Battle royale: teacher training
In the Journal of Teacher Education, Rick Hess writes that there is nothing unpredictable or even surprising about the debate over teacher training.
In the Journal of Teacher Education, Rick Hess writes that there is nothing unpredictable or even surprising about the debate over teacher training.
This week in the Los Angeles Times, Naomi Schaefer Riley describes the Broad Foundation's fellowship program that puts young, skilled executives from the private world into top positions in urban school districts.
The Association of Educational Publishers (www.edpress.org) asked me and several others to gaze into our crystal balls and identify five "trends/factors/events that will (or should) have significant impact on the substance and delivery of educational content over the next five years." This turned out to be an interesting exercise, the results of which I off
Mark Bauerlein, ed., Association of Literary Scholars and CriticsSpring 2005
National Center for Education StatisticsJune 2005The latest edition of NCES's vast, annual, congressionally-mandated Condition of Education (COE) has landed in our mailbox. Like everyone else, we're trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in this vast compendium. For starters, a few items of note:
Frederick M. Hess, Andrew P. Kelly, Harvard University Program in Education Policy and Governance May 2005Textbook Leadership? An Analysis of Leading Books Used in Principal PreparationFrederick M. Hess, Andrew P. Kelly, Harvard University Program in Education Policy and Governance May 2005
Lots of action but no resolution for Florida's Opportunity Scholarships. The state's Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday.
In the Wall Street Journal, Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman describes the history of the voucher movement, its philosophical foundations, and why choice in education is even more important today.
The Toronto Star reports that McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd. is considering selling advertising in college textbooks, the better to target free-spending college students. The company claims the ads are intended to bring "beneficial corporate and social awareness campaigns to the students." Gadfly sees infinite potential in this innovation.
Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy at MassINCSpring 2005
William G. Howell, editor, Brookings PressJune 2005
Lawrence A. Uzzell, Cato Institute May 2005
Lisa Petrides and Thad Nodine, Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management of EducationMay 2005
The spirit of Albert Shanker lives on, at least some days it does, at the union he once led. The latest edition of AFT's American Educator focuses on NCLB and concludes that accountability and standards are the right approach, but that substantial changes are required in the law - fix it, don't scrap it.
In this week's New Republic, Robert Gordon, a former Kerry education advisor, indicts his own party for straying from its egalitarian ideals and losing credibility on education policy. America's education system is obviously flawed, Gordon alleges, yet Democrats can only defend the failing status quo or attack any plans that don't involve more blank checks to the current system.
He's baaaaaack. Alan Bersin, deposed San Diego superintendent - a victim of a fierce union effort to undo reforms that were overturning settled ways of operating (see here) - has been named California Secretary of Education by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In the past, being valedictorian of one's high school class was mostly an opportunity to subject the assembled graduates and well-wishers to a string of mindless clich??s.
As the voucher flurry of 2005 winds down (see here and here for recent news), a few new developments have popped up.
U.S. Department of EducationApril 2005
United States Department of Education, Office of Innovation and ImprovementMarch 2005
Maris A. Vinovskis, University of Chicago Press2005
Greg J. Duncan and Katherine A. Magnuson, The Future of Children, pp. 35-54Spring 2005
In the current Policy Review, David Davenport and Jeffrey Jones discuss the politics of literacy and its transformation from a local education issue to its current role in national public policy.
Two great charter school stories this week. In New York City, recent tests that showed increases in proficiency rates citywide (see here) also showed charter schools outscoring their traditional public school peers.
This week, the Washington Post looks at Finland's highly-ranked public school system, which "graduates nearly every young person from vocational or high school, and sends nearly half of them on to higher education," and gained national attention after a first place ranking on PISA (see here for m
The Washington Unified School District in Sacramento wants to attract high-quality teachers to work in its worst schools. So it plans to pay those teachers more. (Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed something similar statewide.) This is a rather pedestrian practice in the real (meaning, non-education) world. So, of course, the local union is outraged.
As everyone knows, last week the Yale Child Study Center issued a report indicating that pre-schoolers are three times more likely to be "expelled" from their programs than K-8 children are to be expelled from school.