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It's Thatcher's fault
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is going to today??blame Margaret Thatcher for Britain's education woes, the Telegraph reports.
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The meaning of "excellence"
Our friend Greg Forster wrote a post last week about Checker's and my National Review Online essay in which we report on
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If at first you don't succeed...
I hope the College Board catches the flack??it deserves for its decision??to (starting in 2010)??show colleges only the SAT scores that the??students who earn them choose to reveal--i.e., if Johnny takes the test 10 times, Johnny gets to show State U.
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Alternative alternative certification
Mike and Checker, who were at the Excellence in Education summit in Orlando yesterday, may have more to say about this.
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Rhee vs. the status quo
On Wednesday's NewsHour, John Merrow resumed his series on Michelle Rhee's efforts to revamp the D.C. Public Schools. This installment centers around Hart Middle School, a chronically-failing institution that landed on Rhee's radar as a candidate for dramatic restructuring.
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A model by any other name...
Over a year ago, when Secretary Spellings invited all states to apply for a new pilot program to use growth models in their accountability systems, she included ??several requirements, one of which was "A growth model proposal must...
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Links to start your day off right
Checker and Mike write on National Review Online today about Fordham's latest report, High-Achieving Students in the Era of No Child Left Behind.
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"Outrageous"
That's how Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings just described* the decision by the House Appropriations Committee to defund the Reading First program. And she's right. * Here at the Excellence in Education summit in Orlando.
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In praise of fathers
E.J. Dionne's column in yesterday's Washington Post reminded me that I had failed to comment on Barack Obama's Father's Day sermon. As Dionne wrote,
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Where did those millions go?
Florida school districts have been recently complaining about state budget cuts in education. Financial management of this sort doesn't really bolster their case, though.
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Donald Duck and dropout rates
Speaking of Florida, former Governor Jeb Bush is convening at Disney World today his Excellence in Action education summit.
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Unions aren't so hot, any way you homeslice it
If I were an anonymous blogger and had to pick a clever moniker with which to sign my pithiest posts, I might actually opt for something similar to that decided upon by this person, who goes by "Dr. Homeslice." I'm edgy and educated, it bespeaks.
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Good news for alternate routes to certification
I got distracted yesterday by the release of our high-achieving students study, but Tuesday's news out of California is still worth celebrating. A federal judge ruled that the U.S.
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More from the Excellence in Education Summit in steamy, Disney-addled Orlando
Speaking at lunch today, Secretary Spellings stated that it would be fine with her if NCLB were renamed the "Motherhood And Apple Pie" program. MAAP. Not bad.
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Can we be equal and excellent too?
That's the question John W. Gardner posed in his seminal 1961 book, Excellence. We've asked it again in 2008. We wondered, in particular, how high-achieving (some say gifted) youngsters are faring academically in the era of No Child Left Behind, the federal law that focuses on boosting the achievement of poor and minority students.
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Immaculate re-conception
The D.C. Public Charter School Board unanimously approved a proposal to reconstitute next fall seven financially struggling Catholic schools as secular charter schools, thereby increasing the number of D.C. charters by more than 10 percent. The switch will save the schools from closing, but will it save their Catholic character?
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In search of Motown's mojo
Detroit's school system is now $400 million in debt. And if its enrollment dips below 100,000, as is likely by autumn, it will no longer be a "Class A" district under Michigan law--which means that charter-school start-ups will be allowed in the city after a several year hiatus. Local politicians aren't thrilled about that possibility.
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In the eye of the beholder
Performance-based assessment (PBA) was terminated in Vermont in the 1990s after a RAND study found that "inter-rater reliability" (i.e., the extent of agreement among portfolio graders) was largely AWOL. Now Rhode Island has revived PBA, even making it a graduation requirement.
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Poor Eleanor
Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington, D.C.'s Congressional representative, took to the pages of the Washington Post to explain why she is not--Post editorials and facts aside--intransigent on the issue of vouchers for the capital city's poor kid
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Tempest in a data-pot
There's no sign that reauthorization of the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA, to its friends) has even made it onto Congress's to-do list, but controversy is beginning to dog one key element of it: the part that affords the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and its Commissioner (currently Mark Sc
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Watch out, Queen Elizabeth
Stylistically, Britain is a country of contrasts unrivaled. On the one hand, the Royal Family and their upper-crust ilk, all classy in their tartans and tweeds.
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Evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program: Impacts After Two Years
Patrick Wolf, Babette Gutmann, Michael Puma, Brian Kisida, Lou Rizzo, Nada EissaU.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education SciencesJune 2008
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Facts, Not Fiction: Setting the Record Straight
The Asian/ Pacific/ American Institute and Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy at New York University, CARE and College BoardJune 9, 2008