Commentary
Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decade of Resegregation
The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University
Commentary
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
Chicken Little's lucky day
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
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
How districts see home schoolers
The August 2001 issue of the American School Board Journal includes a pair of articles on home schooling.
Commentary
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.
Commentary
Tax credits north of the border
Ontario has a new tax credit for parents who send their children to private schools. In the first year, parents are eligible for a refund of $460, but this amount will quintuple over five years. The plan was included in a budget bill passed in late June by the provincial legislature. Six other Canadian provinces already provide money directly to private schools.
Commentary
Commentary
Commentary
The Tip of the Iceberg: SURR Schools and Academic Failure in New York City
Center for Civic Innovation, Manhattan Institute
Commentary
Commentary
Commentary
Fostering Title I and IDEA Collaboration in Six States: Proceedings and Lessons from Two Peer Technical Assistance Matches
Council of Chief State School Officers' Initiative to Improve Achievement in High Poverty Schools
Commentary
Certified Teachers in Schools But Out of the Classrooms
The Detroit Public Schools are short more than 1000 certified teachers, but the district has 440 such teachers performing administrative tasks as department heads, curriculum leaders or staff coordinators, and often not teaching, reports Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki in the Detroit Free Press.
Commentary
Charter Schools and the Education of Children With Disabilities, The Charter Friends National Network
The Charter Friends National Network (CFNN) has issued a revised (May 2001) edition of this useful publication, prepared by Elizabeth Giovannetti, Eileen Ahearn and Cheryl Lange.
Commentary
Making school boards more effective
Why do conscientious school board members act like cranky five-year-olds, and what can we do to make school boards more effective? Jay Mathews has some ideas in "The Freedom of Choice," by Jay Mathews, Washingtonpost.com, July 10, 2001
Commentary
New Frontiers for a New Century, Education Trust
New Frontiers for a New Century: A National Overview is the title of the latest issue of Thinking K-16, published quarterly by the Education Trust. Authors Kati Haycock, Craig Jerald and Sandra Huang argue that we need to consider bold solutions to reduce the achievement gap that has plagued American education for decades.
Commentary
Reduce Your Losses: Help New Teachers Become Veteran Teachers, Southern Regional Education Board
This report by the Southern Regional Education Board looks at one of our education system's biggest challenges: convincing new teachers to stay on. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, a quarter of beginning teachers leave the classroom during the first five years. "Reduce Your Losses" asks why many young teachers want to change careers soon after entering the classroom.
Commentary
Teacher as cop
The discipline problems that many of today's teachers-even elementary school teachers-have to deal with may shock delicate readers. What's wrong with kids today? See "Schools Awash in Bad Behavior," by Linda Perlstein, Washington Post, July 11, 2001
Commentary
Teacher Training and Texas Educational Reform: A Study in Contradiction, The Independent Institute
In this working paper on the misalignment between consumer demands and the pedagogy of teacher professionals, J.E.
Commentary
Uncommon Wisdom: Effective Reform Strategies, The 2001 Vanguard Schools, Mass Insight
As Congress wraps up the ESEA reauthorization process, standards-based reform has taken center stage. Soon, the debate over "adequate yearly progress" and other exciting details will end, and a timeless question will re-emerge: motivated by these new incentives, how should schools transform themselves in order to increase student achievement?
Commentary
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?
Commentary
Up with everyone!
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.
Commentary
Commentary
Summer reading from the AFT
The summer issue of the American Federation of Teacher's magazine, American Educator, has several must-read articles. E.D.
Commentary
High Student Achievement: How Six School Districts Changed into High-Performing Systems
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.
Commentary
Affirmative action for speakers of second languages
A year after the University of California system made changes in its admissions policy designed to increase campus diversity, Hispanic admissions soared 18%.
Commentary
Paige Nonsense
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.
Commentary
Privatizing Education: Can the Marketplace Deliver Choice, Efficiency, Equity, and Social Cohesion?
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.
Commentary
Report card on report cards
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.