Recognizing Agassi
The U.S. Open starts on Monday and the opening ceremony will have a special guest: Andre Agassi.
The U.S. Open starts on Monday and the opening ceremony will have a special guest: Andre Agassi.
I'm just as outraged as Jamie about the general American populace's ignorance about charters... but I can't say I'm surprised. Take for example this survey of federal spending from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Whether the United States should embrace national standards and tests is perhaps today's hottest education issue. For guidance in addressing it, this report looks beyond our borders. How have other countries navigated these turbid waters? What can we learn from them? Expert analysts examined national standards and testing in Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore and South Korea.
The following is a guest post from Fordham Staff Assistant Mickey Muldoon.
Yesterday was the first day of school in our nation's capital and only 37,000 students showed up for the big day.
This paper aims to promote a clearer understanding of the graduation-rate debate by distilling the policy developments and controversy surrounding the measurement of these rate. Why are there so many different ways to calculate graduation rates? How do these different rates account for the multiple pathways to graduation? What are the data sources used in the various dropout-rate calculations, and what are their pros and cons?
After his second attempt to dismantle the state's charter school program was thwarted, Ohio Governor Ted S
Ohio's charter school program dodged a bullet this recent budget cycle (here).
Join us Wednesday, August 19, for a panel discussion on how the changing education policy landscape is affecting both charter schools and voucher programs. The Obama administration is aggressively pushing to expand the number of charter schools available to American families.
Quotable "Sometimes I think, 'What if I'm sitting at the same desk she sat in?'" --Branaijah Melvin, 11-year-old student at Blessed Sacrament, Judge Sonia Sotomayor's K-8 school
As Andy reported last Friday, the DC Council has sent a letter to Secretary Duncan urging him to reconsider the fate of the DC Opportunity Scholarship program.
The Fordham Institute is unique in the school reform sector in that we have offices in both Washington, DC and Ohio
Feeling blue about school reform? This riveting no-nonsense address by Howard Fuller at last week's National Charter School Conference will relieve your doldrums.
This post, written by Bryan C. Hassel and Emily Ayscue Hassel of Public Impact, is a response to Andy Smarick's June 25 post about turnarounds.
Two weeks ago, our friends at Ki
Over the past five years, the number of students taking at least one Advanced Placement exam rose by more than half. This news is celebrated but is there a downside? To find out, Fordham commissioned the Farkas Duffett Research Group to survey AP teachers in the US. The AP program remains popular with its teachers. But there are signs that the move toward "open door" access to AP is starting to cause concern.
In this exciting, unique and challenging time, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute wants to congratulate President-Elect Obama and other new federal leaders. The federal government has a key role to play in creating a world-class education system in America but it's challenging to get that role right. This letter provides some guidance. Fordham experts review the current education policy landscape and its main players and offer their view of the ideal K-12 federal role. They also address the ten big policy battles looming on the horizon. The hope is that the letter will provide critical advice, insights and ideas for the new federal education leaders who are about to take on a big job.
This yearly report covers Fordham's sponsorship practices throughout the year as well as newsworthy events related to our sponsored charter schools. You can also find detailed reports on all of Fordham-sponsored schools. Each school report contains information on the school's academic performance, educational philosophy, and compliance for the 2007-2008 school year.
In A Byte at the Apple, leaders and scholars map the landscape of education data providers and users and explore why what's supplied by the former often fails to meet the needs of the latter. Most important, it explores potential solutions--including a system where a "backpack" of achievement information accompanies every student from place to place.
In public education today, individual schools are accountable under the federal No Child Left Behind Act as well as myriad state and local policy regimens for their students achievement and other vital outcomes. Increasingly, school leaders find their own job tenure and compensation tied to those outcomes as well. But do they possess the authority they need to lead their schools to heightened performance? Numerous surveys (conducted by Public Agenda, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and others) suggest that many school leaders feel they do not. Thus an important public policy question arises: what factors help or hinder school leaders in exercising their authority and in which areas?
This publication reports the results of the first two (of five) studies of a multifaceted research investigation of the state of high-achieving students in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era. Part I examines achievement trends for high-achieving students since the early 1990s; Part II reports on teachers' own views of how schools are serving high-achieving pupils in the NCLB era.
The Oregonian reports that its state board of education last
Liam asks "if urban Catholic schools can't compete with charter schools, why do they deserve special help?"
Mike, I may agree with your point that Catholic schools should receive public funding.
Too Good to Last: The True Story of Reading First is an in-depth and alarming study of Reading First's betrayal. Under the leadership of White House domestic policy chief Margaret Spellings and with support from Congress, Reading First was to provide funding to primary-reading programs that were based on scientific research. Backlash and brouhaha followed. Aggrieved whole-language program proprietors complained bitterly that their wares couldn't be purchased with Reading First funds. Then the administration turned its back on Reading First, allowing the program to be gutted and starved of funding.
Update: The NBA's number 1 draft pick is against???i.e., not supportive of, never has been and never will be,
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.
This report examines whether the reputation the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs have for academic excellence is truly deserved. Our expert reviewers looked at the four AP and IB courses most similar to the core content areas in American high schools--English, history, math, and science--and found that, in general, the courses do warrant praise. In a few cases, they deserve gold stars.