300 million citizens can't be wrong

We've been accused at times of union-bashing (as distinct from the teacher-bashing attributed to Liam, yesterday and today), but perhaps we can cede that mantle to Thomas Sowell.

Obama breaks with Dems on education, according to Obama

NPR's Morning Edition aired today a segment on which presidential candidate, John McCain or Barack Obama, is actually the most bi-partisan or post-partisan or something like that. Frankly, I couldn't care less, mostly because these glorified labels are hooey.

Principal: Pact is fact

The Gloucester, Massachusetts, principal who told Time that several students made a "pact" to get pregnant stands by his remarks. (Last week, Amber wrote a sharp Gadfly piece related to this subject.)

More on martyrdom

Julie Greenberg wrote about the "Mantle of Martyrdom" in a past edition of??NCTQ's TQ Bulletin.

Is higher education for everyone?

That's what they're talking about at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Ross Douthat moderates.

The study is in the mail...

We are pretty good at generating buzz for upcoming reports at Fordham (doesn't hurt that those reports are typically buzzworthy) but this

Mr. Janey goes to Newark

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Exciting stuff

KIPP schools mostly serve the middle grades and thus spend much of their time plugging the gaps in knowledge and skills that students picked up early on in traditional public schools. But imagine if the youngsters entering KIPP middle schools came from KIPP elementary schools .

Race against reality

The National Council of La Raza is headquartered one block from our office. Despite what their spokesmen may or may not tell you, "La Raza" means "The Race," and it's a term that has gained an impressive toehold in some k-12 public schools as "Raza studies." (It's on college campuses, too, of course. One can earn a B.A.

Walk the walk?

An attack weathered by all education-policy pundits who have not??taught in dreadful, moldy,??urban schools where classes are dismissed to the sound of gunfire is this: "Ah ha! But you haven't spent time in the classroom and therefore have no grounds for opining." How silly, though, if our legislators, staring at their 18.5 percent approval ratings, took to CSPAN and said, "Foolish Americans.

Decisions, decisions

Iowa debates whether to disallow the use of chokeholds in public schools. (Wikipedia provides a handy list of common chokeholds, including the anaconda choke and gogoplata.)

The martyrs

Clearly, it's struck a chord and it's worth unpacking: Why do so many teachers lean so heavily, when criticized, on the "you've never yourself been a teacher" argument? As I noted here, it's logically baseless. Imagine lawyers, doctors, oil-company executives mounting such a defense.

"Update" of the year

If you're the type of Flypaper reader who only has time for the latest postings, not those published a whole two hours ago and invisible without scrolling, I commend to you Liam's update to this post; after reading it, I think you'll agree, you'll be better informed about blogging etiquette a

Burnout

At first glance, this New York Times article on Brooklyn's Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice looks to be another feel-good story about the small schools initiative.

Pass around the tithing basket

The conversion of seven Catholic schools in Washington, D.C., to charter schools is off to a rough start, as the Washington Post reports today that the city's budget failed to provide funding for these schools, and they won't get their first payments in July.

Privatization politics

Gadfly wasn't pleased with the Philadelphia Inquirer last week, as the paper saw only bad news in the Philadelphia School District's decision to take back six of the 38 schools that have been managed by private op

Hard times for this blogger

Speaking of obscenities and ignorance...

This news item out of the U.K. truly confounds.

Let's get ready to rumble

The forthcoming debate between Sol Stern and Chris Cerf, over at Eduwonk, should be must-see blogging.

English education

If you're looking for a solid primer on schools in the U.K., you could do worse than this article from the London Review of Books, which breaks down nicely that country's educational evolution. Britain is a famously class-oriented society, and until 1944, its educational system was class-based, too.

More Buckeye blues

Checker takes to the Wall Street Journal's op-ed pages to communicate to Ohioans this message: Wake up.

Pay problems

Performance-based pay (PBP) programs for teachers have been??growing, especially since the advent of the federal Teacher Incentive Fund program a couple years ago. ProComp out of Denver is probably the best known PBP and rather unique since it's being funded by a $25-million mill levy approved by taxpayers.

Checking in with Americans

A new AP poll out today spends some time asking respondents about the state of public schools.

Moving pictures of our latest panel event

Video footage from the panel discussion of Fordham's recent report, High-Achieving Students in the Era of No Child Left Behind, is now online for your viewing pleasure:

A Stern denunciation

Does anyone out there believe that the dramatic test-score increases coming out of the Empire State are legitimate? Sol Stern, for one, highly-knowledgeable on all educational goings on in New York, is with the naysayers.

Beyond compare

The newest issue of The Economist has a piece on international comparisons that offers a couple interesting lessons. The first is to be wary of them.

BoardBuzz swats and misses

As a fellow insect-themed edu-blog, we feel a certain kinship with our friends at BoardBuzz, produced by the National School Boards Association.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled propaganda...

We were pretty busy yesterday with our event, so I didn't get the chance to comment on a surprising advertising supplement in Wednesday's Washi

The real talent crisis

I'd wager that stupid immigration policies, which George Will assails in today's Washington Post, pose a much greater threat to long-term American competitiveness than sub-par

Still waiting for an Education X Prize

The X Prize Foundation is teaming up with British telecoms giant BT to expand its offerings. The Financial Times says