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.
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:
Charter school opponents have been taking shots nationally at charter schools in recent days, but these sorts of attacks have been a common occurrence in Dayton, Ohio since charter schools first opened there in 1998. Herewith is a report from the field on how charter schools are faring in the Buckeye State circa September 2004.
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.
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
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.
The next step in New York City's education "reform" will be perhaps the least democratic school board election ever held.
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
This report, prepared for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute by Public Impact, compares charter school funding and district school funding. It finds that charter schools are under-funded compared to their district counterparts, even after accounting for differences in students and grade levels. These findings should be taken seriously by those who argue that charter schools drain funds from district schools.
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.
