The Next Generation of Citizens: NAEP Civics Assessments-1988 and 1998
Chester E. Finn, Jr.National Center for Education Statistics
Make ed schools sing for their supper
In a piece in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education, Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation and former president of Brown University argues that we should stop blaming teachers for their professional shortcomings and start pointing fingers at the universities and colleges that train them.
National Center for Accountability to study achievement data and schools
Just for the Kids-the nonprofit group best known for making school-level accountability data available in an innovative, user-friendly website-is now teaming with the Education Commission of the States and the University of Texas to launch the National Center for Accountability.
Confusion about commercialism in schools
Pizza Hut offers free pizza to students who read a certain number of books while rival Domino's rewards schools with free books if the school community buys pizza from its outlets. Do these deals harm students by commercializing schools, as critics suggest?
How to keep good principals
Diane RavitchTime magazine and other national media have recently featured the work of a program called "New Leaders for New Schools," which is preparing 15 people to become school principals. This is most certainly a valuable activity and it deserves commendation if, in fact, the 15 people do someday turn out to be not only principals but good principals.
Teachers learn to gamble, massage in order to maintain certification
Teachers in many states must accumulate professional development credits to maintain their certification, but those who pushed hard for a recently-enacted recertification program in Illinois were horrified to learn that some teachers are satisfying this requirement by taking courses in Tai Chi, massage, and gambling (conducted at a racetrack, no less).
Charter Schools in Action: Renewing Public Education
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Chester E. Finn, Jr., Bruno V. Manno, and Gregg Vanourek
Inside Charter Schools: The Paradox of Radical Decentralization
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Harvard University Press
Virtual charter schools that don't need to find buildings
In Pennsylvania and Colorado (among other states), parents can now register their children for charter schools that exist only in cyberspace.
Opposition to character education from an unlikely source
In this week's Weekly Standard, former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett and Boston University Ed School Dean Edwin J. Delattre take aim at the character education program included in the education bills now before Congress.
Homeschooling in the United States: 1999
Chester E. Finn, Jr.National Center for Education Statistics
Mathematics 2000: The Nation's Report Card
Chester E. Finn, Jr.National Center for Education Statistics and the National Assessment Governing Board
2001 State Special Education Outcomes: A Report on State Activities at the Beginning of a New Decade
Kelly ScottNational Center on Educational Outcomes
Is Ted Kennedy the GOP's best hope on ESEA?
Senator Edward M. Kennedy shocked and disappointed many fellow Democrats with his willingness to compromise with the Bush administration on ESEA.
New corps of urban principals breaks barriers to entry
Last week, New Leaders for New Schools introduced its first corps of urban principals, highly-qualified individuals without standard principal credentials who have been given special training and served apprenticeships under master principals before taking the reins of their own schools. Solving the principal shortage will require districts to embrace innovative strategies like this.
School-Community Partnerships In Support of Learning
Karen BakerInstitute for Educational Leadership
Teach for America instructors outshine experienced teachers
Teach for America teachers perform as well or better than other teachers employed by the Houston Independent School District, according to an independent study by CREDO, a research group based at Stanford's Hoover Institution. An editorial in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution argues that Georgia should also open its doors to prospective teachers like these.
Do No Harm-High Stakes Testing and Students With Learning Disabilities
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Disability Rights Advocates
Performance Pay Roadblocks
The movement to link teacher pay to performance in the classroom has taken several giant steps forward this year-in Iowa, Arizona, and Toledo, just to name a few places-but it took two steps back last week.
Revolution in the ed schools
Almost everyone agrees that schools of education need an overhaul and Martin Kozloff, a reform-minded professor of education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, explains how this should happen in a manifesto posted on EducationNews.org.
Personnel Policy in Charter Schools
Dale Ballou, Michael PodgurskyWhen schools are held accountable for results and freed from red tape governing personnel decisions, they take advantage of their freedom by adopting innovative strategies for hiring and rewarding teachers, according to this new report by economists Michael Podgursky and Dale Ballou. This study is based on a survey administered to a random sample of 132 public charter schools that have been operating for at least three years.
Educational Achievement and Black-White Inequality
Chester E. Finn, Jr.National Center for Education Statistics
Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decade of Resegregation
Karen BakerThe Civil Rights Project, Harvard University