In 2005-06, 8,446 schools and 1,624 districts nationwide failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as required under the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Many states are scrambling to improve student achievement before districts and schools face state and federal sanctions (Columbus Public Schools alone has 45 schools in this predicament).
When "core curriculum" supporters like E.D. Hirsch, Jr. do their advocating, it goes something like this: "In order to gain power in our democracy and economy, children must develop ‘cultural literacy' in a common core of knowledge so they can function in a world where interactions and understandings are greased by shared reference points and allusions."
The brouhaha over the federal Reading First program illustrates everything that's wrong with government today--not the alleged improprieties, but a twisted government culture that prioritizes "proper procedures" over actual results and that looks for scapegoats and fall-guys when the going gets tough.
Brotherly spats are not uncommon, and fraternal one-upmanship is a time-honored tradition. It is a rare case, however, when one brother governs a state and the other governs a nation, and the two disagree, not over lawn maintenance, but over educational accountability systems.
Had our attempted conquest of Canada in the War of 1812 succeeded, the U.S.
I enjoyed your recent article on faith and reason in education. Although it's true that science cannot inform us of what values to hold, reason can. Reason is larger than just science. Values, morality, and character are not inseparable from religion. A broadly acceptable philosophy of conduct and character (i.e., ethics) based on reason can be taught.
When the lights flood Vaught Hemingway Stadium on Saturday nights, and Ole Miss fans raise the Rebel Yell from the stands, gentle Michael Oher is there savoring every moment. He never misses a game, though by all rights he shouldn't even be in college. Growing up homeless on the streets of Memphis, he was one of the lost.
The Texas Education Agency's fine arts curriculum framework for fifth graders describes a model lesson from a real classroom: the teachers "replicate painting on the ceiling as the Renaissance painters did by taping butcher paper to the bottom of students' desks and asking students to lie on the floor to paint." It's a clever idea (at least for classrooms with clean floors
The Abell FoundationSeptember 2006
Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. WintersManhattan InstituteSeptember 2006
Kevin CareyEducation SectorSeptember 2006
Here's a less-than-shocking headline for you: Parents in leafy suburbs have a wealth of high quality schooling options. That's the gist of a recent Wall Street Journal story that highlights several affluent areas where parents are moving their students out of private schools and into the local public institutions.
Buried in the findings of the recently issued 38th annual Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools are some useful eye-openers for the charter school community.
The science teachers at Broken Arrow Elementary in Lawrence, Kansas, originally ordered from Carolina Biological Supply Co. a shipment of ladybugs. What they actually received in the mail was a shipment of fear. Instead of sending the delightful Broken Arrow children some harmless coccinellids, Carolina Supply botched the order and sent the youngsters a strain of E. Coli.
Last week, Pope Benedict XVI sparked a firestorm in the Islamic world with a speech in which he quoted (but did not endorse) a 14th Century emperor who said that Muhammad had brought the world only "evil and inhuman" things.
Before applying to MIT, the Associated Press reports, one young man "built a working nuclear reactor in his garage." While no doubt intriguing to terrorists around the world, MIT's Dean of Admissions, Marilee Jones, was unimpressed. She finds such applicants just a tad run-of-the-mill.
Emily Ayscue Hassel, Bryan C. Hassel, Matthew D. Arkin, Julia M. Kowal, and Lucy M. SteinerThe Center for Comprehensive School Reform and ImprovementSeptember 2006
The Charter School Growth Fund (CSGF), which provides grants and loans for the development and expansion of charter management and support organizations, is now seeking applicants for its first 2007 business planning cohort.
After 17 years of promoting "fuzzy" math, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has finally found clarity.
"They eat, they drink, and in communion quaff sweet immortality and joy," wrote poet John Milton of Adam and Eve's life before the fall. But high school students in Lafayette County, Indiana don't have to read Milton to feel the progenitorial couple's loss.
Think creating high-quality schools is difficult? Try replicating them.
Competition from charter schools is spurring one of Ohio's most troubled urban districts, Dayton Public Schools (DPS), to improve.So says a new report by the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), which examined the methods employed by DPS and Wisconsin's Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) to respond to the competitive school markets they are in.
To all you would-be term-paper buyers: caveat emptor! The New York Times decided to put the burgeoning number of online essay-writing companies to the test. Promising original, A-level work, these firms cheerily take your topic (and your credit card number) and promise to produce prose and arguments sure to bring tears to your teacher's eyes.
Gadfly tries to flutter his wings on the sunny side of issues and therefore resists chiding Secretary Spellings for her recent flip-flop on "highly qualified teachers." It's true, as others
Welcome to Australia, home to kangaroos, dingoes, and an increasingly vocal debate over establishing national education standards.
The superintendent of Clark County schools (Las Vegas), Walt Rulffes, is asking the state legislature for an expansion of his new school autonomy experiment, which has been running for less than two weeks. The program bestows upon Vegas principals more decision-making authority in return for increased accountability--much like Joel Klein's "empowerment schools" in New York City.
