For five years, the EdChoice Scholarship Program has enabled students to escape low-performing schools (those rated D or F for two out of the last three years) in Ohio for, presumably, greener pastures in private schools. Fourteen-thousand students, the maximum allowed by state law, in low-performing schools are using this publically funded voucher to attend private schools of their choic
Students who complain their teacher doesn’t know what he’s talking about may have a point, according to a new study by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ).
This is a bit of shameless self-promotion, but what the heck ? it's a teachable moment.
David Brooks weighs in this morning with a succinct explanation for ?how liberalism immobilized itself.?
Recall David Brooks's New York Times column from May of last year, titled ?The Harlem Miracle,? in which he shouted the virtues of the Harlem Children's Zone. Brooks approvingly quoted the economist Roland Fryer,?who referenced?research he, Fryer, had conducted?about the HCZ:
The new rules governing student behavior on weekends and summer breaks may seem like overkill, but try not to
?Those promoting the privatization of American public education are blinded by free-market ideology.'' Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education, New York University
Though nothing that most educators didn't know, Jennifer Medina's front-page story in the New York Times this morning is worth reading?if you like reviewing, in slow motion, the tape of a train wreck.
In 2004, Douglas B. Reeves published The Case Against the Zero, an article decried by classroom teachers as a tool to manipulate classroom grades.?
Who wants to read more commentary about Waiting for ?Superman?? Not me. But if you do, the latest New Yorker has a review. ?Liam Julian, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow
The Cato Institute's Neal McCluskey writes that President Obama is attempting to scare Americans by claiming that Republicans will cut education funding by 20 percent. ?Liam Julian, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow
Ross Douthat, in his New York Times column, highlights Rick Hess's essay from the latest issue of National Affairs.
Two education-related articles appeared in the Outlook section of yesterday's Washington Post. One is worth reading. In ?Why aren't our teachers the best and brightest,?
?Maybe charter schools, merit pay, and vouchers won't instantly turn every American child into a test-taking dynamo. But if they ?only? create a more cost-effective system that makes parents and students happier with their schools?well, that would be no small feat, and well worth fighting for.?
There was?nothing surprising in Obama's pitch for the Skills for America's Future initiative in today's weekly spee
It's the 21st century and our K-12 schools still aren't up to par with computer science classes? What will we fall behind in next?
?Ensuring kids are prepared for college by the time they leave high school is the single most important thing we can do to improve college-completion rates.? ?Cynthia B. Schmeiser, President of ACT's education division
The teachers union in a suburban Columbus district has pulled out of Race to the Top, putting the district at risk of forfeiting almost a million dollars ($960,000) in RttT grant funding and many of the reforms that would come with it.??
Note: This article by Checker and me ran this morning in National Review Online.
?The reform train is moving. Districts aren't afraid of unions anymore.'' ?Emily Cohen, District Policy Director, National Council of Teacher Quality
Finland gets high praise for doing well on PISA but apparently Finnish mathematicians don't think too highly of the test. Here's what they have to say:
Is Baltimore's approach to performance pay and teacher professionalism worth cheering?
Charter skeptics find the evidence mixed
The clash between the public and private aims of education
Social studies teachers love their country, too
