A recent study by the Manhattan Institute's Jay Greene (High School Graduation Rates in the United States) shone a spotlight on the enormous number of students who disappear from school attendance rolls between 8th grade and 12th grade but aren't counted in any official dropout statistics.
In last week's Gadfly, we reported on efforts by the government of Pakistan to rein in some state-funded Islamic schools that breed extremism and violence and provide incentives for teaching modern subjects like science, math, computers, and English. Hopefully these efforts to promote liberal education in Pakistan will be more sincere than they have been in the schools run by the P
It's not only in the world of education research that ideology sometimes trumps scientific evidence; the folks who study drug-prevention programs for children can be hostile to research-based practices as well.
National Center for Education Statistics, December 2001
In October 2001, the Abell Foundation released a study on teacher certification which included a comprehensive review of all studies that investigate whether certified teachers are more effective than teachers without traditional state certification (and a related question, whether formal teacher training from a school of education is correlated with greater student achievement).
In an article in Adolescent Medicine, Paul Hill explains why most large, urban high schools are not only ineffective but actually harmful to adolescents - especially low-income and minority students - and what can be done about them. These schools are widely known to be plagued by low standards, poorly qualified teachers, frequent leadership changes, violence and a lack of decorum,
The General Accounting Office issued this report at the behest of four Senators. It offers the first close look we've ever seen at the federal government's own two "school systems," the one run by the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) with 47,000 pupils and the one run by the Defense Department (DOD) with 108,000 students.
Donna Walker James, Sonia Jurich and Steve Estes, American Youth Policy Forum, 2001
edited by Don McAdams, Paul Hill and Jim Harvey, Center for Reform of School Systems, 2001
edited by Paul Peterson and David Campbell, The Brookings Institution, 2001
Eric A. Hanushek, John F. Kain and Steve G. Rivkin, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2001
It's nice to reoccupy this space after making room for two terrific guest editorials and a week's hiatus at Thanksgiving. Allow me to bend your ear, as it were, on a quartet of important issues.* * * *The long Elementary and Secondary Education Act (E.S.E.A.) drama appears at long last to have reached its final act.
Arizona could become the second state (after Iowa) to do away with its seniority-based pay scale for teachers and replace it with a system in which teachers are paid based on how effective they are. But daunting obstacles lie ahead.
Reducing class size is a reform that is popular with teachers, parents, and the education establishment, but policymakers need more solid information about the costs and benefits of other reform options before they commit billions more dollars to across-the-board class-size reduction.
The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation asked experts to share their knowledge and ideas on topics related to effective education philanthropy. Here are seven papers that answer some of philanthropists' most important questions in the education reform arena.
Charter schools grant significant autonomy to their principals, but do their principals make decisions that would not be possible in ordinary schools? Are they creating schools that are truly different from (and potentially better than) regular district schools? For this report, Bill Triant conducted extended interviews with eight charter school principals in Massachusetts on five dimensions of school operations (teacher hiring, budgetary control, instruction and curriculum, organizational design, and accountability) to shed light on how they use their autonomy. He finds that when charter school principals are given the opportunity to innovate, they do so.
Public Education Network, November 2001
William W. Cutler III, 2000
Software giant Microsoft has proposed settling the myriad class-action lawsuits it faces by contributing a billion-plus dollars worth of software, computer equipment, technology training and cash to schools attended by low-income youngsters. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal featured an op-ed by Checker Finn explaining why the software giant's offer - if approved by the plaintiffs an
Anyone who thinks that the solution to the problems of big-city school districts is putting the mayor in charge may be disheartened by a trio of articles in the most recent issue of Education Next.
Jennifer Buckingham, Centre for Independent Studies, 2001
As the pundits keep reminding us, honesty is often a casualty of war.
Frederick M. Hess, Progressive Policy Institute, November 2001
While the "whole language" approach to teaching reading has been widely discredited, that didn't stop the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) from organizing a series of seminars called "A Day of Whole Language" during its annual convention in Baltimore last week.
Public Agenda, November 14, 2001
Jay Greene, Black Alliance for Educational Options and the Center for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute, November 2001
John E. Stone, George K. Cunningham and Donald B. Crawford, Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, October 2001
Katrina Bulkley, Education Policy Analysis Archives, 9(37), October 1, 2001
Mark Y. Herring, Oklahoma Association of Scholars, October 2001
