Union Hypocrisy
The National Education Association (N.E.A.) would rather die than let parents choose their children's schools-but this week it voted to let them decide whether or not their kids will take tests! What's the difference?
The National Education Association (N.E.A.) would rather die than let parents choose their children's schools-but this week it voted to let them decide whether or not their kids will take tests! What's the difference?
Since 1994, high schools in Los Angeles have been able to name as many valedictorians as they like rather than singling out one top student. To avoid making any good students feel bad, some schools had 30, 40, and even 90 valedictorians this year.
The National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council is at it again, taking money from the (Clinton) Department of Education to advance the education profession's conventional wisdom while claiming to be engaged in serious analysis.
I was out of the country last week and expected to return to find an end to the media frenzy about Education Secretary Rod Paige being (a) unhappy with his job, (b) "out of the policy loop" and (c) on the verge of quitting. Alas, this foolishness seemed, if anything, to have intensified.
Long-time education policy analyst Henry M. Levin now heads the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, based at Teachers College, Columbia. That center held its kick-off conference in April 1999. The conference papers have now been collected in this volume, which Levin edited.
Nearly all states post report cards on the internet that show parents (and others) how their children's schools are doing, but some of these report cards are more useful than others. The Heritage Foundation has created a web site that highlights the 10 best internet-based school report cards, explains why such measures are important, and includes links to school report cards in all the states.
Children First America has issued an eight-page brief describing bold reforms that the Kiwis have made to their education system over the past decade and a half.
The summer issue of the American Federation of Teacher's magazine, American Educator, has several must-read articles. E.D.
The Educational Research Service's new study of high-performing districts expands on an appraisal of high-performing schools that it published three years ago.
A year after the University of California system made changes in its admissions policy designed to increase campus diversity, Hispanic admissions soared 18%.
School choice researchers and critics discuss the strengths and weaknesses of studies analyzing the effects of vouchers in "The Problem With Studying Vouchers," by D.W. Miller, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 13, 2001 (Article is available only to subscribers.)
In "No Vouchers for You," Sam MacDonald explores the growing political divide between black elites and typical black voters over vouchers.
Diallo Dphrepaulezz's new report for the Pacific Research Institute tells the story of San Francisco's Edison Charter Academy, which made sizable gains in test scores after being taken over by Edison Schools, but which was nonetheless notified by the San Francisco Board of Education in March 2001 that its charter was about to be revoked.
Fresh from Canada, this compact package of ten papers, edited by the Fraser Institute's Claudia R. Hepburn, looks at whether and how competition-based reforms could benefit the Canadian education system. More than a few of its lessons also apply to-indeed, many were derived from research performed in-the United States.
The University of Washington's Paul Hill has written a fine short background paper for the Progressive Policy Institute on "charter districts," an idea that has been gaining interest as the charter-school movement has spread.
One in 10 Rhode Island students was suspended last year, and either sent home or forced to sit in isolated rooms for hours. The Providence Journal looks at who is suspended (disproportionately black students), why (less for violent offenses than for truancy and tardiness), and with what result.
Over the past few months, federal policymakers have grappled with both education and taxes. Americans want both improved education and tax relief, but some say these dual priorities are in conflict. That need not be so, according to the Cato Institute.
While public discussion of the education bill has focused on such hot-button issues as vouchers, much of the real drama in Washington-"what everybody was E-mailing and voice-mailing everybody else about"-is the "adequate yearly progress" or A.Y.P. formula, writes Nicholas Lemann in a narrative account of the progress of Bush's ambitious education plan through the Congressional gantlet.
Patrick Welsh, a veteran Alexandria, Virginia high school English teacher who often writes for the Outlook section of the Washington Post, describes what a new superintendent faces in Alexandria: "constant negotiations with and back-biting from a crowd of self-appointed community experts who think they know best how to run a school system." No superintendent can survive the minefie
This provocative book by John Abbott and Terry Ryan argues that our education problem isn't something that can be solved by altering schools but, rather, must be tackled by entire communities. They don't, in fact, believe that today's schools are the right focus for tomorrow's education.
The May issue of Catalyst, Voices of Chicago's School Reform, contains four articles that examine the district's attempt to use Advanced Placement courses and International Baccalaureate programs to boost student achievement in the Windy City's high schools. http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/05-01/0501toc.htm
The May/June 2001 edition of Catalyst for Cleveland Schools is out and it focuses on the effectiveness of mayors in reforming education, with a close look at four cities - Cleveland, Chicago, Boston, and Detroit. In Cleveland, Mayor Michael R. White has distinguished himself by having a lot of power but rarely showing it, more often allowing school chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett to lead.
Raymond Domanico has written a 26-page report comparing the academic performance of New York City's Catholic elementary schools with the city's public schools.
The American Association of School Administrators named Gerry House superintendent of the year in 1999. House was hailed by her peers as a visionary, in part for insisting that all 165 schools in her Memphis school district implement a comprehensive reform model. She also won one of the coveted McGraw education prizes for this work.
Not all charter school news is good, in part because not all the schools are good. Recent state proficiency test scores for many Ohio charters, for example, were pretty disheartening. Everyone knows that Texas has a handful of inadequate charter schools. So are a few in the nation's capital.
The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) is becoming a steadily more useful source of interesting and worthwhile education data, much of it contained in the now-annual publication named Education at a Glance.
Much ink has been spilled over the alarming estimate that our schools will need upwards of 2 million new teachers by 2010. Some U.S. schools are already experiencing a teacher shortage.
If you read the Washington Post, you may already have seen reporter Jay Mathews' article about the Saxon math program, which helps children learn but which the powers that be in most school districts refuse to adopt.
Terry Moe's important new Brookings book has a title meant to recall his and John Chubb's influential 1990 work (also published by Brookings), Politics, Markets, and America's Schools. This volume should have an impact, too. Based primarily on a massive 1995 survey, it analyzes U.S. public opinion on vouchers more thoroughly and exhaustively than anyone has ever done.