School Restructuring Under No Child Left Behind: What Works When? A Guide for Education Leaders
Jennifer DeBoerEmily Ayscue Hassel, Bryan C. Hassel, Matthew D. Arkin, Julia M. Kowal, and Lucy M. SteinerThe Center for Comprehensive School Reform and ImprovementSeptember 2006
On faith and reason
Michael J. PetrilliLast week, Pope Benedict XVI sparked a firestorm in the Islamic world with a speech in which he quoted (but did not endorse) a 14th Century emperor who said that Muhammad had brought the world only "evil and inhuman" things.
Over the top on overachievers
Before applying to MIT, the Associated Press reports, one young man "built a working nuclear reactor in his garage." While no doubt intriguing to terrorists around the world, MIT's Dean of Admissions, Marilee Jones, was unimpressed. She finds such applicants just a tad run-of-the-mill.
Charter confusion: What they know just ain't so
Buried in the findings of the recently issued 38th annual Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools are some useful eye-openers for the charter school community.
Paradise Lost (in the School Cafeteria)
"They eat, they drink, and in communion quaff sweet immortality and joy," wrote poet John Milton of Adam and Eve's life before the fall. But high school students in Lafayette County, Indiana don't have to read Milton to feel the progenitorial couple's loss.
Replicating High-Performing Public Schools: Lessons from the Field
Quentin SuffrenThink creating high-quality schools is difficult? Try replicating them.
Sub-Standard Math Standards Get Help
Quentin SuffrenAfter 17 years of promoting "fuzzy" math, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has finally found clarity.
Charter School Growth Fund Opportunities
The Charter School Growth Fund (CSGF), which provides grants and loans for the development and expansion of charter management and support organizations, is now seeking applicants for its first 2007 business planning cohort.
Urban Districts Learning to Compete
Quentin SuffrenCompetition from charter schools is spurring one of Ohio's most troubled urban districts, Dayton Public Schools (DPS), to improve.So says a new report by the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), which examined the methods employed by DPS and Wisconsin's Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) to respond to the competitive school markets they are in.
A Vegas star
The superintendent of Clark County schools (Las Vegas), Walt Rulffes, is asking the state legislature for an expansion of his new school autonomy experiment, which has been running for less than two weeks. The program bestows upon Vegas principals more decision-making authority in return for increased accountability--much like Joel Klein's "empowerment schools" in New York City.
No Longer the Only Game in Town: Helping Traditional Public Schools Compete
Martin A. Davis, Jr.Christine Campbell, Michael DeArmond, Kacey Guin, and Deborah WarnockCenter on Reinventing Public EducationSeptember 2006
Report on Licensure Alignment with the Essential Components of Effective Reading Instruction
Coby LoupDiana W. RigdenReading First Teacher Education NetworkSeptember 2006
Rational numbers
Way back in 1989, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) launched the "math wars" by pushing constructivist, "fuzzy" math onto the nation's schools.
HOUSSE call
Gadfly tries to flutter his wings on the sunny side of issues and therefore resists chiding Secretary Spellings for her recent flip-flop on "highly qualified teachers." It's true, as others
Dead prose society
To all you would-be term-paper buyers: caveat emptor! The New York Times decided to put the burgeoning number of online essay-writing companies to the test. Promising original, A-level work, these firms cheerily take your topic (and your credit card number) and promise to produce prose and arguments sure to bring tears to your teacher's eyes.
National testing goes international
Kevin DonnellyWelcome to Australia, home to kangaroos, dingoes, and an increasingly vocal debate over establishing national education standards.
Adrian Fenty: A mayor for everybody?
On Tuesday, District of Columbia voters handed Adrian M. Fenty a decisive victory in the city's Democratic mayoral primary.
Computer and Internet Use by Students in 2003
Matthew DeBell and Chris ChapmanNational Center for Education StatisticsSeptember 2006
The Hidden Costs of Curriculum Narrowing
Michael J. PetrilliCraig D. JeraldThe Center for Comprehensive School Reform and ImprovementAugust 2006
Charter chatter
Life was rough for charter school supporters immediately after the release of the recent National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) study of charter schools (see here). But newer test results out of Philadelphia and Massachusetts show that all the anti-charter hype was just more hypocrisy.
Cheeky
School superintendent Roger Schmiedeskamp of Manning, Iowa, is learning the hard way that applying modern management principles to public education can be risky. Greater transparency? Aggressive community outreach? Stripping away all pretense?
Know your enemy
Martin A. Davis, Jr.Weather doesn't attract people to Washington, D.C. The summers are often grey and humid, the winters grey and cold. But at certain moments, Washington can be among the most beautiful cities in the world. September 11, 2001, was such a day.
Luddite oversight
Sixth-grader Abby Adam loves to send instant online messages to her friends, and she could just spend hours tinkering away on the social networking site MySpace.com.
Merciful Malcolm
Malcolm Gladwell--author of Blink and The Tipping Point, bestselling books on shelves from Miami to Mombasa--recently pontificated in The New Yorker on school discipline. His piece denounces the "age of zero tolerance" by pointing to, of all people, Robert Oppenheimer.
American exceptionalism
Free markets, for all their virtues, do a poor job of distributing public goods like education, right? Anti-capitalist gobbledygook, says columnist Robert Samuelson.
The Bargainer's Handbook: New Attitude--New Opportunity
Didn't feel the passion of Labor Day? Not to worry. Just pick up the Ohio Education Association's (OEA) new handbook for collective bargainers--complete with the introduction "Prepare for Battle," a rousing call to arms by OEA's own Dr. Strangelove, researcher Patricia A. Turner.
Open Season on Charters
Terry RyanLate summer in Ohio is open season on charter schools. With the release of the Ohio Department of Education's (ODE) state report cards on school achievement, critics have launched repeated volleys aimed at tearing down the state's charter school program. This year's carping is especially vicious as state elections loom in November.
Poor State Standards Need National Attention
Ohio's schoolchildren aren't being well served by the state's mediocre (or worse) learning expectations. That's just one of the findings of Fordham's The State of State Standards 2006, a new report which evaluates state academic standards.