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Does the Charter Industry Have a Product Life Cycle?
How do Ohio's charter schools resemble modern Poland's economy? Travel with me across the Atlantic.
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Gray skies in San Diego
Two recent developments in San Diego threaten the viability of reform-minded Superintendent Alan Bersin and his "Blueprint for Change" - a series of worthy district-wide reforms championed by this remarkable public servant and his (until now) 3-2 majority on the school board.
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Three races to watch
On November 3, we may or may not have a new president, and we know that this election season hasn't seen much action on the education front besides a bidding war on No Child Left Behind. But at the state level, there are a few races worth watching on election night if you're an education reformer. Here are three:
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Archaic architecture, creaky machinery
When Uncle Sam started poking into K-12 education in the 1950s and 60s, he adopted a delivery system that made sense at the time.In our federalist structure, with rare exceptions, education is a state responsibility and, when it comes to public education, the states (but for Hawaii) have delegated its operation to local school systems. Thus long before there was a U.S.
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Data deluge in Ohio
A few weeks ago, we reported on strong gains among charter schools sponsored by Central Michigan University, with data drawn from Standard & Poor's school evaluation services website (see
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Breaking the textbook lock
Philanthropy magazine has a primer for philanthropists and others on efforts to break the textbook monopoly and inject high-quality, content-rich books into the market.
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Democracy Tweed style
The next step in New York City's education "reform" will be perhaps the least democratic school board election ever held.
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Be afraid, be very afraid
After years of trying to squelch charter schools and other choice efforts, the National Education Association seems to have decided: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Beginning last October, in its publication California Educator, California's NEA affiliate - the California Teachers Association - began to p
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The learning that was
The great British historian, Lord Macaulay, thought that talk of some sort of "golden age" was nonsense. "No man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present," he noted.
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A Tale of Two Schools
Last Saturday's Washington Post reported on two underperforming area schools, one on Virginia and one in Maryland. At Maury Elementary in Alexandria-the only school in the Virginia suburbs of D.C. to be identified as "needing improvement" under No Child Left Behind-13 percent of students have transferred to other area schools, private and public.
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Are charter changes coming to CA?
Two bills before the California legislature would, if enacted, dramatically improve the prospects of the charter school movement in that state.
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Are teachers underpaid?
The latest edition of Education Next, released yesterday, includes several articles that challenge two common education beliefs: that teachers are underpaid and that smaller classes boost student achievement. The conclusions are complicated, though. It seems that great teachers are underpaid but most teachers are not underpaid, relative to what they could earn in other occupations.
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Ohio judge rules charter schools constitutional
An Ohio judge ruled this week that the Buckeye State's 6-year-old charter school law does not violate the state Constitution, gutting major portions of a lawsuit filed by a coalition led by the Ohio Federation of Teachers.
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A tale of two teachers
Last month, City Journal published a long article by Justin Kaplowitz, a former Teach for America corps member whose teaching career was abruptly ended after one year when a disgruntled parent filed a frivolous $20 million lawsuit charging that Kaplowitz had hit her child [seehttp://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cf
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Recruiting, Preparing and Retaining High Quality Teachers: An Empirical Synthesis
Gerald Bracey and Alex Molnar, Education Policy Studies Laboratory (ASU)February 12, 2003
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Battle over Race-Based Admissions Intensifies
With the Supreme Court scheduled to hear oral arguments on the University of Michigan's affirmative action admissions policies in April, the debate over such policies grows ever hotter.
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Testing High Stakes Tests: Can We Believe the Results of Accountability Tests?
Jay P. Greene, Marcus Winters, Greg Forster, The Manhattan Institute for Public Policy February 11, 2003
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In defense of Ohio's AYP plan
I rarely defend the education authorities in Ohio; but I am doing so this time in response to Checker's editorial, Adequate yearly progress or balloon mortgage? [http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=9#367 ]The basic problem with the NCLB goals is their total impracticability.
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A Multiracial Society with Segregated Schools: Are We Losing the Dream?
Erica Frankenberg, Chungmei Lee and Gary Orfield, The Harvard Civil Rights ProjectJanuary 2003
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On Outrage and Double Standards
Many have remarked upon the double standard that operates in American education when judging the regular school system versus proposed reforms in it.