A Policymaker's Primer on Education Research
Eric OsbergMid-continent Research for Education and Learning and the Education Commission of the StatesFebruary 2004
Academic Atrophy: The Condition of the Liberal Arts in America's Public Schools
Kathleen Porter-MageeCouncil for Basic Education March 2004
Redefining "highly qualified teachers" . . . again
Education Secretary Rod Paige announced this week that the Department of Education will relax NCLB's "highly qualified teacher" requirements.
Rigged elections in Gotham
"It was a political hit that would make Tony Soprano blush." Just hours before the New York City Panel for Education Policy - successor to the Big Apple's school board - was to vote on Mayor Bloomberg's controversial plan to hold back third graders who failed the city's math and reading tests, the mayor axed two of his own hand-picked board members and orchestrated the firing of a third, all of
Grassroots resistance to NCLB
Phyllis McClureIn this space, Michael Kirst recently provided a useful commentary comparing the time it took to implement the original Title I to the present controversies over implementing the No Child Left Behind act.
Looking forward on Brown
U.S. News & World Report has a fantastic special issue on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. One of the articles therein, "Unequal Education," is as fine a lay-of-the-land piece on education we've seen in many a year.
America's Untapped Resource: Low-Income Students in Higher Education
Eric OsbergRichard D. Kahlenberg, editorThe Century Foundation2004
Principal Indicators of Student Academic Histories in Postsecondary Education, 1972-2000
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Clifford Adelman, Institute of Education SciencesJanuary 2004
Can Teacher Quality Be Effectively Assessed?
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Dan Goldhaber and Emily Anthony, Center on Reinventing Public EducationMarch 2004
The education tsetse fly?
The guest editorial in the March 4, 2004 issue of the Education Gadfly ("Will Congress hurt or help K-12 math education?" http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=138#1708 ) begins with name-calling ("fuzzy math") and then descends into an ideological diatribe filled with acid opinion and seldom "marred
Reinventing 12th grade NAEP
Chester E. Finn, Jr.No Child Left Behind is focusing so much attention on the 4th and 8th grade results that American students (and states) get on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) that a lot of people scarcely remember that NAEP also tests 12th graders.
Garden state charters wilt
A mixed bag of results has arrived from New Jersey's charter schools, with a few showing strong gains but many falling behind local district schools. Only 17 percent of eighth graders in Garden State charters, for example, passed state math tests, compared to 74 percent of students across the state.
Good news for Edison schools
After a run of bad press about plummeting stock prices and voided contracts with districts, Edison Schools, Inc., finally seems to be hitting its stride in at least one of the districts it serves. In its third year of a "$30 million, five-year contract to manage six elementary schools and a middle school in disadvantaged areas for the Clark County, Nev.
Charter victory in Washington
Yesterday, the Washington state legislature narrowly passed a bill that will allow both the creation of 45 charter schools for disadvantaged students over the next six years and the conversion of an unlimited number of failing public schools into charters.
DoD and NCLB
NPR recently aired a fascinating story on the schools operated by the Department of Defense for children of military personnel, and whether they, too, should be subject to NCLB's requirements. (Today they're not, because they're not funded by the Department of Education and Title I.) The National School Boards Association says they should be.
Dueling petitions in Minnesota
For months now, Minnesota's courageous and passionate education commissioner, Cheri Pierson Yecke, has been the target of unrelenting criticism for her team's proposed social studies standards.
Mathews NCLB results are in
Some weeks ago, we noted that Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews was seeking "true life stories" of how NCLB is affecting classrooms, good and bad (http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=133#1658).
Using R for Estimating Longitudinal Student Achievement Models
Chester E. Finn, Jr.J.R. Lockwood, Harold Doran, and Daniel McCaffreyR Foundation for Statistical ComputingDecember 2003
High Stakes: Findings from a National Study of Life-or-Death Decisions by Charter School Authorizers
Bryan C. Hassel and Meagan Batdorff, Public ImpactFebruary 2004
Investing in Learning: School Funding Policies to Foster High Performance
Eric OsbergCommittee for Economic DevelopmentFebruary, 2004
Shakespeare and the SAT
How would Shakespeare do on the new writing section of the SAT? None too well, according to this article in the Atlantic, which scored several well-known writers against the writing criteria set by the College Board, which sponsors America's most prominent test.
Single-sex schools get boost
The Department of Education is entertaining comments on an important proposed change to Title IX regulations that presently impede single-sex schools.
New sponsor for CO charters?
In Colorado, a bill to create an independent state board to authorize charter schools is facing legislative obstacles. The Democrat who sponsored it says it would help charter schools by providing state, rather than local district, oversight.
Focus on comprehension, not just reading&
Many educators believe it doesn't matter what kids read, so long as they are reading something. We beg to differ. Despite the good intentions of policymakers and teachers who want to improve students' reading skills, especially low-income and minority children, merely spending more time on "reading skills," does not a better reader make.
Will Congress hurt or help K-12 math education?
Much like the "reading wars" between phonics instruction and whole language learning, the K-12 "math wars" have raged for more than a decade. With many defeats and only occasional victories, parents, education reformers, and a number of university mathematicians have struggled against "fuzzy math" in schools.
A Consumer's Guide to High School History Textbooks
Diane RavitchA Consumer's Guide to High School History Textbooks is a summary review of 12 widely used U.S. and world history textbooks.
A Matter of Principals: The Kindergarten to Grade 12 Public School Leaders Maryland Needs, and How to Get Them
Carolyn ConnerFrederick Hess and Andrew Kelly, The Abell ReportJanuary 2004