Regarding last week's editorial ("‘Just Do It' just won't do it," November 30th) about bringing every child to proficiency in reading and math by 2014, it should be noted that not even KIPP (or Amistad or Northstar) has achieved 100 percent proficiency. Neither has Singapore or Sweden.
At last week's American Enterprise Institute-Fordham conference on the No Child Left Behind Act's "remedies" for low-performing schools, paper after paper reported how little use is being made of that law's "public school choice" option for kids whose present schools
National Conference of State Legislatures, Blue Ribbon Commission on Higher EducationOctober 2006
Teachers union, which have defended the "single salary schedule" like the Rock of Gibraltar, are beginning to sign on to "combat pay", i.e. bonuses for teaching in high-poverty schools. Both the Massachusetts Teachers Association and the Bay State's AFT chapter recently announced their support for this form of "differential" pay.
Forget the sleek and powerful PS3. Designers for the nonprofit project One Laptop Per Child have modified a conventional computer and made it ultra portable, energy efficient, and incredibly cheap. The new $150 laptop will be making its way into the hands of millions of students in developing countries in mid-2007.
"Anti-poverty paternalism." Applied to education, it means teaching "middle class" habits to poor children and rewiring the dysfunctional behaviors and values imparted by neighborhoods and, sometimes, parents (see
So many insights, memories, and tributes have been lavished upon the late great Milton Friedman since his death on November 16th that we can add little. We suspect, however, that many Gadfly readers are acquainted primarily with Friedman's extraordinary contributions to education policy. He was, quite simply, the intellectual and spiritual father of school choice in America.
Who knew that the New Republic's Jonathan Chait had such love for the free market? But there he was the other day in the Los Angeles Times, the liberal writer doing his best imitation of F.A. Hayek.
Bryan C. Hassel, Emily Ayscue-Hassel, and Julie KowalNational Association of Charter School Authorizers2006
Principal Al Sanchez thought he was doing the student a favor. When Fidel Maldonado Jr.--a 15-year-old at Rio Grande High School and a boxer--showed up on campus with what Sanchez took to be a gang-style haircut, he gave the student a choice. Shave it off or face suspension.
For information on Fordham's unique role as a charter school sponsor in Ohio, there's no better source than The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Sponsorship Accountability Report 2005-06. The report offers a comprehensive account of Fordham's sponsorship policies and practices-as well as individual profiles of all Fordham-sponsored schools. Included in the profiles are descriptions of each school's educational program, school philosophy, and overall academic performance based on state achievement data.
People are up in arms over a book about... gay penguins? Written for children ages 4 to 8, And Tango Makes Three is an illustrated children's book about two male penguins raising a chick as their own.
As far as legislative loopholes go, few are more preposterous than NCLB's provision that districts, rather than submit to serious reform prescriptions for their chronically failing schools, may undertake "any other major restructuring of the school's governance that produces fundamental reform." But while this invitation to tread the path of least resistance usually results in
Linda Seebach takes Gadfly to task in her recent Rocky Mountain News column for dumb demographic data and for leaving key questions unanswered. She's right that our generalizations about Middle America--made in last issue's "Heartland blues"--don't hold up very well in Colorado.
What are the odds of being able to grade 45 million standardized reading and math exams without error? If you said less than 1 percent, you're right. In just one recent example of a testing snafu, an Alabama school had a dozen students leave for greener pastures after state tests wrongly labeled it a failing institution.
The No Child Left Behind Act has 7 more years to meet its incredibly ambitious goal of educating 100 percent of U.S. school children to no less than "proficient" in reading and math.
Krista KaferGoldwater Institute Policy Report #212October 17, 2006
Common sense says principals should be able to hire the teachers they want and need. But in the realm of public education, where common sense is scant, school leaders, entangled in webs of collective bargaining and union-created staffing rules, are often forced to hire teachers that other schools reject. California is the first state to do something about it.
The latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) will do little to calm growing fears about students' lack of science content knowledge.
Due to broad-based community interest and support, Columbus has been selected by KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) as a new national expansion site in 2008. KIPP officials and leaders in the Columbus community will partner to explore the essential next steps to bring KIPP to Columbus--recruiting qualified school leaders and building a local board of directors.
No one can fault governor-elect Ted Strickland's ambitions. After handily winning the governor's seat, Mr. Strickland has promised to reform the state's flawed education funding system--going so far as to stake the success of his administration on it (see here).
For information on Fordham's unique role as a charter school sponsor in Ohio, there's no better source than The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Sponsorship Accountability Report 2005-06.
Do you do whatever it takes for children to learn? Do you want to have a lasting impact?Do you want the power to make it happen?
National Center for Education StatisticsNovember 2006
Ruth Curran Neild and Robert BelfanzProject U-TurnNovember 2006Turning it Around: A Collective Effort to Understand and Resolve Philadelphia's Dropout Crisis Project U-TurnNovember 2006
Stacy Childress, Richard Elmore, and Allen GrossmanHarvard Business ReviewNovember 2006
