What do the voices of school choice sound like?
Jeff MurrayA Fordhamite and parent discusses school choice through his family's personal experience.
Getting tough on charter authorizing
Kathryn Mullen UptonCharter school authorizing is complex work that requires specialized knowledge and skills. But all the resources in the world are nothing without institutional commitment.
Common Core in the Schools: A First Look at Reading Assignments
Tim Shanahan, Ann DuffettIn Common Core in the Schools: A First Look at Reading Assignments, researchers analyze what texts English teachers assign their students and the instructional techniques they used in the classroom.
Education, Education, Education: Reforming England’s Schools
Melissa ReynoldsAcross the pond, education wonks plug away at solving problems and enacting reforms that will sound both familiar and not to our U.S. readers.
Shaking things up in the best of ways
The Education GadflyThe introduction of the Common Core standards is shaking up the $7 billion textbook industry, according to this great piece by Sarah Garland.
Moody’s shortchanges investors
Adam EmersonWe know this much: Moody’s investment analysts don’t care much for parental choice, but they care a lot about the credit-worthiness of school districts.
Rethinking high school
Chester E. Finn, Jr.As waves of reforms and would-be reforms have washed over American public education these past three decades, high schools have mostly stayed dry. Although test scores have risen slightly in the early grades, especially in math, National Assessment results for twelfth-graders have been flat or down a bit. SAT scores are also flat, and ACT averages much the same.
Simple Choices: Thoughts on choosing environments that support who your child is meant to be
Singer CrawfordNot without a fight
The Education GadflyBill de Blasio, the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, is no friend of charter schools.
The record on vouchers is not mixed
Adam EmersonIt’s no exaggeration to say that private school choice has been a success. Every serious study into the efficacy of vouchers and tax-credit scholarships has shown either positive or neutral benefits for students, and virtually no significant research has found any signs of academic harm to children.
The record on vouchers is not mixed
Adam EmersonIt’s not a radical statement to say that private school choice has been a success. Every serious study into the efficacy of vouchers and tax-credit scholarships has shown either positive or neutral benefits for students. Virtually no significant research has found that they have academically harmed children.
Why the Gap? Special Education and New York City Charter Schools
Adam EmersonThe University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has emerged as the leading voice of reason on the vexing overlap between charter school policy and special education policy.
Essential reading for non-essential personnel
The Education GadflyThe Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP), which gives public dollars to low-income students to escape low-performing schools for private schools of their choosing, has come under fire from the Department of Justice for “
New study questions special-education quotas for charters
Adam EmersonThe Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has emerged as the leading voice of reason on the gap that persists between charter schools and school districts when it comes to educating students with special needs.
Knocking the textbooks out of the park
The Education GadflyJournalist and author Amanda Ripley has received well-deserved attention for her book The Smartest Kids in the World—but we’re not sold on he
School districts shouldn’t be the only charter authorizer in town
Adam EmersonThe conclusion seems so obvious: In a unanimous decision this week, Georgia’s Supreme Court said that the Atlanta school system cannot withhold funds from the charter schools it authorizes to help pay down an old pension debt that’s been building for decades.
End. The Broad Prize. Now.
I stared at the tweet, dumbfounded. Houston: 2013 Broad Prize finalist? That can’t be. I had recently dug through old city-level NAEP results. They were all terribly depressing. But Houston’s stopped me cold.
Senator Lamar Alexander to Attorney General Eric Holder: Stop interfering in Louisiana's voucher program
Dear Attorney General Holder:
There’s a right way to authorize charter schools; Mississippi chose the wrong way
Adam EmersonThis is not a good start for one of the newest states empowered to start up charter schools. The Associated Press has reported that the newly created Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board lacks the money and the leadership to do its job.
Going the extra mile
The Education GadflyA study out of Britain’s Institute of Education (IOE) has found that children who read for pleasure made more progress in mathematics, vocabulary, and spelling between the ages of ten and sixteen than their peers who rarely read.
Standards, reading lists, and censorship
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Among the many arguments raging—and more than a little mud-slinging—around the Common Core State Standards, perhaps the most arcane involves the blurry border between academic standards and classroom curricula.
Why course-based enrollment is the next big thing in parental choice
Michael BrickmanThanks to the tireless work of school-choice advocates and wise policymakers, millions of U.S. children and their parents now have education options that were not available to them a few short years ago. But the choice picture is sorely incomplete. Consider:
The Effectiveness of Secondary Math Teachers from Teach for America and the Teaching Fellows Programs
Dara Zeehandelaar Shaw, Ph.D.This study of Teach For America (TFA) and Teaching Fellows secondary math teachers explores how their students compare to peers taking the same course, in the same school, from teachers who entered the profession through traditional certification programs (or other programs not as rigorous as TFA or Teaching Fellows).
Charter school restarts: Let’s give them a try
Adam EmersonHarlem Day is one of the oldest charter schools in New York City—and, historically, one of its most troubled. It has had nine principals in the nine years since its founding in 2001, and fewer than 25 percent of its students could read and do math at grade level.
We add to Duncan's statement: Making sense of tragedy requires a solid education
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Arne Duncan was right to call attention to 9/11 as an important opportunity for teaching children about the heinous events of that day twelve years ago, about honoring those who perished, and about the value of "coming together" as Americans.
By the Company It Keeps: Preston Smith
I liked Preston Smith from the very start. We talked about sports and music, teased each other like high school friends, and bonded over stories of our young kids and smart, loving wives. We also shared a hardscrabble past and a set of small shoulder chips that produced in both of us a forward-leaning posture and an abiding passion for education reform.
Voucher opponents shouldn’t be rooting for a Holder victory in Louisiana
Michael BrickmanEric Holder's Justice Department recently announced it would not target states that had chosen to legalize marijuana due to its "limited prosecutorial resources." The Obama presidency has shown us that "insufficient funds" is an exce
Indiana AG sets a precedent on school choice others should follow
Adam EmersonIndiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller recently published an opinion that should be good news for school-choice advocates who favor customized education for low-income students
Suspicious motives
The Education GadflyThe Washington Post (and many others) roundly