The London-based Centre for the Economics of Education held a conference on teacher pay and incentives last week and several new research papers are available from the conference website. "Paying Teachers for Performance: Incentives and Selection," by Edward Lazear of Stanford University explores arguments about the effect of incentives on teacher behavior, discusses different ways of def
A Mississippi fourth-grade teacher used a series of phony identities to gain a teaching license, buy a car, and attain national board certification, according to authorities in Mississippi.
The National Council on Teacher Quality and the Education Leaders Council have teamed up to launch a new project which will offer credentials to expert teachers and able would-be teachers. The American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence will award a beginning teacher credential to highly skilled individuals just entering teaching who have mastered an academic subject and can de
A long essay in this week's New Republic reviewing Terry Moe's new book, Schools, Vouchers and the American Public, Diane Ravitch explains why liberals should be pro-choice.
Leo Casey must be beside himself. Just a few miles from his office at the United Federation of Teachers on lower Park Avenue, The New York Times was publishing an article about surges of patriotism in American classrooms (Kevin Sack, "School Colors Become Red, White and Blue," 9/28/01).
Some educators have reacted to the mass murders in New York City and Washington, D.C. by calling for changes in the curriculum. Their immediate response to September 11 was that "we have to change the curriculum to make our students more tolerant," as if our students were the perpetrators of these heinous crimes.
The key to an effective mentoring program is matching up mentors and prot??g??s well and providing structure, rather than just putting a mentor and prot??g??
The Center for Education Reform has issued a listing of 65 studies of charter schools, together with brief summaries of each. It's not comprehensive.
National Center for Education Statistics, August 2001
Committee on Educational Excellence and Testing Equity, National Research Council, 2001
This unique survey compares the views of parents with children in private, public and charter schools on the quality of their own schools as well as a range of education reform issues. Conducted in Dayton, Ohio, home to one of the nation's fastest growing charter school programs as well as a strong private voucher program, the data show that, while public school parents are generally less satisfied with their children's present schools, the overwhelming majority of parents and non-parents support bold reform in the public school system. The survey also shows strong support among all groups for publicly funded vouchers, higher academic standards and performance pay for teachers.
This report traces an initiative that was launched a decade ago by business and government leaders seeking to spark a transformation of K-12 education in American. The New American Schools Development Corporation (NASDC) vowed to cast aside traditional ideas about schools and apply a no-nonsense, business-savvy approach to the design and deployment of "break-the-mold" schools. Ten years later, New American Schools (as the organization is now named) looks a lot more like a member of the education establishment. Mirel's fascinating report shows how this happened.
There is nothing new about the charges raised by a trio of recent publications on college athletics: that campus sports once fostered values like teamwork and perseverance, but now promote crass commercialism while contributing to a campus atmosphere of play and partying that distracts students from academic pursuits. Yet some of the details might shock you.
Critics of international education comparisons often complain that they are misleading because the variation in student performance is so great in the U.S. "The achievement of American schools is a lot more variable than is student achievement from elsewhere," asserted Berliner and Biddle in The Manufactured Crisis. A new study by three RAND researchers says that's not so.
While small schools are increasingly seen by experts as a promising way to boost student achievement (see Smaller, Safer, Saner Successful Schools reviewed below), parents and teachers have other ideas.
It's the eve of Yom Kippur, when many people of the Jewish faith reflect on their transgressions, atone for their misdeeds, and try to get right with God and their fellow men. Not Bill Ayers. His new book - which I confess I cannot bring myself to purchase - seeks instead to justify the heinous acts of his youth.
North Central Regional Educational Laboratory May 2001
Center for Urban Research and Policy Studies, University of Chicago August 2001
Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania August 2001
Mass Insight Education Fall 2001
To get around uniform salary schedules that prevent schools and districts from paying extra for teachers with rare skills, these teachers could be hired on a contract basis and shared by many schools, suggests education policy thinker Paul Hill.
In response to parents who were uncomfortable with the existing sex ed curriculum, one school district in Minnesota created a two-track program, offering an abstinence-only class alongside the traditional one, which covers contraception, abortion, homosexuality, and other hot topics. Parents could enroll their child in the class of their choice.
The New York City Board of Education has figured out how to privatize schools without seeming to. Last spring, parents at five troubled public schools voted down the Edison Project, and it appeared that nonpublic managers were not welcome in the school system. That turns out to be untrue.
The day before the disaster in New York City, The New York Times reported good news about City University of New York. This is a story that deserves to be told, not forgotten. One of the most polarized debates in New York City in recent years occurred when the trustees of the City University of New York (CUNY) decided two years ago to set minimum standards for entry for freshmen.
The school choice movement is gaining in complexity as lawmakers increasingly opt for tax credits instead of vouchers as a way to help citizens, poor and otherwise, pay private school tuition for their children.
WAY TO GO, MR. PRESIDENT! THAT WAS A HELLUVA SPEECH. WE'RE WITH YOU ALL THE WAY! It's been more than a little upsetting to watch the education community respond to last Tuesday's terrible attack on the United States. The prize for greediest, most self-promoting and solipsistic response goes to an outfit called the Public Education Network.
Tom Loveless, The Brown Center on Education Policy, The Brookings Institution September 2001
