The Nation???s Report Card: Civics 2010
Daniela FairchildDismal performance in a subject left behind
Another charter-school gem from Ohio's budget bill
Emmy L. PartinThe insanity of the charter school provisions inserted by the Ohio House of Representatives into Ohio's pending budget bill will come as no surprise to Flypaper readers after Terry's post last Friday.
Ohio House makes excellent changes to teacher personnel provisions
Jamie Davies O'LearyLate last week the Ohio House released its amendments to the governor's biennial budget bill (HB 153). While the changes related to charter schools are atrocious ?
Ohio's charter program risks becoming a laughing stock
Terry RyanBudget language presented yesterday by the Ohio House, run by Republicans, risks making the Buckeye State the nation's laughing stock when it comes to charter school programs. During the early and mid-2000s Ohio was known as the Wild West of charter school programs because the state encouraged dozens of charter schools to spring up over night.
TFA legislation gets signed by Gov. Kasich
Yesterday Gov. Kasich signed long-awaited legislation to enable Teach For America to have a home in the Buckeye State.?? Now that legislation is official ? and TFA can place teachers across all grades and subjects (the primary barrier for the last two decades) ? several important questions are cropping up. With which districts will TFA partner?
Daytonians discuss how to improve education in the city
Bianca SperanzaThis morning in Fordham's hometown of Dayton, four education leaders and advocates working for change in the city of Dayton spoke on a panel. Among those in the audience included district leaders, parochial and charter school principals, and legislators.
The problem of education governance in twenty-first century America
Chester E. Finn, Jr.It's time to start anew
A Kohn-headed argument
Kathleen Porter-MageeHigh-flying schools don?t embrace the ?pedagogy of poverty?
Do Low-Income Students Have Equal Access to the Highest-Performing Teachers?
Chris IrvineSome hard numbers for the debate on the teacher-quality gap
The State of Preschool 2010
Chester E. Finn, Jr.A host of ?new normals? for the preschool juggernaut
The Influence of Teachers: Reflections on Teaching and Leadership
Gerilyn SlickerA classic chicken-and-egg debate: Fix the teachers or fix the profession?
Unsustainable: A Strategy for Making Public Schooling More Productive, Effective, and Affordable
Daniela FairchildSeparate the faith from the church
Illinois' reforms taking placing in dramatically different context than Ohio's
Jamie Davies O'LearyThe Prairie State has captured attention for its recent overhaul of policies governing teacher tenure, transfer, and dismissal. Senate Bill 7 ?
School choice accountability debate: The same thing over and over
Terry RyanIn the 1993 movie Groundhog Day Bill Murray’s lead character finds himself reliving the same day in Punxsutawney, PA, over and over again. He despairs and ultimately tries to kill himself over and over again, but after discovering the futility of his effort starts to reexamine his life and priorities.
ESEA reauthorization: What Ohioans should know
Emmy L. PartinThe education policy debates at the Statehouse might have some of us forgetting that another education debate is afoot on Capitol Hill, over the reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). ESEA is the law authorizing federal funding and policy directives for K-12 education; for the past ten years it’s been better known as No Child Left Beh
Illinois' reforms taking placing in dramatically different context than Ohio's
Jamie Davies O'LearyThe Prairie State has captured attention for its recent overhaul of policies governing teacher tenure, transfer, and dismissal.
Double Jeopardy: How Third Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation
Bianca SperanzaA recent study produced by the Annie E.
Incentivizing School Turnaround: A Proposal for Reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Nick JochIn recent months, education reformers have started buzzing about the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and several, including Fordham’s own Checker Finn and Mike Petrilli, have
Quality Authorizing for Online and Blended-Learning Charter Schools
Kathryn Mullen UptonA new monograph from the National Association of Charter School Authorizers examines authorizer (aka sponsor) oversight practices for online and “blended” (online instruction combined with traditional classroom instruction) charter schools, and finds that the development of authorizing practices for these schools lags behind the rate at which such schools are opening across the coun
The Effect of Evaluation on Performance: Evidence from Longitudinal Student Achievement Data of Mid-career Teachers
As states and districts seek to overhaul teacher-evaluation systems, this NBER paper answers a salient question: Do evaluations actually improve a teacher’s performance? That’s one hope of reformers and unions alike—that clear and regular feedback will help instructors improve their craft.
The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction
The title really says it all in the latest Center for American Progress report, The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction. Author Matthew Chingos highlighted research on class-size reduction (CSR) and found that placing students in smaller classes had no real impact on student achievement.
Fighting the mathematics blues... with a museum?
Nick JochIn case you missed it, the Alliance for Excellent Education recently held a webinar discussing the results of the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB)’s 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) High School Transcript Study, America’s High School Graduates. Discussants incl
An early history of teacher pay systems in Ohio
Terry RyanOhio's recently passed SB5 would make Ohio the first state in the country to mandate performance pay for educators.