Commentary
Commentary
Gadfly's emanations and penumbras
In "Pleasure, beauty, and wonder" (July 12), Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, states, "We need a system that grounds all students in pleasure, beauty, and wonder." Missing is any definition of the terms pleasure, beauty, and wonder.
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Separate but constitutional
Ohio's ACLU has been slamming the Cleveland School District for its plan to open five new same-sex schools this fall. But will the threatened lawsuit hold constitutional water? Doubtful. The U.S.
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She wants answers
Detroit's new superintendent, Connie Calloway, garnered cheers from the crowd at a school board meeting last week when she said, "Charter schools mean suicide for public schools." It's an odd statement.
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You Bet Your Life
The National Education Association isn't getting much love these days from Washington, D.C., or Washington State. Last month, the union's Evergreen State affiliate, the W.E.A., was told by a unanimous U.S.
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Down but not out
Speaking of throwing: "The sun don't shine on the same dog's ass every day." So said Jim "Catfish" Hunter, one of baseball's greatest closers, after giving up a home-run to lose a World Series game in 1974. And it appears, sadly, that the sun has finally set on KIPP Harbor Academy in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
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Abstinence comes with a price
Lesson to kids: Chastity can cost you $24,000. That's about how much 16-year-old Lydia Playfoot (or her parents) will have to pay in court costs, now that she's lost a case against school administrators who made her remove her chastity ring. Millais School in Horsham, West Sussex, claims that wearing the ring violated its dress code; Lydia claims that Millais School violated her human rights.
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There they go again
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled against the Louisville and Seattle school districts, race-based student assignment policies are mostly illegal. Superintendents around the nation are now seeking other ways to maintain social diversity in their hallways and classrooms.
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The Learning Season: The Untapped Power of Summer to Advance Student Achievement and Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap
Beth M. MillerNellie Mae Education FoundationJune 2007and Karl L. Alexander, Doris R. Entwisle, and Linda Steffel OlsonAmerican Sociological ReviewApril 2007
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Left Behind By Design: Proficiency Counts and Test-Based Accountability
Derek Neal and Diane Whitmore SchanzenbachNational Bureau of Economic ResearchJuly 2007
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Heating up Down Under
Gadfly endured lots of taunting as a larva ("88 eyes," "bug-brain"). But his heart truly goes out to 5-year-old Max Hell of Australia. As if the ribbing from his peers wasn't enough--"Max Hell smells!" or "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!"-- officials at St.
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Beyond the Battle Lines: Lessons from New York's Charter Caps Fight
Lisa M. StulbergCenter on Reinventing Public EducationJune 2007
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Pleasure, beauty, and wonder
This week, the Fordham Institute issued Beyond the Basics: Achieving a Liberal Education for All Children, arising from our December 12, 2006, conference on the same topic, at which National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia--one of 18 contributors to the work--delivered a stirring talk on the role of the arts in li
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Reading First round-up
The latest Weekly Standard features the Reading First "scandal" on its cover and asks (appropriately enough) "why does Congress hate the one part of No Child Left Behind that works?" Author Charlotte Allen's answer is that members of Congress in general, and Democrats in particular, are cozy with whole language advocates who argue tha
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School choice by other means
Legendary voucher advocate Howard Fuller has long argued that school choice is prevalent--if you're wealthy. Affluent parents exercise "public school choice" when they shop for homes, of course, plus they can opt for private schools if public offerings aren't up to par.
Report
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance
Beyond the Basics: Achieving a Liberal Education for All Children
America's true competitive edge over the long haul is not its technical prowess but its creativity, its imagination, its inventiveness. And those attributes are best inculcated not by skill-drill or 'STEM' but through liberal arts and sciences, liberally defined. Thus argues this new Fordham volume, edited by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Diane Ravitch, which also explores what policymakers and educators at all levels can to do sustain liberal learning and sketches an unlovely future if we fail.
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Going upscale
In the introduction to his book Crash Course, Chris Whittle calls himself "a renovation man." He's done a lot of renovating, too: "a Depression-era two-room log cabin," a "rambling apartment in one of New York's oldest apartment buildings." Now, it seems, he has moved on to mansions.
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Memphis jazz, Boston blues
Incoming Boston school chief Carol Johnson boasts an impressive track record. But will she be able to translate her Memphis victories into a Beantown success story? Not if the local teachers union has anything to say about it.
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A ten-point plan to eradicate white guilt (oh, and actually help minority students)
Today's Supreme Court decision striking down Louisville's and Seattle's race-based student assignment plans will surely lead to much gnashing of teeth, recriminations, and accusations that America is slipping back to the era of Jim Crow.
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Bad news 4 school leaders
It's amusing to find phrases such as "BONG HITS 4 JESUS" amidst the stiff legalese of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion. But unfortunately, the recent ruling in Morse v. Frederick has turned Gadfly's laughter to disappointment.
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Reflections on the year now ending
With so many schools in session well into June and others starting early in August, it sometimes feels like July is all that remains of yesteryear's three-month "summer vacation." Heading into the 7th month, therefore, and with Gadfly looking forward to an Independence Day break, some reflections on the 2006-7 school year seem fitting. Here are ten such:
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Exasperated
Yale computer scientist David Gelernter is, like many parents, tired of public schools declaring war on deeply held moral and religious values, not to mention common sense. So he wants to abolish them. Gelernter is one of the smartest people alive and what he writes deserves to be read.
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State Teacher Policy Yearbook: Progress on Teacher Quality
National Council on Teacher QualityJune 2007
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Information Underload: Florida's Flawed Special-Ed Voucher Program
Sara MeadEducation SectorJune 2007
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Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program: Impacts After One Year
Institute of Education SciencesJune 2007
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Can't touch this
Is it some new form of abstinence education? Or does the principal of Kilmer Middle School have a Howard Hughes-like aversion to touch? No one knows for sure, because no one can get close enough to Deborah Hernandez to find out why she won't permit physical contact of any kind on school grounds.
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Church and charter
Can states fund religious charter schools without stepping all over the Constitution's anti-establishment clause? We think it's possible. And in the current issue of Education Week, Lawrence Weinberg and Bruce Cooper show how it's happening near Minneapolis.
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Breaking up is hard to do
The relationship between Philadelphia's former superintendent, Paul Vallas, and the district's School Reform Commission (SRC) survived a bit of a rough patch about this time last year.