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Student Achievement in Private Schools: Results from NAEP 2000-2005
U.S. Department of EducationDecember 2005
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Ohio Science Standards Deemed High
A distinguished panel of scientists awarded Ohio's K-12 science standards a "B" in a new nationwide review of state academic standards for primary-secondary school science released today.
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Excellence in Ohio Charter Schools
How do we foster excellence in Ohio charter schools? That's the key question facing some 250 panelists and participants in the forthcoming "summit," Excellence in Ohio Charter Schools: What it will take and how to get there. The meeting is set for November 17 in Columbus and will be hosted by the governor, senate president, house speaker, and state superintendent.
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Frustrate Ohioans shoot down school levies
The previous Ohio Gadfly raised an alarm about citizens' dissatisfaction with their public schools. As Halfway Out the Door reported, 59 percent of those surveyed don't think they are getting their money's worth out of public schools.
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Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Halfway Out the Door
What do ordinary Ohioans think about the myriad education reforms enacted in the Buckeye state over the last half-decade? How do parents, taxpayers, and citizens view public schooling in 2005? Do they like these reforms? Seek more or less of them? Have confidence that they'll succeed? Fordham decided to enlist veteran analysts Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett to examine the attitudes of Ohio residents toward their public schools. The results? Ohioans are frustrated with their K-12 education system on a number of fronts, and feel the state is in dire need of stronger, better leadership when it comes to education. Policymakers would do well to pay attention.
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POLITICOS BEWARE! Ohioans are 'Halfway Out The Door'
Nobody doubts that the "powers that be" in Columbus have been busily tinkering with the K-12 education system. Over the past half-decade legislative changes have come on six fronts:
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Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools
School Performance in Ohio's Inner Cities: Comparing Charter and District School Results in 2005
How are charter schools in Ohio truly performing when compared to their district counterparts? The latest Fordham Foundation report, School Performance in Ohio's Inner Cities: Comparing Charter and District School Results in 2005 provides a rare apples-to-apples comparison of charter school and district school achievement in four of Ohio's cities: Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Dayton. The results reveal that the performance of charter pupils isn't as dismal as Ohio's charter opponents want you to believe. However, the findings also illuminate the larger problem: ALL public schools in the Buckeye State still have a long way to go to reach academic success.
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Quotes here! Got your quotes here!
Jay Mathews's weekly online column "Class Struggle" looks inward this week in response to the release of a report from the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute that analyzes the content of education news stories in the state of Virginia.
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The shape of things to come
Regarding Checker's predictions of trends/factors/events that will have a significant impact on the substance and delivery of educational offerings in the next five years (see "The shape of things to come"): I second his insights on the changing nature of teaching and learning.
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Ohio options - new and improved!
It's official! Late last week, Governor Bob Taft signed the Buckeye State's biennial budget into law, including a significant statewide voucher program known as the Ohio Educational Choice Scholarship Pilot Program (see here for previous discussion of the program).
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Setting the record straight on Ohio charter schools
Charter schools in the Buckeye State face a well-financed and well-coordinated assault. These attacks are playing out in the General Assembly, in state and federal courts, and in the court of public opinion. Charter foes, led by the state's two teachers unions, are spending big bucks.
Commentary
Compulsory African history?
Philadelphia's public school system, under the leadership of Paul Vallas, has been making so much progress on so many fronts that it's a special disappointment when they blunder. But blunder they are doing.
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Report
Charter Schools
Testimony Prepared for the Alternative Education Subcommittee
On April 21, 2005, Fordham President Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Program Director Terry Ryan testified before the Alternative Education Subcommittee of the Ohio House of Representatives. They discussed Ohio's community schools (a.k.a. charter schools), which face a developing paradox: the more they expand and the more students they serve, the more threatened they become, by internal and external forces alike.
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More Vouchers for Ohio?
Ohio's generally risk-averse Governor Bob Taft is expected to astound the Buckeye State today with a budget-message proposal to expand the Cleveland voucher program such that kids trapped in some 70 chronically low-performing public schools elsewhere in Ohio could exit with $3,500 state vouchers in hand, redeemable in participating private schools.
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The state of the charter movement, 2005
The President reported last evening on the state of the union. Allow me to appraise the state of America's charter-school movement in early 2005.
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A Tough Nut to Crack in Ohio: Charter Schooling in the Buckeye State
Alexander Russo, The Progressive Policy InstituteFebruary 2005
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We're Not in Kansas Anymore: The Evolution Wars Come to Ohio
The debate over teaching evolution in schools, which has been going on in America at least since the famous Scopes "Monkey Trial" of 1925, burst onto the front pages of Ohio newspapers in early January. What's it all about? And where does Fordham stand? Read on.
Commentary
Ohio Charter Schools: Another View
In a new policy brief released by the Buckeye Institute, we analyzed the changes in student passing rates on Ohio Proficiency Tests (OPT) made by traditional and charter schools in the Big Eight urban districts between 2002 and 2004. Using a statistical analysis that controlled for the demographic characteristics of race and income, our study found that:
Commentary
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.