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.
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.
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.
The following are among the responses generated by last week's editorial, "Education's mirth dearth," which invited readers to proffer theories on why educators are a solemn bunch.
National Association of State Boards of EducationOctober 2002
With the blessing of the Zelman decision, the last big civil rights battle - enabling poor minority children to attend good schools - can now begin in earnest, writes Sol Stern in the autumn issue of City Journal.
Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster, Center for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan InstituteOctober 2002
Democratic gubernatorial candidates in at least five key races - including Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Texas - are pledging to curtail their states' use of standardized tests to evaluate student and school performance and as accountability instruments.
Recently, the New York Times showered attention on a new study from the M.I.N.D. Institute at U.C. Davis, giving it front-page news play and devoting an editorial to hand-wringing over its findings. Numerous other publications accorded it prominent attention, too, and just this week Senator Barbara Boxer cited it while arguing for new federal initiatives on autism.
Barbara Kent Lawrence, Steve Bingler, et. al.2002
Harold Doran and Darrel Drury, Education Performance Network, New American SchoolsOctober 2002
You may laugh at the antics and costumes of the youthful spooks who beat a path to your door this evening in search of sweets, but when's the last time you had a really good giggle sitting at an education conference or reading one of this field's innumerable journals and newsletters? Why is there so little humor in educator-land?
The American Federation of Teachers' quarterly, American Educator, often contains excellent material.
This incisive essay by E.D. Hirsch appears in the October-November 2002 issue of the Hoover Institution's Policy Review.
Last week, Education Secretary Rod Paige warned state officials not to attempt to skirt the intent of "No Child Left Behind" by lowering standards or redefining proficiency to ease the impact of the law's accountability provisions.
This week, the Massachusetts' Board of Education unanimously approved new K-12 history standards despite criticism that the guidelines were rushed and weighted more heavily toward facts than concepts. The state maintains that the public had ample time to offer input, as the standards' two-year development included numerous meetings with teachers and community groups.
An unintended consequence of a 1994 rule governing Title I - the largest federal education aid program - is that New York City's poorest boroughs receive far less money per disadvantaged student than other boroughs with lesser concentrations of poor kids.
California's budget crisis has dried up funds for the state's highly touted education awards program, which will not be distributed this academic year, Governor Gray Davis's administration announced last week.
Laura Goe, Education Policy Analysis ArchivesOctober 14, 2002
The Commonwealth of Virginia has joined Texas and California - which adopt textbooks on a statewide basis - in persuading major publishing companies to issue textbooks aligned with state history and social studies standards, a trend that may continue as other states seek texts aligned to their standards.
Some 12,000 students - or 19 percent - of the Bay State's high school class of 2003 may be denied diplomas after repeatedly failing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exams.
The Department of Education has released a helpful "desktop reference" manual to the No Child Left Behind Act.
Aimee Howley, Edwina Pendarvis and Thomas Gibbs, Education Policy Analysis ArchivesOctober 16, 2002
Brian P. Gill, Jake Dembosky, and Jonathan P. Caulkins, RAND 2002
