If ever there were a case to be made for allowing principals to hire and fire their staff, Portland's Whittaker Middle School is it. Principal Tom Pickett told The Oregonian that, until a quarter of his current teachers are replaced, pupils in his failing school won't stand much chance of being adequately educated.
Chicago's public schools reaped little reward for their nearly $200 million investment in professional development last year because the money was spent "without any 'overarching strategy' for improving instruction," and without a demand for proof of improvement. So concludes an outside audit.
Checker Finn asked why there is so little humor among educators in America. [See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=35#1480.] Three reasons come to mind.
Noting that it's better to raise standards than to back down from a higher benchmark, Texas's board of education approved a motion to set a moderate but rising standard for passing the rigorous new TAKS exam. This replaces the celebrated TAAS test, on which many Lone Star students and schools had bumped against the ceiling.
Richard L. Allington2002
Achieve, Inc.November 2002
California State AuditorNovember 2002
Once upon a time, I helped to create a new federal entity called the National Institute of Education (NIE). As the junior-most education staffer in the White House during the early Nixon administration (functioning mainly an aide to Pat Moynihan, then Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs), I helped draft Richard Nixon's 1970 message to Congress, wherein the NIE was conceived.
Yale and Stanford universities last week became the most elite campuses to end the early decision process, whereby successful applicants must accept offers of admission months ahead of schedule, no matter where else they are eventually accepted.
In a tough job market, people with doctorates in other disciplines are seeking employment in K-12 education, trading the high-wire uncertainties of university teaching for the stability of public school tenure. While their numbers are still small - about 1.7 percent of teachers held doctorates in subjects other than education as of 1996 - they are believed to be growing.
While pundits dissect last week's election results - two-thirds of all education measures on the ballot were approved - policymakers sweat over where to find the money for smaller classes, after-school programs, school construction and, in Florida, universal preschool.
As Massachusetts high school students who failed the MCAS gear up for re-tests, schools must "get smarter" about developing ways to help them pass, quote the Globe in a recent editorial.
Texas education commissioner Felipe Alanis has ordered five charter schools in the Lone Star State (including two in Houston) to close by the end of the school year because they have failed for three years in a row to meet state standards. The closures would be the first to occur for purely academic reasons since the legislature authorized charters in 1995.
An analysis of new Illinois data revealed "startling disparities" between test scores of white and black students at some of the Chicago area's most esteemed suburban schools. Masked by strong average scores in years past, the disparities were forced to light by NCLB's mandate that schools disaggregate their performance data by race, income, etc.
Sunday's New York Times Magazine contained a brace of insightful pieces by crack journalist James Traub.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development2002
Eric Brunner and Jon Sonstelie, National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, Teachers College, Columbia UniversityOctober 2002
Since the beginning of the school year, more than a quarter of voucher students in Miami-Dade County have returned to public schools. The reasons most kids and parents cite for abandoning their new private schools? Transportation difficulties, too tough a curriculum, too-strict discipline, culture shock and a lack of familiarity with new teachers, peers and school grounds.
The fall issue of American Experiment Quarterly (AEQ) contains a pair of pieces worth a look. The first is "The Making of Patriots," in which Leslie Lenkowsky, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, explains what it will take to reverse civic decline and inculcate in today's young people an understanding and appreciation for our system of government.
Watched by an oversight board and chief operating officer more powerful than the mayor, hundreds of millions of state tax dollars stand to flow through Camden, New Jersey - a city so forlorn that the drug trade may be its single largest employer - as part of a massive recovery plan and a state supreme court decision equalizing public-school funding.
As their tuitions escalate, public colleges and universities are experimenting with formulas and incentives to attract strong students. For nearly a decade, Georgia has granted free tuition to high school graduates with a B or better average - regardless of financial need - to stop the brain drain of top students who left the state for college and never returned.
Election post-mortems typically take three forms: congratulations to the winner for their success and efforts to understand what caused it; soul-searching among the losers; and prognostications by pundits about the legislative and policy agendas that await the new Congress, reconfigured state legislatures, governors, etc.
Few of America's thousands of middle schools are engaged in the "focused, demanding work necessary to serve all their students well," says veteran middle school analyst Hayes Mizell of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.
Writing for American Outlook, Checker Finn examines the potential for chaos and fraud inherent in the fast-growing market of virtual higher education, aka distance learning-which has evolved from its Pony Express origins into wildly varying offerings by universities, non-profits and for-profits far and wide.
The handwriting is on the wall for ed schools, writes UNC-Wilmington education professor Martin Kozloff in a hard-hitting summary of criticisms leveled at them. Kozloff explains reformers' attack on ed schools' validity, reliability, credibility and monopoly (not to mention dubious theories). Have a look at Kozloff's paper. You may even find yourself mentioned.
