Displaying 16801-16830 of 16984 results
Commentary
8.8.2001

New corps of urban principals breaks barriers to entry

Last week, New Leaders for New Schools introduced its first corps of urban principals, highly-qualified individuals without standard principal credentials who have been given special training and served apprenticeships under master principals before taking the reins of their own schools. Solving the principal shortage will require districts to embrace innovative strategies like this.

Commentary
8.8.2001

Performance Pay Roadblocks

The movement to link teacher pay to performance in the classroom has taken several giant steps forward this year-in Iowa, Arizona, and Toledo, just to name a few places-but it took two steps back last week.

Commentary
8.8.2001

Revolution in the ed schools

Almost everyone agrees that schools of education need an overhaul and Martin Kozloff, a reform-minded professor of education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, explains how this should happen in a manifesto posted on EducationNews.org.

Commentary
8.8.2001

Teach for America instructors outshine experienced teachers

Teach for America teachers perform as well or better than other teachers employed by the Houston Independent School District, according to an independent study by CREDO, a research group based at Stanford's Hoover Institution. An editorial in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution argues that Georgia should also open its doors to prospective teachers like these.

Commentary
7.24.2001

Canards in Need of Roasting

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Inasmuch as last week's column was about chickens (Chicken Littles, to be precise) it's fitting that this one is about canards-the loud-quacking kind-that need to be put out of their misery and cooked fast. Roaming the education reform field, I've encountered many ridiculous statements hurled at those who seek major changes in the K-12 delivery system.

Commentary
7.24.2001

Using data to hold feet to the fire

Police commanders in New York City face weekly "Compstat" meetings in which reams of crime statistics are scrutinized and commanders are grilled about trends in their precincts.

Commentary
7.24.2001

Weighing the cow does make it fatter

Caroline Hoxby wondered whether adopting report cards for schools causes a state to improve academic achievement. She examined state NAEP scores to see if there was any difference between states that adopted report card systems early on and states that were latecomers to the report card bandwagon.

Commentary
7.24.2001

We're #5 (in percentage of adults with college degrees)

For the first time, the US has lost its world lead in college completion rates. The UK, New Zealand, Finland, and the Netherlands all have higher percentages of young adults with college degrees than we do. Jay Mathews considers whether we should be worried in "The New Completion Competition," Washington Post Magazine, July 22, 2001.

Commentary
7.24.2001

Fraud and Education: The Worm in the Apple

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Harold J. Noah (emeritus professor at Teachers College, Columbia) and Max A. Eckstein (emeritus professor at Queens College, CUNY) have written this disturbing book about education fraud and chicanery. They spotlight student cheating, credentials fraud and misconduct by professionals.

Commentary
7.24.2001

Revitalizing Federal Education Research and Development

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Education historian Maris A. Vinovskis is the author of this thorough, fact-filled and perceptive 270-page volume subtitled "Improving the R & D Centers, Regional Educational Laboratories, and the 'New' OERI." Much of the material in its five chapters has appeared elsewhere, but it's extremely valuable to have this all in one place.

Commentary
7.18.2001

Changing his tune on charter schools?

Is any charter school better than no charter school? Checker Finn used to think so but now he's not so sure. The Dayton Daily News traces his conversion in "Charter Guru Wisely Flexible," by Martin Gottlieb, Dayton Daily News, July 15, 2001 http://library.activedayton.com/cgi-bin/display.cgi?

Commentary
7.18.2001

Chicken Little's lucky day

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

The main reason important reforms don't get made in American K-12 education may be termed the Chicken Little Syndrome: the assertion that the sky will surely fall down if this change is made or, more temperately, the suggestion that the sky MIGHT collapse but we can't be sure so let's not take chances.

Commentary
7.18.2001

Summer school works

It being summer, the press is full of stories about the vast number of kids attending summer school, which many districts require for students who would otherwise be held back a grade. But how effective are remedial summer programs?

Commentary
7.18.2001

Setting cut scores low: you have to start somewhere

As if the official passing score of 55 on the state's Regents exams were not low enough, the Buffalo News reported this week that students needed to answer just 33 percent of the questions correctly to achieve that score on the Regents exam in biology, and 45 percent of the questions in math.