instruction to U.S. classrooms, was born this week. Susan Jacoby's new book, The Age of American Unreason, was born two weeks earlier. It seemed fitting to welcome the former by reading and reviewing the latter.
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Lessons learned
Yes, I've learned plenty in the 57 years since I entered 1st grade in Dayton, Ohio's Fairview Elementary School, and the four decades since I taught social studies at Newton High School in Massachusetts. Let me share a dozen of the most profound lessons.
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Commentary
I'm thinking of a number...
Everybody knows Detroit has a dropout problem. But no one, it seems, can say exactly how bad it is. According to a new study by the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University, just 31.9 percent of Detroit students graduate in four years.
Commentary
Senate bill could boost charter schools' effectiveness, but opponents prefer killing charters altogether
Improvements have been made to Ohio's charter-school law over the past several years and some in the Senate are considering further changes to strengthen charter accountability. Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives legislators are seeking to kill charters completely.
Commentary
KIDS COUNT data center valuable source of info
For a reliable, user-friendly source of data about the lives of children outside the schoolhouse, look no further than the Annie E. Casey Foundation's KIDS COUNT data center.
Commentary
Fordham study shows how labor agreements can thwart innovation
Collective-bargaining agreements can have a tremendous impact on virtually all aspects of school-district operations, yet they pass under the public radar in many communities.
Commentary
Strickland's long-time advisor says the guv has jump-started debate
First Lady Frances Strickland is one of Governor Ted Strickland's closest education advisors. The Ohio Education Gadfly interviewed Mrs. Strickland in the wake of her husband's State of the State address, in which he proposed revamping the state's educational bureaucracy. The "over-emphasis" on standardized testing is harming public education, she argues.
Commentary
about the Gem City
Fordham's Vice President for Ohio Programs and Policy, Terry Ryan, wrote an op-ed piece for the Dayton Daily News that also ran in the last Gadfly contrasting the "two Daytons" (see here).
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Bubble kids
David Hoff reports that Senators Clinton and Obama are calling for new kinds of tests under No Child Left Behind.
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Charter Schools
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,
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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.
Commentary
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.
Commentary
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.
Commentary
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.
Commentary
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
Commentary
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.
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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.
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Report
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The Leadership Limbo
In the era of No Child Left Behind, principals are increasingly held accountable for student performance. But are teacher labor agreements giving them enough flexibility to manage effectively? The Leadership Limbo: Teacher Labor Agreements in America's Fifty Largest School Districts, answers this question and others.
Commentary
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.
Commentary
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.
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When Research Matters: How Scholarship Influences Education Policy
Edited by Frederick M. HessHarvard Education PressFebruary 2008