If there's one thing Gadfly is not, it's an apologist for bad schools, and he therefore cannot quibble much with Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann's contention that two chronically-failing Buckeye charter schools should be closed.
When it comes to merit pay, Florida's teachers are about as ill-tempered as a gator buzzed by an Everglades airboat. The state legislature launched the STAR (Special Teachers are Rewarded) program in 2006, which gave 25 percent of public-school teachers five-percent bonuses, based primarily on student scores on the Sunshine State's standardized assessment.
Gareth DaviesUniversity Press of Kansas2007
Martha Abele Mac Iver and Douglas J. Mac IverNational Center for the Study of Privatization in EducationSeptember 2007
Regarding last week's editorial ("The case against comparability") by Kate Walsh: The perfect should not be the enemy of the good. Comparability requirements are flawed.
Ohio taxpayers and school children have been dealt another dose of bad news with the revelation that almost $10 billion in expected health-care costs for retired teachers could be added to the already staggering $19 billion in liabilities of the State Teachers Retirement System.
At first glance, the explosive growth of "alternative" teacher certification--which is supposed to allow able individuals to teach in public schools without first lingering in a college of education--appears to be one of the great success stories of modern education reform.
At first glance, the explosive growth of 'alternative' teacher certification--which is supposed to allow able individuals to teach in public schools without first passing through a college of education--appears to be one of the great success stories of modern education reform. But, as this report reveals, alternative certification programs have so far failed to provide a real alternative to traditional education schools. In fact, they represent a significant setback for education reform advocates.
There is a right way and many wrong ways to crack down on poorly performing charter schools. This week, Ohio's attorney general decided, unfortunately, that it's better to hold a few hundred children hostage in court than to let established law operate to cure what ails two Dayton-area charter schools (see here).
Two items in the Miller-McKeon NCLB reauthorization bill seem to be shoe-ins for making their way into federal law. The impetus behind both is to ensure that districts spend as much on schools serving poor students as they do on schools serving more affluent children.
People with clear, strong views usually attract critics as well as admirers, and Bill Evers is no exception.
Pray for Jonathan Kozol, who today enters the 70th day of his "partial fast" in protest over NCLB and, one assumes, to promote his new book. What is a "partial fast"?
Douglas N. Harris and Tim R. SassNational Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education ResearchMarch 2007
Elena RochaCenter for American ProgressAugust 2007
Do you think of the achievement gap as an inner-city phenomenon? Think again. The Baltimore Sun reports that an alarming number of middle-class African-American students in suburban schools are having a difficult time passing the state's high school exit exams in algebra, English, biology, and government.
Fifteen years ago, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, then mayor of Neuilly, walked into a nursery school where a bomb-strapped man was holding students hostage and strolled out 30 minutes later with all the children.
Gadfly has been called a lot of things, but never a prophet--until now. It was a mere four years ago that we asked, "Why not religious charter schools?" The world's three great monotheistic religions heard us.
The Ohio Department of Education's recent state report card illuminated continuing academic problems in both public district and charter schools. The report card comes on the heels of newspaper stories highlighting auditing and recordkeeping difficulties in some charter schools. Brian L.
KIPP is opening the first of a cluster of schools in Columbus, Ohio, next summer and needs a passionate, high energy executive director at the helm. Learn more about this opportunity here.
The case against the archaic, seniority-before-all-else system of teacher retention in Ohio's schools was never made clearer than with the July "riffing" of Dayton Public Schools teacher Homer Knightstep.
The Ohio Grantmakers Forum recently hosted a conversation between Lt. Governor Lee Fisher and leaders in Ohio's philanthropic community on growing the state's economy.
The NewSchools Venture Fund recently released a report highlighting key insights from its May meeting in New Orleans, now the epicenter of educational reform efforts in America.
Malcolm Gladwell's 2000 bestseller The Tipping Point looks at "social epidemics"-when popular ideas and behavior "tip" quickly (and often unexpectedly) then die out as fast as they started.
Phi Delta Kappa's recent audit of the Wake County (North Carolina) Public School System should be viewed with healthy skepticism. Case in point: the educators group recommended that Wake tighten its "very liberal" policy on "site-based decision making" (i.e., the central office should give principals less autonomy).
I commend last week's spotlight on Florida Virtual School (FLVS) and its 10th anniversary ("A happy anniversary," August 30, 2007). But your commentary confused two very different types of virtual schooling programs.
Once upon a time, before U.S. schools were desegregated, the District of Columbia's Dunbar High School provided a top-flight education to the city's black elite and future leaders--so much so that families moved to Washington so their kids could go to school there.
Economics sage Bob Samuelson (my college classmate, if you're interested) wrote last week a characteristically perceptive column, titled "The Economic Catch-22." Observing that "We are now in the ‘blame phase' of the economic cycle," he asked whether peopl
Gadfly doesn't consider himself a moral crusader, much less a moral alarmist. But he is--and The Australian newspaper is his mouthpiece.
Do not come to school in Indianapolis with your trousers sagging, your shirttail fluttering or your logo-flaunting apparel. For you shall be turned away. The city has just adopted a strict dress code. High school students, for example, must wear solid-colored shirts, either in white or their school's official color. Pants should be tan, black, or navy; go gray and go home.
The last several years have witnessed an explosion in the number of students taking Advanced Placement courses--a laudable trend, on the whole.
