Ben Bernanke and some around our office suggest that teaching more about finance in American public schools may have prevented our current economic crisis. (What crisis?) I'm unconvinced, and Free exchange, the Economist's blog, points out that others are, too.
Looks like the fine citizens of Waterbury, Connecticut, are not yet flitting through Flypaper. Otherwise, I'm sure district leaders there would have thought thrice before doling out dollars to students who pass AP tests.
Paying students for tests: another day arrives, another place tries it. Forgetting for a moment the ethical considerations that are trampled and the unintended consequences that are ignored in these pay-for-grades schemes--if they really worked, wouldn't we know it by now?
Mike shouldn't??assume that??paying kids for AP scores (as in Waterbury) is??always a??slam-dunk. In fact,??according to Education Week,??the author of the very study Mike??cited??"said the main spur for the score jumps at the schools in Texas' Advanced Placement Incentive Program, or APIP, didn't seem to be cash."
And when we're talking A-F grades,??to??assert??that paying kids??for better??ones will necessarily yield better ones is hasty. Lots of studies on this front??are inconclusive; others return results that contradict their predecessors.
Don't miss Mike talking about the stressed state of American Catholic schools on today's??edition of NPR's All Things Considered.
It looks like Missouri will be the next state to adopt the big daddy of alternative certification programs, the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence.
Would you or someone you know love to work in education policy? Are you confused about where to start? Then the??Fordham Fellows program might be for you! The deadline fast approaches....
"Finger scan replaces tickets in lunch line"
This in Idaho, no less, which is one of only five states not to use a unique statewide student identifier (like a social security number) in its data system--out of privacy concerns, one surmises.
Talk about bizarre piggybacking and ahistoricism.
Ronald Reagan didn't make many missteps, but one blunder that's widely acknowledged by just about everyone who follows education was the White House's bungled initial reception of A Nation at Risk in 1983. The "vision" that the President laid out on that occasion had just about nothing to do with what the Excellence Commission said or recommended. It was ships passing in the night.
After dawn broke, Reagan and his team (including Ed Meese) realized that the Commission's report had struck a nerve--even though it had absolutely nothing to do with school choice or with reducing the federal role in education. Whereupon the President began gallivanting around the land with Education Secretary Ted Bell--18 joint events in 11 weeks, it says on page 99 of my book.
But as he traveled he sang from the Commission's hymnal (higher standards, tougher courses, better teachers, etc.), not the one that our good friends at Heritage (and Senator DeMint) are trying posthumously to place in his hands.
Apparently, it's the teacher's fault when students assault them in the classroom--that's how it is, at least, at Reginald F. Lewis High School in Baltimore. Last week, The Baltimore Sun reported that Jolita Berry, after asking a girl in her art class to sit down, was confronted by the student, who threatened to beat her up.
According to Berry, she warned the student: "Back up, you're in my space. If you hit me, I'm gonna defend myself."
But she didn't protect herself. Instead, egged on by classmates, the student viciously pummeled Berry, who lay on the ground defenseless as someone videotaped the ghastly attack on his or her cell phone. The incident was later posted on MySpace.
What's scandalous is not just that a teacher was beaten to a pulp, or that most students in the classroom can be seen reveling in this act of barbarism, but that Berry--not the assailant--was blamed by the principal, Jean Ragin, for having "triggered" the incident by saying she would defend herself. The assault--and the principal's irresponsible and cowardly response--has rightly outraged concerned parents, including Baltimore's mayor, Sheila Dixon.
"That principal might need to be disciplined because no teacher should be disrespected in the classroom," Dixon said at a morning news conference last week.
Dixon added that Ragin's response was "unfair to that teacher." That's putting it mildly.
Adding insult to injury, Berry says that the principal refused to remove the student from school grounds after the assault. Hence, when Berry was being taken out of the school to get medical treatment she had to face the student in the hallway, snickering and bragging to friends.
No teacher should have to endure this kind of humiliation. When a violent culture takes root in a school, it spreads like a cancer. This is why decisive action needs to be taken immediately: The student should be expelled, Ragin should be replaced, and a new principal should be brought in to enforce a zero-tolerance policy on school violence. The message needs to be loud and clear: Assaulting teachers is unacceptable under any circumstances. This time, Ms. Berry walked away with a sore shoulder and a broken blood vessel in her eye. Next time she, or some other teacher at Reginald Lewis High, may not be so fortunate.