This week, Mike and Stafford discuss education reform’s newfound Wall Street heft, what to do about expensive teachers, and whether we really want China supplying our Chinese teachers. Then Amber gives us more evidence that nothing works (in gold-standard studies, at least) and Janie won’t let Rate that Reform take a kiddie sabbatical—a.k.a., temporary homeschooling.
Ask Americans if they support “public schools,” and you will get a resounding “yes.” At the heart of our abiding commitment to the idea of public education is Horace Mann’s ideal of the “common school”: a place whose doors are open to everybody, and where all children, regardless of social class, race or ethnic
A daylong conference at the American Enterprise Institute about turning around failing schools, featuring accomplished and engaging panelists too numerous to name, is planned for Tuesday, March 11th. Find here all the information you could ever want.
The AmeriCorps national service program seeks to fill four critical jobs: the directorships of the three programs that make up AmeriCorps (AmeriCorps*National Civilian Community Corps, AmeriCorps*VISTA, and AmeriCorps*State and National) and the director of recruitment.
Editor’s note: Chester E. “Checker” Finn, Jr. is currently enjoying a brief sabbatical, hanging out at the Calvin Coolidge Institute on the campus of W. Averell Harriman III University and slaving over a memoir of his 40 years in education reform. Here are a few excerpts from the first draft.
My jaw did the proverbial drop when I read this opening sentence in a front page story in Sunday’s Albany Times Union: “Albany’s charter schools have created a second school system that is almost entirely segregated.”…Now that nearly a quarter of Albany&
Education Pioneers is expanding its analyst fellowship program from the Bay Area to Boston this year, and is accepting applications. Learn more about the program here.
This week, Mike and Rick discuss private charter schools that teach religion and screw over poor kids, why the Pope is demanding school uniforms, and the Wall Street Journal's incompetence. Art Levine chats about his new study on teacher education, and Education News of the Weird knows that good things come in small packages.
Such inattention to detail, such malicious slander, I can not tolerate. Your recent report, The Leadership Bimbo, incorrectly depicts me on its front cover as at least 30 or 40 pounds heavier than I actually am.
The Policy Innovators in Education Network (PIE-Net) is on the hunt for a Director of Communications and Public Affairs. This individual would ideally have media and public relations experience and work with the Executive Director to improve the Network’s internal communications and expand PIE-Net’s membership and visibility.
This week, Mike and Rick discuss Hillary Clinton, dropouts, and impotent mayors. Sheila Byrd flies in to chat about Fordham's new AP/IB report, and Education News of the Weird is tracking you. Click here to listen through our website and peruse past editions.
It’s all ESEA all the time this week, as Andy and Mike square off in debate over the Obama Administration’s reauthorization blueprint. Then Amber tells us about charter-school teacher evaluations and Stafford wants to know is it Conn-ec-ti-cut?
Join us as we bid farewell to New Jersey’s new Deputy Commissioner of Education, Andy Smarick. First, he and Mike discuss how to educate the severely disabled, then Andy gives us his final thoughts on Race to the Top, School Improvement Grants, and turnarounds.
Spectrum Academy--the catchy if slightly off-putting name for Utah’s K-8 charter school for students with autism (or “on the spectrum”--get it?)--will expand its offerings to high school in fall 2010. What’s more interesting is how the school’s very existence reminds us of two contentious issues.
Fordham is pleased to welcome Jeff Kuhner, our new communications director. Jeff formerly worked at the Washington Times as editor of Insight Magazine. We're thrilled to have him on board.
The Head Start program has needed a radical overhaul for the past forty-five years, i.e. ever since its founding and its near-immediate demonstration that it doesn’t do much lasting good by way of readying poor kids to succeed in school.
This week, Mike and Rick discuss the finer points of French pronunciation, the treasures of the Canadian frontier, and Eddie Murphy's lessons for closing the achievement gap.
No, it's not Petraeus Week at National Review Online--it's Education Week! Check it out here.
The Detroit Glee Repress reported this week that the 2007 graduation rate in the city's public schools was zero percent-not a single student received a diploma last year. Reporters and grief counselors spent weeks combing Motor City for a high-school graduate but found none.
There’s still time to sign up for the joint Fordham-AEI conference “A Penny Saved: How Schools and Districts Can Tighten Their Belts While Serving Students Better.” It runs all day on January 11, 2009 at the Mayflower Hotel--that bastion of fiscal responsibility and moderation--in downtown Washingto
This week, Mike and Rick talk about Arizona, Atlanta, Checker Finn, and Diane Ravitch. Professor Stefanie DeLuca, of Johns Hopkins, chats about why moving poor kids won't help them learn, and Education News of the Weird is bombastic. Click here to listen through our website and peruse past editions.
There’s a movement afoot in Hawaii to do away with the elected school board…The source of frustration, according to the group leading the anti-Board charge, Children First, are Furlough Fridays, a cost-cutting measure that the Board of Ed said would save over $400 m
Among the various hats I wear (though please don’t tell Checker “School boards are an aberration, an anachronism, an educational sinkhole. Put this dysfunctional arrangement out of its misery” Finn) is that of member of the Board of Education.
School reformers in Ohio have been struggling for more than a decade to make Ohio welcoming for charter schools. Charters have had to fight in the legislature, at the courthouse, and in the court of public opinion to protect and defend their mere existence…However, all operators must be held accountable, as they work for the children, communities, and taxpayers where they run schools.
Ohio's charter school program dodged a bullet this recent budget cycle (here).
In 2007 we commissioned the well-respected economists Robert Costrell and Michael Podgursky to analyze Ohio’s State Teachers Retirement System.
In March, President Obama told a Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter that "the number of children going to the Cleveland Public Schools who are actually prepared to go to college (is) probably one out of seven or eight or ten. And that's just not acceptable.
The debate in education at the local and state level is far from placid (as Mike recently described it), and is sometimes incredibly toxic because the issues affect our children and our collective future.
The Fordham Institute is unique in the school reform sector in that we have offices in both Washington, DC and Ohio. From the Buckeye State vantage point, we see a growing disconnect between reformers inside the Beltway and those toiling in the states.
