Displaying 16621-16650 of 17817 results
Commentary
4.30.2003

A Competent, Caring Journalist in Every Newsroom?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

People (myself included) who favor the radical overhaul of educators' training are wont to suggest that ed schools should become more like journalism schools: optional institutions that you attend if you think they add value but that you're not obliged to attend before entering this profession, so long as somebody wants to hire you and give you a chance.

Commentary
4.23.2003

The challenge of basing education policy on sound research

The challenge of basing education policy on sound researchEarlier this year, Mathematica Policy Research released a sophisticated study of federally funded after-school programs showing that such programs do not raise the academic achievement of participating students.

Commentary
4.23.2003

Selling vouchers to suburbanites

The April/May 2003 issue of American Enterprise, organized around the theme Race, Broken Schools, and Affirmative Action, contains several interesting articles on school choice.

Commentary
4.23.2003

Denver considers district-wide merit pay

A plan developed with the assistance of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association and backed by the school board would replace the traditional teacher salary schedule with a system of incentives based on performance if teachers vote to approve it next year.

Commentary
4.23.2003

High-stakes tests boost minority results

Yesterday's New York Times reports on two new studies that challenge test critics' claims that high-stakes testing undermines learning and hurts struggling students. Both studies instead find that high-stakes testing brings about academic gains, particularly for minority students.

Commentary
4.23.2003

Budget Woes and Whines

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Nobody likes having their budgets cut or income diminished. But my gracious, what a lot of griping, blaming and gnashing of teeth there has been in recent weeks with regard to public-school budgets. A blizzard of articles has chronicled the fiscal agonies of school systems whose revenues are pinched by the present downturn in state and municipal tax collections.

Commentary
4.16.2003

The case for elected school boards

While eliminating elected school boards and replacing them with appointed boards or mayoral control is all the rage, AEI resident scholar Rick Hess argues in the April issue of the American School Board Journal that there is no reason to expect improvements to follow from such changed forms of governance.

Commentary
4.16.2003

USDOE suggests that states create test-based routes to full teacher certification

States and districts have much more flexibility to meet the "highly qualified teacher" requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act than most people acknowledge; in fact, states have an historic opportunity to revamp their teacher preparation and certification systems, according to Michael Petrilli, Associate Deputy Under Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education.

Commentary
4.16.2003

Seattle superintendent resigns amidst financial troubles

Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Joseph Olchefske announced his resignation earlier this week, saying that a $34 million financial crisis that has unfolded in the district on his watch has made it impossible for him to lead effectively.

Commentary
4.16.2003

New York Times smears No Child Left Behind

Checker was right to skewer Michael Winerip for his grouchy piece, "A Pervasive Dismay On a Bush School Law," [see "The Law People Love to Hate - and Pretend to Love," http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=16#242It is always annoying when reporters proclaim that grumblings are the manifestation of a zeitgeist (

Commentary
4.16.2003

College instructors value grammar more than high school teachers do

College instructors value grammar more than high school teachers do While college instructors rank "grammar and usage" as a student's most important writing skill, high-school teachers rank it as least important, and only 69 percent of high-school English teachers say they teach their students grammar and usage skills, according to a new survey by ACT.

Commentary
4.16.2003

L.A. school board votes to oppose state testing requirement

The Los Angeles Unified School Board voted unanimously last week to oppose the state's high school exit exam. The board, which has a new union-backed majority (at least for now - one union-backed incumbent still faces a run-off in May), hopes to influence the state board to postpone or drop the requirement that students pass an exit exam before being allowed to graduate from high school.

Commentary
4.16.2003

Education in Iraq

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Iraq is blessedly free today, but it's also a mess in need of reconstruction.

Commentary
4.9.2003

The next frontier in reading instruction

Now that a scientific consensus has been reached on how best to teach children to decode words, the time has come to move on to challenge of boosting their reading comprehension. The Spring 2003 issue of American Educator focuses on this topic. The lead article, by E.D. Hirsch, explains how weak comprehension ruins poor children's chances to achieve academic success.

Commentary
4.9.2003

NYC adds phonics, exempts more schools from systemwide curriculum

After reading experts criticized Month by Month Phonics, the reading curriculum that he had originally selected for citywide implementation, on grounds that it lacked evidence of effectiveness, New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein has quietly decided to supplement it with a phonics-intensive program developed by Voyager Expanded Learning and based on sound reading research.