Commentary
The Costs and Benefits of an Excellent Education for All of America's Children
Henry Levin, Clive Belfield, Peter Muennig, Cecilia RouseTeachers College, Columbia UniversityJanuary 2007
Report
Accountability & Testing, Governance
Crystal Apple: Education Insiders' Predictions for No Child Left Behind's Reauthorization
January 8, 2007, was the fifth birthday of the No Child Left Behind Act. This isn't just another milestone to be celebrated (or mourned). The law is now due for an update from Congress. But will NCLB be reauthorized on schedule? What changes are likely? No one knows for sure, but the ubiquitous 'Washington insiders' might be in a better position than others to cast prognostications. While not a 'representative sample' of thousands, their inside knowledge adds valuable insight.
Commentary
Wolves Crying "Wolf"
Angry at recent announcements heralding $39 million in district budget cuts, the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers (CFT) is fighting back. CFT launched an advertising campaign against the board of the Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS), alleging gross mishandling of the district’s budget by board members.
Commentary
The Sponsor's Dilemma - Are You a Cop or a Social Worker?
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have generously supported Fordham’s charter school sponsorship efforts in Ohio. In doing so, the Gates Foundation requested that we share some of our experiences and the knowledge gained monitoring nine charter schools.
Commentary
Calling All Charter School Board Members
Overseeing the academic, fiscal and operational components of a charter school is a significant responsibility for individuals who serve as governing authority members. To assist them in their efforts, the Thomas B.
Commentary
Charter School Truth-Telling
With so much rhetoric (some of it misleading, and much of it espoused by the state’s teacher unions) surrounding Ohio’s charter school program, it’s easy to overlook key elements of both the program and the 300+ schools that comprise it.
Commentary
Modest Proposals, Greater Possibilities
Governor Strickland’s budget (introduced as House Bill 119) may not offer any carrots to supporters of school choice in Ohio (see here), but his proposals to
Commentary
Going in Reverse
When it comes to reforming and improving Ohio’s education system, there is more than enough drama in Columbus--as well as a fair share of proposals aimed at moving our education system backward. Two bills, in particular, are prime examples of the latter.Representative Wolpert’s Condition
Commentary
Teaching to the middle
This latest piece of the New York Times' series on middle schools finds this: There's no clear-cut formula for discerning who can handle the hormone-crazed kids in America's middle schools. But one Bronx principal has the right idea. Middle school teachers, he said, must "have a huge sense of humor and a small ego." That sums it up pretty well.
Commentary
Progress report on mayoral control in NYC
Mayoral control in New York City is hitting some bumps in the road. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein regularly trumpet their "historic gains" in test scores. They say that since the mayor gained control, scores have gone up by 12 percent in reading and 19 percent in math.
Commentary
Mint condition
Eleven-year-old Alex Sorto, a student at Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring, Maryland, believes that eating broccoli will help boost test scores at his school. For now, however, Eastern's administrators are eschewing vegetables in favor of peppermints.
Commentary
Empower America
We've had the standards-and-accountability movement, the school choice movement, and even the small schools movement. Are we finally witnessing the rise of an autonomy movement?
Commentary
First-rate
In last week's editorial ("How to end the reading wars?") Michael J. Petrilli argued that Reading First has been a "massive failure in terms of sustaining, much less widening, the reading-education consensus." Not true.
Commentary
A pay plan with merit
Performance pay for k-12 teachers is stalling in Florida, mostly because teachers hate the proposed plan. A few states to the left, however, some Arkansas schoolteachers are warming to the merit pay idea.
Commentary
Bad ideas
Two of the worst federal education policy ideas in memory have made their way up Capitol Hill in recent days, one in a fuel-efficient hybrid occupied primarily by Democrats, the other in a gas-guzzling pickup full of Republicans.
Commentary
Bullying isn't science
I just read your piece about the "Reading Wars." I think part of the problem rests with the heavy-handed deliberation process that the National Reading Panel undertook to try to end the reading wars in the first place.
Commentary
Getting Down to Facts: A Research Project Examining California's School Governance and Finance Systems
Institute for Research on Education Policy and Practice2007
Commentary
'V' for vexation
When Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa decided to reform his city's schools, he likely didn't know what all he was getting into. An incident last week, when the mayor took a cadre of journalists to visit an L.A. high school and a student spray painted his bus with graffiti, is representative.
Commentary
Return to sender
Call it what you want--buyer's remorse, reverting to form, Hoekstra's rebellion--but Congressional conservatives aren't going to accept NCLB version 2.0 without a fight. Rather, they're bent on emasculating or repealing it.
Commentary
Achievement Gaps and Vouchers: How Achievement Gaps are Bigger in Minnesota Than Virtually Anyplace Else and Why Vouchers are Essential to Reducing Them
Mitchell B. PearlsteinCenter of the American ExperimentJanuary 2007
Commentary
Cashing in
Exxon Mobil is concerned about U.S. math and science education, so it has decided to pay kids to study. The company is pouring $125 million (a bit more than one day's profits) into the National Math and Science Initiative, which will reward students by paying them cash for each English, science, or math AP test on which they receive a score of 3 or higher.
Commentary
Lawsuits 4 schools
The Beastie Boys once spurred angst-ridden teens to fight for their right to party.
Commentary
School Money Trials: The Legal Pursuit of Educational Adequacy
Martin R. West and Paul E. Peterson, EditorsThe Brookings Institution2007
Commentary
How to end the reading wars?
This month's Atlantic includes a thoughtful article by Jonathan Rauch about how to end the culture wars: "slug them out state by state." He points to the cautionary tale of Roe v. Wade, which nationalized an intensely controversial issue:
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Commentary
Rock or Hard Place?
Those who care about the education of Ohio’s neediest children are stuck between two vexed options--the proverbial rock or hard place. The first are traditional district schools with decades of evidence--low test scores, high drop-out rates--of how poorly they meet many children’s needs.
Commentary
Charter Funding Deep Freeze
In the debate over Indiana’s K-12 education funding, House Democrats are seeking a freeze on funding for charter schools. The result would be “de facto moratorium” on any new charters, insisted Dan Roy, Indianapolis’s director of charter schools.
Commentary
Mistaken (and Expensive) Assumptions
If a recent University of Washington study is to be believed, reforming Ohio’s education system could cost from $1.2 to $2.4 billion more annually--a 16 to 31 percent increase in state P-12 education spending. And that’s just the state’s share (47 percent of current funding).
Commentary
Achieving with Data
It’s no secret that data-driven decision making figures prominently in high-performing schools. What it entails and how to implement it successfully are the subjects of this report commissioned by the New Schools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy firm working to improve and reform public education.
Commentary
School Safety in Urban Charter and Traditional Public Schools
According to this new study, urban area charter schools appear to be safer than their traditional district counterparts.