Charter Schools in Eight States: Effects on Achievement, Attainment, Integration, and Competition
Ron Zimmer, Brian Gill, Kevin Booker, Stephane Lavertu, Tim Sass, and John WitteRAND EducationMarch 2009
Ron Zimmer, Brian Gill, Kevin Booker, Stephane Lavertu, Tim Sass, and John WitteRAND EducationMarch 2009
When the federal government starts talking in billions, is it too much to ask that the money be well spent? Apparently so. In the rush to get funds out to states and districts ASAP, education stimulus dollars are being dispersed via a tangle of federal formulae.
John D. Bransford, Deborah J. Stipek, Nancy J. Vye, Louis M. Gomez, and Diana Lam, eds.Harvard Education PressFebruary 2009
Michael Gurian, Kathy Stevens, and Peggy DanielsJossey-Bass Publishing2009
If it's sensational, it'll sell papers. That's the motto of most periodicals and the tack the New York Post was surely taking with this subhead: "Teachers watched porn on work computers, falsified records to pad their pockets, faked doctors' notes to go on vacation." The New York Department of Education received 2,886 misconduct accusations last year--the most ever.
The Washington Post's Jay Mathews is ready to close the book on vouchers. While he supports them himself, he thinks "[t]his nation of public school backers just won't go for vouchers." But hold the eulogizing for just a sec. Simply because D.C.'s program is on the block doesn't mean there's not hope beyond the Beltway.
What do outer space and Appalachia have in common? They're both topics that students could encounter in reading comprehension passages on typical state tests. And they illustrate E.D. Hirsch's big beef with such assessments: they mean to test students' reading abilities, but they really test students' knowledge on randomly-chosen topics.
Conventional wisdom says that most states and school districts will make budget cuts in the most boneheaded manner possible: lay off their young teachers, eliminate art and music classes, decimate sports programs, and so forth. And evidence from the current recession indicates that this conventional wisdom is usually right.
As we write, the fate of the District of Columbia voucher initiative (a.k.a. Opportunity Scholarship Program) hangs in the balance. Ambiguous, ambivalent remarks from President Obama's camp and Secretary Duncan certainly haven't helped to secure its future and its Congressional and interest-group enemies seem bent on ending it--with a possible reprieve for current beneficiaries.
The trusty Reform-o-Meter has become a little rusty lately; that's because there hasn't been a lot of action at the U.S. Department of Education worth rating. This is particularly true since we still don't know who the picks for Deputy Secretary, Undersecretary, or Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education will be.
The best and brightest among educational entrepreneurs are often called rock stars. Though I can hardly imagine two things more different than, say, a ???????no excuses???????
During last night's prime-time press conference, President Obama was asked about shared sacrifices during these tough times. The president noted that these are indeed difficult times for many Americans.