The Efficacy of Choice Threats Within School Accountability Systems: Results From Legislatively Induced Experiments
Martin R. West and Paul R. Peterson, Program on Education Policy and GovernanceHarvard UniversityApril 2005
One-Third of a Nation: Rising Dropout Rates and Declining Opportunities
Paul E. Barton, Educational Testing Service February 2005Characteristics of Minority Students Who Excel on the SAT and in the ClassroomBrent Bridgeman and Cathy Wendler, Educational Testing ServiceJanuary 2005
Evaluating the Performance of Charter Schools in Connecticut
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Gary Miron, The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan UniversityApril 2005
Retirement rip-off
Teachers, check up on your retirement plan immediately. The latest Forbes reveals that big insurance companies are peddling bad retirement plans to teachers - often with their unions' support.
Class size troubles
The Florida class size amendment is causing problems again. Luckily, state schools chief John Winn is showing some useful flexibility in applying its regulations. Approximately 154,000 children are expected to enroll in Florida's new pre-kindergarten program, but the requirements of the class size amendment are causing a shortage in classroom space.
Just the facts, ma'am
Columbia Journalism Review has a long essay in its March/April issue calling upon journalists to "get beyond" test scores in education reporting and not just accept the district or state's numbers, but also look at how numbers and policies are actually affecting the classroom.
Keep the choice provision strong
Public school choice was the great promise of NCLB. It gave students in failing schools an escape hatch and reinforced NCLB's commitment to every child by providing low-income families with options long enjoyed by more affluent families.
Vouchers ahead? Stay tuned
Last week, the Ohio House of Representatives passed its state budget, which included a plan to provide 18,000 vouchers for more than 30 school districts in 2006 and double that number in 2007, which would make it the largest voucher program in the country.
Unfinished Business: More Measured Approaches in Standards-Based Reform
Paul E. Barton Educational Testing ServiceJanuary 2005
The Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act on Student Achievement and Growth: 2005 Edition
John Cronin, G. Gage Kingsbury, Martha S. McCall, and Branin BoweNorthwest Evaluation AssociationApril 12, 2005
The Economics of Investing in Universal Preschool Education in California
Lynn A. Karoly, James H. Bigelow RAND Corporation 2005
What America Can Learn from School Choice in Other Countries
Eric OsbergDavid Salisbury and James Tooley, editorsCato InstituteApril 2005
Textbooks and geopolitics
And you thought textbooks caused problems in the U.S. (see The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption).
I'll have the fish, with a side of lunacy
As students at Palm Springs Middle School were being let out for the day, they encountered a big blue fish with a simple message: Please don't eat me. Freda Fish (get it, free-da-fish?) was asking students to "Look not Hook" and handed out a pamphlet from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, "The Secret Lives of Fish." Unfortunately for Freda, the kids weren't buying it.
Disagreement in Denver
Even as negotiators announced the first concrete details of the new Denver pay for performance plan for teachers (see here for a profile of the program), its future is in jeopardy because of a looming conflict with the local union over pay, scheduling, and curricular issues.
Flexibility and NCLB
Chester E. Finn, Jr.With dozens of states throwing toddler-style tantrums vis-??-vis NCLB's rules and expectations, the Bush Administration is offering them a "new, common sense approach" to compliance.
Moving money
George Will examines an Arizona referendum called the "65 percent rule," which reallocates school district budgets from bureaucracy to classrooms. If passed, it would require that at least 65 percent of district operational budgets be spent directly on "in the classroom" instruction - a worthy goal.
Always a finalist, but never a Broad
This week, the Broad Foundation announced the five finalists for its 2005 Prize for Urban Education, the "largest education award in the country given to a single school district." The nominees are: Aldine Independent School District (near Houston), Boston Public Schools, New York City Department of Education, Norfolk (Virginia) Public Schools, and the San Francisco Unified School District.
Ascending scale for new SAT?
Several weeks ago, we echoed The Economist in worrying that "the new SAT, with its writing requirement and junking of the analogy section, might signal a return back to something like the old WASPocracy, since it will reward students who have been rigorously coached in essay-writing" (see
Life after High School: Young People Talk About Their Hopes and Prospects
Madeleine WillPublic AgendaMarch 2005
Beating the Odds: A City-by-City Analysis of Student Performance and Achievement Gaps on State Assessments
Chester E. Finn, Jr.When we flagged this report some weeks back, we had seen only the executive summary. Now we have the full 240-page tome and are impressed enough to mention it again.
From the Capital to the Classroom: Year Three of the No Child Left Behind Act
Center on Education PolicyMarch 2005
Moving Into Town - and Moving On: The Community College in the Lives of Traditional-age Students
Clifford Adelman, Office of Vocational and Adult Education, U.S. Department of EducationFebruary 2005
. . . or improving NCLB?
Instead of riddling NCLB with state-specific loopholes, it would make infinitely more sense to acknowledge that that important statute needs a handful of carefully designed reforms. And then enact those reforms. But what would they be?
Ranking the ed schools
U.S. News has released its annual ranking of graduate programs, with a section on education schools, accompanied by a crackerjack essay that faults the ed school sector as a whole.
Hoist on their own petard
Caught stealing from your union? You might find that your best friend is . . . your union. Wayne Kruse, former president of the Lawrence Education Association, was charged with stealing $97,000 in dues from the Kansas NEA.
Dismantling NCLB . . .
On Saturday, the Washington Post featured an op ed by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings declaring her "willingness to work with states to make [NCLB] fit their unique local needs." Today, Spellings will announce-at a special meeting with state chiefs at Mount Vernon, near Washington-the particulars of the plan, which will include allowing states that can prove they've made progress towa
A better way to grade schools
Bill BreischAs winter turns toward spring, we turn toward a perennial spring event: student testing. With that testing comes the inevitable anxiety as states brace themselves for the annual status races. My state, Wisconsin, is no exception. We look ahead to this testing season with concern about how our performance data will measure up to results from other states, other districts, other schools.