Commentary
The Arizona Scholarship Tax Credit: Giving Parents Choices, Saving Taxpayers Money
Carrie Lips and Jennifer Jacoby, Cato InstituteSeptember 17, 2001
Commentary
Commentary
From Ground Zero Plus One Mile
On September 11 at 8:45 a.m., I was having a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper when I heard a tremendous boom behind me. I live in Brooklyn, about three city blocks from New York Harbor, and directly across the Harbor from my neighborhood is New York City's financial district.
Commentary
Illinois teachers fail exams
An examination of pass-fail records from tests of basic skills and subject knowledge taken by Illinois teachers over the last thirteen years revealed that 5,243 current teachers had failed at least one exam, even though these tests are pitched at an extremely low level.
Commentary
Lowering the bar for high school exit in New Jersey
In New Jersey, students who flunk the state's exit exam can still receive a high school diploma if they earn passing marks on a series of performance assessment tasks drawn up by the state. Last year, 6100 students-nearly 9 percent of graduates-got their diplomas this way.
Commentary
New commission on school choice
The Brookings Institution has been awarded a $1 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to create a "National Working Commission on Choice in K-12 Education." According to The Washington Post, the commission will be managed by Paul Hill and Tom Loveless, and will tackle issues surrounding school choice such as how it affects school quality and student learning and whether it af
Commentary
Spotlight on Cincinnati, a school district in search of a solution
Union and school district negotiators have reached a tentative agreement on changes in Cincinnati's teacher pay-for-performance plan, this in response to complaints from teachers about the evaluation process.
Commentary
Taking on the achievement gap in high school
High-achieving, high-poverty schools are no longer a novelty for elementary or middle school-aged kids, but helping disadvantaged youngsters succeed in high school has been more challenging. An article in Teacher Magazine describes the efforts of an organized group of parents in California to prevent their kids from becoming high school dropout statistics.
Commentary
The project method of instruction (circa 1921)
If your neighborhood school announces that it is introducing a new kind of instruction centered around student projects, you'll want to visit Teachers College Record's website, TCRecord.org, which this week reprises a 1921 symposium on the project method called "Dangers and Difficulties of the Project Method and How to Overcome Them." We recommend "Projects and Purposes in Teaching and Learning
Commentary
What Teacher Shortage?
Education issues aren't foremost in our minds today, but I will note that the K-12 concern that reached my ears most frequently in recent weeks is the vaunted "teacher shortage" that our schools are said to face.
Commentary
Longitudinal Evaluation of School Change and Performance in Title I Schools: Final Report
U.S. Department of Education 2001
Commentary
Commentary
Commentary
Mobile students mess with accountability systems
As if House and Senate conferees didn't already face enough difficulties in creating a fair definition of "adequate yearly progress" for the new ESEA, an article in this month's Washington Monthly explains how high rates of student mobility can doom an otherwise solid accountability system. According to a GAO study, one out of every six U.S.
Commentary
Another Skirmish in the Battle over Teacher Certifications
In 1999, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation published a study by Dan Goldhaber (of the Urban Institute) and Dominic Brewer (of RAND) that found that students of teachers with emergency credentials do no worse than students whose teachers have standard teaching credentials.
Commentary
Back to school with Isaac Newton
This time of year always brightens the education picture with the optimism of fresh starts. Classrooms are clean, teachers rested, children eager. There are new textbooks on the shelves, new hardware in the computer labs, perhaps a new menu in the cafeteria. Some of this year's innovations are even more profound.
Commentary
Parents try to remake a reluctant public school
Most children who live in the Hollywood Hills go to private schools, but a small group of parents from that affluent Los Angeles neighborhood decided two years ago that they might like to send their kids to the local public school.
Commentary
Recent Studies from Education Privatization Center
Henry Levin's National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, based at Teachers College, Columbia University, hasn't always done important and well-balanced work, but it's certainly been prolific. What's more, several of the recent "occasional papers" now available on its burgeoning website strike us as worth knowing about, maybe even reading.
Commentary
Results of a School Voucher Experiment: The Case of Washington, D.C. after Two Years
Patrick J. Wolf, Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West August 2001
Commentary
Pay-for-Performance: Key Questions and Lessons from Five Current Models
Education Commission of the States June 2001
Report
School Finance, Governance
Making it Count: A Guide to High-Impact Education Philanthropy
Charitable giving in the U.S. is at an all-time high, as is the public's concern with the state of our K-12 education system. This guide provides practical advice for the philanthropist who is fed up with the status quo and eager to support effective education reforms. Making it Count reviews the state of U.S. public education, examines different ways that philanthropists are trying to improve it, explains why some strategies work better than others, profiles a number of education philanthropists, and recounts the experiences of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.
Commentary
Charter Schools as laboratories for personnel policy experiments
Charter schools have come under criticism in some quarters for failing to realize one of the goals emphasized by proponents: that they would serve as laboratories in which novel ideas and methods could be tested and best practices identified for dissemination among traditional public schools. For example, a recent study of California charter schools concluded: "...
Commentary
Summer school in New York City
I read the results of the summer school program in New York City with a growing sense of dismay, in part because so many kids gained so little from the experience, but also because I had predicted this would happen in a New York Times op-ed a year ago, when the school system rashly threatened to send 325,000 kids to summer school.
Commentary
How can one science education system produce elites and illiterates?
The US has the finest scientists in the world but the rest of the population is abysmally ignorant of science. Why? Because science education in the US today exists as a kind of mining and sorting operation in which existing scientists search for diamonds in the rough who can be cut and polished into elite scientists, according to David Goodstein, a professor of physics at Caltech.
Commentary
Is the GED as good as a high school degree?
Since 1975, the percentage of young adults who have gotten their diploma through the GED program has risen from less than 3 percent to 12 percent. Since the Census Bureau includes GED holders as high school completers, these statistics mask a steady rise in the nation's dropout rate. But does the GED measure up as a high school equivalence exam?
Commentary
Why new teachers leave (and what would make them stay)
Almost 75 percent of new teachers in the Cleveland Municipal School District either were considering leaving or were unsure whether they would stay, according to the results of a survey administered this spring.
Commentary
On the road with the KIPP Academy Orchestra
Can you think of anything more fun than chaperoning 76 junior high school kids on a bus trip across America?
Commentary
Taking aim at AIMS
My older sister lived in Scottsdale, Arizona, for many years and her six children attended the public schools there. Her oldest child, my niece, took most of her public schooling in Texas and is now a teacher in Florida. The rest are graduates of the Arizona school system.
Commentary
About Harold O. Levy
In recent weeks, the Chancellor of the New York City public school system has been heavily criticized, especially about cost overruns in school construction. The sharks have been circling, and the New York Times ran an editorial defending him (a sure sign that he is in big trouble). I'd like to say a few things in his behalf. Harold O.