Commentary
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.
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The War Against Hope: How Teachers' Unions Hurt Children, Hinder Teachers, And Endanger Public Education
Rod PaigeThomas Nelson Publishers
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Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness
U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for a Competitive WorkforceMarch 2007
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Fordham is pregnant
The Gadfly's attempts to maintain ("The problem with nuance," March 1, 2007) that it has not done a flip-flop about the control of education in the various states by federal bureaucrats, e.g., its present approval of the NCLB Act, is much like a woman arguing that she is only partly pregnant.
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Beyond the Mountains: An Early Look at Restructuring Results in California
Center on Education PolicyFebruary 2007
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Blowing smoke
State education officials in the Land of Lincoln are jumping for joy--student performance on the state's ISAT exam is up from 2005. Way, way up. On most exams, the 2005-2006 gains outpaced the improvement made over the previous five years combined.
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X marks the spot
Last week we invited readers to submit their own ideas for the forthcoming education X PRIZE. Here are a few of the responses.
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Three cheers for Steve Jobs
If there was the slightest doubt that Steve Jobs is one of the most courageous men of our time, it was dispelled dramatically on February 16th. There he was at a high profile education conference when, in what I believe was a spontaneous outburst, he decided to take on teacher unions.
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Pavlov's pizza
Harvard psychologist Susan Linn, co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, sees something devilish lurking behind Pizza Hut's "Book It" program, which rewards young readers with free pizzas.
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Playing the softball
David Brooks is softening. He's looking for "creative" presidential candidates willing to "talk about improving the lives of students" instead of just talking "about improving the schools." The creative ones "will emphasize that education is a cumulative process that begins at the dawn of life." Sen.
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Chartering a course to survival
As if Catholic schools didn't have enough worries of their own (and their Church's) making (see here), now they are fretting over competition from charter schools. In New York City, some parochial school principals are greeting Gov.
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The Nation's Report Card: 12th-Grade Reading and Mathematics 2005
National Center for Education StatisticsFebruary 2007 The Nation's Report Card: America's High School Graduates--Results from the 2005 NAEP High School Transcript StudyNational Center for Education StatisticsFebruary 2007
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The problem with nuance
Last August, Mike Antonucci's Education Intelligence Agency reported the findings of an internal AFT "communications audit." Chief among members' gripes was their union's "nuanced" position on No Child Left Behind.
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The language police
Sergeant Joe Friday of Dragnet fame was content with "just the facts"; the Department of Education's Inspector General is not so humble. How else to explain his animus toward the Reading First program, recently found by OMB to be one of only four "effective" programs in the entire Education Department?
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Blue collars are red-hot
Passionate classroom debates over Nietzsche and Proust are not every student's cup of tea. And for too long, those who struggled with such approaches to learning found their way to auto shop or wood shop, and abandoned math, science, and history along the way. But some schools are wising up and using vocational ed to reconnect students to higher-level learning.
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Commentary
X-cellent!
When Tom Vander Ark left the Gates Foundation at the end of last year, the edu-world curiously awaited his next move.
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?No vamos a la biblioteca!
The South Florida Giant Underground Weirdness Magnet is at it again. How else to explain the events that brought Miami resident Dalila Rodriguez together with a copy of Vamos a Cuba? Seems Ms.
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Cold Comfort
Though most Ohioans are still thawing out from weeks of frosty weather, Columbus has been bustling with activity as many elected officials considered (or proposed themselves) a number of education initiatives--all claiming to improve Ohio’s education system.
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Note to the Bard: Leave "Nasty Man" at Home
“At every word, a reputation dies,” wrote 18th century poet Alexander Pope in his epic parody The Rape of the Lock. Too bad Princeton High School assistant principal Sean Yisrael failed to heed Pope’s words.
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Neither Choice nor Loyalty: School Choice and the Low-Fee Private Sector in India
Prachi Srivastava University of Sussex2007
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Teaching Policy to Improve Student Learning: Lessons From Abroad
Lynn OlsonAspen InstituteFebruary 2007
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An Apple for your thoughts
Apple users are famously loyal, many teachers among them. So Steve Jobs's sudden bout of teacher-union bashing deserves at least brief notice.
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A world-class vision of a world-class education
For as long as we can remember, certainly for the past decade, K-12 education in Ohio, as in many other states (see here), has been defined by intermittent, piecemeal reforms and initiatives. Much of it has been partisan and self-interested.
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Administrators anonymous
The first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. The self-destructing St. Louis Public School District seems unable to take this step, so the Missouri State Board of Education is staging an intervention. In a 5-2 vote, the board created a three-member committee to oversee the chronically troubled district.
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The smart way to praise
What's the surest path to raising smart children? Tell them how smart they are, all the time, because it raises their self-esteem and motivates them to succeed. So believe many parents and far too many educators.
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Pound the table
There is an old adage among lawyers that says, "If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table."
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Cracked bell, round 2
One nose-bloodying is enough for most of us. Not the brainy, pugilistic Charles Murray. He has resurrected his flawed Bell Curve argument in a three-part series of articles for the Wall Street Journal to try and convince us--again--that a person's IQ says all we need to know about what he can learn in school. Skeptical?