Commentary
Improving Teaching Through Pay for Contribution
Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. HasselNGA Center for Best Practices2007
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.
Commentary
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.
Commentary
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.
Commentary
When Research Matters: How Scholarship Influences Education Policy
Edited by Frederick M. HessHarvard Education PressFebruary 2008
Commentary
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"
Commentary
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.
Commentary
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.
Commentary
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."
Commentary
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.
Commentary
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.
Commentary
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.
Commentary
Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform since Sputnik
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Princeton University Press2008
Commentary
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.
Commentary
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.
Commentary
Rush to Judgment: Teacher Evaluation in Public Education
Thomas Toch and Robert RothmanEducation SectorJanuary 2008
Commentary
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.
Commentary
Memoir time
It's gratifying to publish one's memoirs but also a little scary. People keep asking if this is the end. Am I retiring? Dying, maybe? Will there be anything more?
Commentary
Much ado about not much
President George W. Bush released his 2009 budget on Monday, and Gadfly is struggling to summon the energy to care. By the time Congress acts on these proposals, it will probably be December and the President will be the lamest duck since Daffy. Said differently, this budget is dead on arrival. Which is a shame, because it's actually a decent statement of Uncle Sam's proper priorities.
Commentary
Year Two Evaluation of the Achievement Challenge Pilot Project in the Little Rock Public School District
Gary Ritter, Marc Holley, Nathan Jensen, Brent Riffel, Marcus Winters, Joshua Barnett, and Jay GreeneJanuary 2008
Commentary
No fingers!
In his December 13th editorial ("Sources of charter-school mediocrity"), Checker Finn laid out ten factors that contributed to charter-school mediocrity. He didn't say anything about what part the curriculum plays.
Commentary
Very Barry
Washington, D.C., council member Marion Barry just doesn't get it. The District, under the capable stewardship of young leaders such as Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, is rejecting the wasted potential of its past for the promise of the future.
Commentary
State of the State
Boosting Ohio's economy, expanding health care for families and children, and retooling the Buckeye State's manufacturing and technological base for the 21st century have clear ties to education and Governor Ted Strickland deserves praise for vision in these areas.