Why Kids Can't Read: Challenging the Status Quo in Education
Rowman & Littlefield EducationEdited by Phyllis Blaunstein and Reid Lyon2006
Rowman & Littlefield EducationEdited by Phyllis Blaunstein and Reid Lyon2006
After reading your latest report, The State of State World History Standards 2006, I was disheartened but not surprised by the failing grade my state, Utah, received. Our youngest child just graduated with honors from high school.
Paul E. BartonEducational Testing ServiceJune 2006
The U.S. Department of Education recently laid the smack down on Iowa, threatening to severely limit its federal funding if it didn't make new elementary school teachers pass a standardized test, as required by NCLB's "highly qualified teachers" provision. Pinned to the mat, state education officials will require all teacher candidates to take and pass the Praxis II beginning in 2007.
Gadfly's hometown has suddenly turned into education reform nirvana. Last week we reported that competition from charter schools spurred the District of Columbia Public Schools and its teachers union to sign a reform-minded contract. Now comes news that the D.C.
When third-grader Nathaniel Barrios asked at home for a Fluffernutter sandwich (a sandwich of peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff), his father, Massachusetts State Senator Jarrett T. Barrios, was flabbergasted.
Governor Jeb Bush is breaking out the fricasseed alligator tail to celebrate the recent announcement that a record 75 percent of Florida schools received As or Bs under the state's "A+" accountability system. Hold on, say the feds-NCLB data show that nearly three-quarters of Sunshine State schools didn't make AYP, including 1,233 that earned As or Bs according to the state's rating system.
As hurricanes spawn tornadoes so has An Inconvenient Truth spawned articles about Al Gore: his political ambitions, his resilience, his newfound charisma, his biomass.
Listen to Ohio's media and we'll forgive you for thinking the Buckeye State's new voucher program is going down in flames. After all, newspapers are giving lots of ink to low initial student sign-ups for the program-so far 2,600 of the 14,000 available vouchers have been spoken for (there will be another sign-up period in late July and early August).
Many Ohio newspapers are reporting that the state’s new voucher program, EdChoice, which students begin benefiting from this fall, is faring poorly.
On June 5, the Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries announced grant awards of up to $5,000 for 206 schools across the nation to develop or expand their library collections. Two of the seven charter school recipients were Ohio’s very own Dayton View Academy and the Early Childhood Development Center in Cleveland.
Andrew J. Rotherham and Sara MeadEducation Sector, February, 2006 This report takes a hard look at what it means to make Newsweek’s recent list of best high schools in America.
The state’s first “conversion” charter school, Dayton’s World of Wonder (WOW), apparently decided it had been out in the cold for too long.
Even as 2006’s high school graduates donned cap and gown this spring, school officials and teachers were wondering how many fewer outfits would be required next year.
According to preliminary test results for the 2005–06 school year, more Ohio students are reaching “proficiency” on state exams than ever before. So schools are doing a better job, right? Wrong.
Sandra StotskyThird Education Group ReviewVol. 2, No. 2, 2006
The Charter School Achievement Consensus Panel; Julian Betts and Paul T. Hill, Principal DraftersCenter on Reinventing Public EducationMay 2006
Heather G. Peske and Kati HaycockThe Education TrustJune 2006
Education Week recently reported that, though the 2005 Science NAEP exam showed more low-achieving 4th grade students scoring at the "basic" level, results are stagnant or worse in all grades at the "proficient" and "advanced" levels. What does that mean?
Chile's country-wide education protests are now over. The fallout from the three-week crucible that saw nearly 800,000 students take to Chile's streets (sometimes violently), however, will not be soon forgotten. The walkouts began innocently enough, with students asking the government to provide free bus passes and to waive university entrance exam fees.
Editor's note: Last week's issue, especially the News and Analysis, generated a number of letters; we've included two, both from Minnesota.
In last Sunday's New York Times, Jeffrey Rosen, a well-known legal scholar, wrote a longish article related to the Supreme Court's decision to hear tw
A new front has opened in the cell phone wars. In a ring tone realm once ruled by Fur Elise and the latest jam from 50 Cent (aka Fiddy), a new craze has taken center stage-"Teen Buzz," the almost-silent cell phone alert.
The National Center for Education Statistics doesn't always do right by its annual "Condition of Education" report (COE), which has sometimes been humdrum and sometimes dizzy from pro-administration spin.
Give them credit for progress-even if it's painfully incremental. In a decidedly uncharacteristic move, the Washington D.C. Teachers' Union approved a new contract that will introduce bonus incentives for teachers and give principals more autonomy at a handful of pilot schools.
I generally avoid blogs, podcasts and the like. But I was drawn by the text version of last week’s print Gadfly to the The Education Gadfly Show, and couldn’t help but notice the over-representation of my home state of Minnesota.
Kevin CareyEducation SectorMay 2006
Despite all the advantages afforded by highly educated parents, by living in a home that values the written word, by siblings who read and cherish books, at age six my youngest son leaves kindergarten this year unable to read. What does this say about his future?
What do you call a re-opened school in New Orleans? Most likely, you call it a charter school, John Merrow reported last week on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Most of the 12,000 students who have returned to the city (out of a pre-hurricane public school population of 60,000) find themselves in charters.
It has been called fuzzy. Some even label it a United Nations plot. It's the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, and it's ruffling feathers in Minnesota and around the nation. Created in Switzerland in 1968, the IB curriculum emphasizes rigorous global standards and self-motivated learning. But not everyone is pleased with its planetary flavor.