Writing for American Outlook, Checker Finn examines the potential for chaos and fraud inherent in the fast-growing market of virtual higher education, aka distance learning-which has evolved from its Pony Express origins into wildly varying offerings by universities, non-profits and for-profits far and wide. It's easier and sleazier than ever to earn a degree online, writes Finn, especially since many virtual "universities" award credit and diplomas for life experience, not for course-based study and content mastery. What's worse, because accreditation is voluntary and largely unmonitored, it can be difficult to distinguish the legitimate education institutions from the snake oil vendors. See "Fool U.," by Chester E. Finn, Jr., American Outlook, Fall 2002 (subscribers only).

The handwriting is on the wall for ed schools, writes UNC-Wilmington education professor Martin Kozloff in a hard-hitting summary of criticisms leveled at them. Kozloff explains reformers' attack on ed schools' validity, reliability, credibility and monopoly (not to mention dubious theories). Have a look at Kozloff's paper. You may even find yourself mentioned. "Ed Schools in Crisis," paper given at a conference sponsored by the John Locke Foundation, October 26, 2002

The winning candidates and ballot initiatives in Tuesday's election reflected voters' conflicting priorities and education philosophies, and reveal a nearly evenly divided electorate. Florida voters returned Jeb Bush to the governor's office by a healthy margin, but also approved Democratic challenger Bill McBride's pet initiative to limit class sizes statewide. Bilingual education was banned in a landslide vote in Massachusetts, but upheld by a slimmer margin in Colorado. And in California, voters gave a thumbs up to actor Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposition 49 - which earmarks over half a billion dollars for after-school programs - and a $13 billion school construction bond, the largest statewide bond in American history. A major construction bond issue passed in Dayton, Ohio, too.

"Voters approve smaller classes, free preschool," by Lori Hovitz and Scott Powers, Orlando Sentinel, November 6, 2002

"English immersion plan wins over bilingual ed," by Anand Vaishnav, The Boston Globe, November 6, 2002

"Bilingual ban fails," by Eric Hubler, Denver Post, November 6, 2002

"After-school enrichment plan Ok'd, Measure to designate $550 million for activities starting in '04," by Suzanne Herel, San Francisco Chronicle, November 6, 2002

"Easy win for school construction bond, Measure to reduce crowding and fix aging classrooms," by Nanette Asimov, San Francisco Chronicle, November 6, 2002

Since the beginning of the school year, more than a quarter of voucher students in Miami-Dade County have returned to public schools. The reasons most kids and parents cite for abandoning their new private schools? Transportation difficulties, too tough a curriculum, too-strict discipline, culture shock and a lack of familiarity with new teachers, peers and school grounds. That's hardly an indictment of school choice or the Sunshine State's Opportunity Scholarship program. While choice opponents have been quick to seize on the transfers as evidence that vouchers don't work, they do acknowledge that the state's extra funding and oversight of failing schools - the schools that kids are exiting - have led to "dramatic improvement" there. What better argument to continue and expand the program? "Many reject vouchers, return to public schools," by Daniel A. Grech, The Miami Herald, November 3, 2002

The fall issue of American Experiment Quarterly (AEQ) contains a pair of pieces worth a look. The first is "The Making of Patriots," in which Leslie Lenkowsky, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, explains what it will take to reverse civic decline and inculcate in today's young people an understanding and appreciation for our system of government. The second is a collection of short essays on school choice culled from a symposium convened by Minnesota-based Center of the American Experiment ("The Supremes Belt Out a New Hit: School Choice in Minnesota after Cleveland: A Symposium"). You'll find both pieces online at http://www.amexp.org (click on "AEQ").

Andrew LeFevre and Rea Hederman, American Legislative Exchange Council
October 2002

This is the latest in a series of state-level "report cards" from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Weighing in at 133 pages, it would have benefited from closer copyediting and more sophisticated statistical expertise, but it contains a wealth of useful data as well as an overall ranking of the fifty states according to their academic performance. The latter is based on a complex amalgam of SAT, ACT and NAEP results. While the authors acknowledge the limits of college-entrance exam score averages for purposes of rating states, they do it anyway. Each state gets a one-page summary report card. The chapters that follow deal with education inputs, outcomes and several ambitious efforts to find correlations between them. The authors work a bit too hard to show that more resources don't translate into stronger results, but they also deliver much handy data and some interesting analyses. You can buy a hard copy for $25 or download the whole thing by surfing to http://www.alec.org/meSWFiles/pdf/Education_Report_card.pdf.

Elizabeth Foster and Anne Simmons, Recruiting New Teachers, Inc.
October 2002

A new report by Massachusetts-based Recruiting New Teachers, Inc. (RNT) identifies America's 1100 community colleges as an untapped resource for attracting and training educators and helping to alleviate teacher shortages. The authors deem community colleges - where over a fifth of public school teachers begin their education - an insufficiently appreciated solution for a host of logical (and mostly obvious) reasons. For example, they typically enroll large numbers of local, minority students who may be better able to identify with urban kids and who are more likely to remain in their community to teach. The bulk of the report consists of observations about community-college teacher training programs and the students who enroll in them, with a few pages given over to profiles of exemplary programs. But RNT's vision of the community college's role - as feeder of would-be teachers to four-year colleges via "interinstitutional collaborations" - is too cramped. It neglects a far more interesting role for community colleges that could really revolutionize the teacher preparation process: as purveyors of fast, focused training in teaching fundamentals to college-educated people seeking alternative certification. This report is not available online, but hard copies can be ordered for $24.95 plus shipping and handling by calling 617-489-6000, emailing [email protected] or visiting http://www.recruitingteachers.org/news/2002TappingPotential.html.

General Accounting Office
October 29, 2002

Simultaneously disappointing critics of for-profit education and deflating education management organizations' (EMOs) claims of remarkable student progress, the General Accounting Office (GAO) has determined that no conclusions can be drawn about the academic performance, parental satisfaction, parental involvement or school climate in charter schools managed by EMOs. Reviewing research on three for-profit EMOs - Edison Schools, Mosaica Education and Chancellor Beacon Academies - the GAO noted that all but one study suffered from methodological problems, such as lack of a proper comparison group, incomplete data, or failure to study results over a sufficient period of time. (The lone methodologically sound study showed no significant difference between student performance at an Edison school in Florida and comparable public schools.) Despite its unsatisfying "conclusion," this report is useful for its summary of the EMOs' programs and curricula. It also highlights several critical points about EMO-managed charters and charter schools in general: more such schools are needed; those that exist must be given time to demonstrate their successes (or failures); and all schools must release data and be open to evaluation. Only then can we have an informed debate about the benefits of school choice and the role of profit-making firms in education. The report (GAO-03-11) is available online at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0311.pdf.

Kevin Donnelly, Education Forum
October 2002

New Zealand's Education Forum recently commissioned Australian education expert Kevin Donnelly to review the smaller country's national curriculum. He has delivered a scathing critique of it and of the New Zealand government's current effort to "stocktake" it. His criticisms center on five concerns: (1) the curriculum's continued reliance on an "outcomes-based approach&that&has been largely abandoned by equivalent education systems such as those in Australia and the United States"; (2) New Zealand's failure to recognize the "superiority of either a 'syllabus' or 'standards' approach to curriculum development utilized by successful education systems such as Singapore, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and South Korea"; (3) uncritical and excessive use of "a process-based approach to curriculum that fails to recognize properly the central importance of educational content"; (4) undue emphasis on "a student-centered view of learning to the detriment of&.the 'structure of the discipline'"; and (5) the government's failure to undertake a proper international comparative analysis of its curriculum. U.S. and other education reformers, particularly in places that are re-examining their own standards and curricula, may find this interesting and helpful as, of course, will aficionados of Kiwi education issues. You can find it on the web at http://www.educationforum.org.nz/documents/publications/review_school_curriculum.pdf.

U.S. Department of Education
September 2002

In reauthorizing the Perkins (voc ed) Act in 1998, Congress called for an independent panel to conduct a National Assessment of Vocational Education (NAVE). This is the 22-member panel's first report to Congress, published by the U.S. Department of Education and intended to help guide next year's Perkins reauthorization cycle. This "interim" report has limited value, as the panel says its advice on the tough issues awaits the final NAVE report, which may or may not get published by year's end. But lots of information about voc ed is provided in this hundred-page tome and some of it is surprising: most interesting to me, while the total number of credits earned by high-school students has risen (from an average 21.6 in 1982 to 25.2 in 1998), and while essentially all growth has taken place in "academic" courses, still the average number of vocational course credits on student transcripts has barely changed: from 4.7 to 4.0, with that modest decline halting in 1992. It remains true, however, that students who take more voc ed classes also tend to take fewer, easier, academic courses. Also interesting: by this group's calculations, one-third of post-secondary undergraduates, "are considered to be in vocational programs." There's more. It's clear that voc ed needs attention and that it will be a real challenge for Perkins reauthorizers to chart a new course for it. Today, it's something of a policy orphan, remote from the main strand of K-12 reform (which is unabashedly academic) and fitting uncomfortably into the issues associated with higher education. It will be interesting to see what this panel recommends. For that, however, you'll have to await their next report. To download this one, go to http://www.ed.gov/offices/OUS/PES/NAVE/reports.html.