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National School Safety Expert to Speak at Dayton Seminar
Kenneth S. Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services and author of Classroom Killers? Hallway Hostages?
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From the Cradle to Career: Connecting American Education from Birth through Adulthood
This year’s Quality Counts evaluates state efforts to create education systems whose curricula are aligned from preschool to adulthood. The result is a host of state rankings, many of them tied to the report’s Chance-for-Success Index, which includes 13 indicators spanning a student’s lifetime.
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Focus on Instructional Time, Not School Days
In one of his last official acts as Ohio’s top executive, Governor Taft used a line-item veto to purge a provision added to the Ohio Core legislation that would have affected the school calendar. Taft vetoed language allowing schools to operate for a minimum number of hours instead of days for fear that some school districts would move to a four-day week.
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Adjusting to the Spotlight
Collective bargaining agreements between school districts and teacher unions have rarely made it into the public spotlight—at least until now.
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Turning Brick-and-Mortar to Gold
Ohio’s large urban districts are undergoing a painful transition, similar to the one already experienced by many of the state’s big manufacturers, from sprawling organizations with a corner on the market to shrinking systems struggling to compete for fewer and fewer customers.
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Is No Child Left Behind's birthday worth celebrating?
For almost five years now, I've considered myself a supporter of the No Child Left Behind Act. And not just the casual flag-waver variety. Much of that time I spent inside the Bush Administration, trying to make the law work, explaining its vision to hundreds of audiences, even wearing an NCLB pin on my lapel. I was a True Believer.
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New Year's predictions and resolutions
Inspired by the good work of our Washington Insiders (see here), Gadfly screwed up his courage to offer these predictions about what America's ten most influential ed-policy organizations (so says the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center) will ac
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"Alternative" Charter School Authorizers: Playing a Vital Role in the Charter Movement
Louann Bierlein PalmerProgressive Policy InstituteDecember 2006
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Bumping convention
Gadfly was buzzed even before the champagne started flowing New Year's Eve, thanks to a late-December story in the Christian Science Monitor. It profiles Betsy Rogers of Alabama, winner of the 2003 National Teacher of the Year award. After receiving it, she transferred to the perennially struggling K-8 Brighton School just outside Birmingham.
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Where no man has gone before
When Captain Kirk waffled over whether to open relations with the Klingon Empire, Spock encouraged engagement by noting, "Only Nixon could go to China." Were the wise Vulcan advising education policymakers, his words would be much the same: "Only a true conservative can push national standards." And according to National Public Radio, that's exactly what's starting t
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Reforms that add up
Although Massachusetts students lead the nation in math scores, state education officials are nervous-less than 50 percent of Bay State youngsters demonstrate a solid command on national math tests, and elementary math scores on MCAS exams have not risen in two years.
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Just hold it
Schools used to have problems with students spinning bottles. Now the youngsters pee in them. That's what happened at Salisbury Middle School in Salisbury, Maryland, which recently enacted regulations requiring every student be escorted to and from restrooms by a staff member.
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Culture of acheatment
Cheating has traditionally been the domain of desperate students. Now, desperate districts are joining the deceitful ranks. For years, pockets of teachers and administrators in Camden, New Jersey, have cultivated an "informal culture of cheating" as a means to boost test scores.
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Gold-studded apples for the teacher
This holiday season, P.C. comes to holiday gifting. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, school administrators around the country are cracking down on gift-giving from students and parents to teachers.
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Inadequate understanding
When Fordham released Fund the Child, a manifesto proposing weighted student funding (WSF), we knew the concept was attracting unaccustomed sleeping companions. After all, WSF's supporters include those seeking better resources for poor and minority students, those wishing to foster innovations such as charter schools, and those aiming to empower school leaders.
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Teacher Pay Reforms: The Political Implications of Recent Research
Dan GoldhaberCenter for American ProgressDecember 2006
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Benevolent makeover
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do." So spake Emerson. Let us hope that District of Columbia mayor-elect Adrian Fenty possesses a great soul, for he certainly lacks consistency.
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Student Achievement and National Economic Growth
Francisco O. Ramirez, Xiaowei Luo, Evan Schofer, and John W. MeyerAmerican Journal of Education 113 November 2006
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Urban legends: out with the old, in with the new
Though they didn't make the Education Week list, surely two of the most influential studies of recent years were reports from The New Teacher Project about the impact
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Religious ignorance
It's the time of year when columnists sharpen their pencils and launch the annual bashing of public schools and other governmental institutions for taking Christ out of Christmas.
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Tough Choices for Tough Times: Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce
National Center on Education and the Economy2006
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Miss fortune
Too bad Jimmy Carter is busy deflecting charges that he's anti-Israel and a plagiarizer--his prowess as an election observer was recently needed in Roseville, Minnesota. By most accounts, Jasmine White should be student council president of Central Park Elementary in said town.
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Compulsory education
Spokane business teacher Scott Carlson doesn't think the Washington Education Association (WEA), of which he is not a member, should be able to raid his paycheck to fund its political causes without his permission. Oddly, the Washington state Supreme Court disagrees.
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Charter High Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap
Innovations in Education SeriesU.S. Department of EducationOctober 2006
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Homophily-phobia
"Homophily." The word means "love of the same," and it recently landed in the New York Times Magazine's 6th Annual Year in Ideas, listed directly after "Hidden-Fee Economy, The" and directly before "Human-Chimp Hybrids."
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Influence: A Study of the Factors Influencing Education Policy
Christopher B. Swanson and Janelle BarlageEditorial Projects in Education Research CenterDecember 2006
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Where's the teach?
Last week, Gadfly noted Philadelphia Mayor John Street's bold strategy of threatening parents of truant students with jail time. Forget the students--what about the teachers?
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House Bill 695: Admirable Ends, Redundant Means
The General Assembly is now debating House Bill 695, which would create a new system of secondary schools dedicated to stronger science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) instruction.
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The Future of Educational Leadership
With so many voices singing KIPP’s praises over the last few months (see here, here, and