Commentaries and Reports

WHAT IS THE REALITY OF SCHOOL COMPETITION?
Thursday, September 14, 2006
NATIONAL CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF PRIVATIZATION IN EDUCATION
By Cathy Wylie
New Zealand Council of Educational Research
Research from countries with broad school choice initiatives has become particularly relevant to the U.S. with the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the potential for all students in failing schools to gain access to new schooling options.
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Anti-Alzheimer’s, Foreign-Language Flash Cards, and Crossword-Style Testing — A Practical Option for Baby Boomers and Beyond
Thursday, September 14, 2006
By Robert Oliphant
Is there anyone in this Alzheimer’s-conscious country, including Ellen de Generes, who doesn’t want to learn a foreign language?  Plaques and tangles aside, most of us still feel our mind is a “muscle” that needs electro-cephalically measurable personal-best exercise to keep us from going blank on proper names, ordinary words, and topic connectedness (e.g., “What were we just talking about?”). 
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A 92 Percent Homework Turn-in Rate
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Harry and Rosemary Wong
The most effective time to assign homework is during the lesson; otherwise it has no relevance to the student. The other effective time is at the end of the lesson when the homework can bring summary to what has been learned and provide transition to the next lesson....
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National Experts Assess Florida PreK-12 Education
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Hoover Institute
Report Praises Successes, Calls for Continued Reform
ORLANDO, Fla.--After undertaking a rigorous assessment of Florida’s education policies and programs, the Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education presents its findings and recommendations to Governor Jeb Bush on Tuesday, September 12.
The eleven-member task force will join Governor Bush in a press conference in Orlando highlighting the group’s report: Reforming Education in Florida (Hoover Press, 2006).  Earlier in the year, Governor Bush and Board of Education Chairman Philip Handy invited the expert group to examine the state’s PreK-12 education system and offer suggestions for strengthening it.
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An Interview with Raymond Ravaglia : Regarding EPGY (Education Program for Gifted Youth)
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Tammy-Lynne Moore
Michael F. Shaughnessy
First, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
I am 41 years old, a native of the San Francisco Bay Area. I showed up at Stanford in 1983 as an undergraduate and never left. While an undergraduate, I studied mathematics and philosophy and in doing so took computer-based courses in Logic and Set Theory, which I found most enjoyable. After graduating, while waiting a year to begin graduate work in philosophy, I had the opportunity to work with Professor Patrick Suppes on a computer-based calculus course that was patterned after the courses in logic and set theory.
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In Defense of Testing Series
Evaluating Computer Automated Scoring: Issues, Methods, and an Empirical Illustration
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Yang, Buckendahl, Juszkiewicz, Bhola
ATP Journal
With the continual progress of computer technologies, computer automated scoring (CAS) has become a popular tool for evaluating writing assessments. While research has generally shown a high agreement of CAS system generated scores with those produced by human raters, concerns and questions have been raised about appropriate analyses and validity of decisions/interpretations based on those scores.
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An Interview with Cheryl Carrier, Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies Program Manager, Ford Motor Company Fund
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Michael F. Shaughnessy
1) First of all, what exactly is a career academy and how many of them are out there in the U.S. ?
Career academies are considered to be the leading and most wide-spread high school redesign strategy in the U.S. that encourage high school students to pursue post-secondary education and build successful careers. Career academies draw together education, business, and industry to develop an education model that uses career themes to bring contextual relevance to academic instruction.
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Licensure Tests and Effective Reading Instruction
Monday, September 11, 2006
By Diana W. Rigden, PhD
Reading Matters. The Reading First Teacher Education Network (RFTEN) knows well the stark realities announced by the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment. NAEP defines the "basic" level of reading as partial mastery of fundamental skills and knowledge and reported that thirty-three percent of U.S. fourth graders read at this level. Moreover, another thirty-eight percent of fourth graders in the United States read at a "below basic" level. In eight of the 16 RFTEN states, the percentage of nine-year-olds reading below basic exceeds this national average.
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272 Wisconsin Projections of Employment 2004 to 2014: Education and Training
Monday, September 11, 2006
By Dennis W. RedovichThe great numbers of high paying jobs of the future that are claimed to require college graduation and high academic skills for all high school students are a hoax. The majority of the jobs of the future in Wisconsin and the United States are low or average paying jobs that require short term or moderate-term on the job training and do not require high-level academic skills in any academic areas, particularly in higher mathematics.
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9-11: treason in the academic comfort zone?
Monday, September 11, 2006
There has been a scandalous lethargy among the Australian intelligentsia in terrorism research.
Five years after the September 11 attacks on America and nearly four years after the Bali bombings, it is appropriate to make an assessment of the state of research into terrorism in Australia. In this article, this will be done in terms of three areas of critical concern.
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Honest Military Recruiters Not Wanted For USA High Schools
Sunday, September 10, 2006
The Kentroversy Papers
As the Bush administration continues to deny the reinstatement of the military draft, many high-schools across this nation are fighting the problems of dishonest military recruiters. A source in a Fort Lauderdale has personally told me of many problems faced by the students in her school.
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Alfie Kohn's Homework gets failing grade
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Providence Journal
BY LUTHER SPOEHR
To paraphrase a comment about Thomas Babington Macaulay, the famously self-confident 19th-century British historian, I wish I were as sure about anything as Alfie Kohn is about everything.
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Universities and tolerance
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Boston Globe
By Alan Dershowitz
THE KENNEDY SCHOOL of Government at Harvard University should not cancel the scheduled speech by former president Mohammad Khatami of Iran. Universities must never submit to censorial pressures by individuals or groups that disagree with, or are deeply offended by, a speaker's ideas.
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Using Data To Drive Policy
Sunday, September 10, 2006
American Association of School Administrators
By Terri Duggan Schwartzbeck
"U sing data to drive instruction” is a phrase that is tossed around a lot today in education. In Washington, we could all use more data to drive policymaking.
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Education: Free and Compulsory
Saturday, September 9, 2006
By Murray N. Rothbard
The Individual's Education
Every human infant comes into the world devoid of the faculties characteristic of fully-developed human beings. This does not mean simply the ability to see clearly, to move around, to feed oneself, etc.; above all, it means he is devoid of reasoning power - the power that distinguishes man from animals.
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America's Throw-Away Children
Saturday, September 9, 2006
Like reform schools of yesteryear, today's "boot camps" reflect a culture where "anything goes" in dealing with children labeled "incorrigible"
They make the headlines when something goes terribly wrong: A child dies at the hands of guards administering "tough love." A child collapses from dehydration during an outing of "character building." For the most part, these are children-predominantly boys-who have not been convicted of crimes serious enough to warrant imprisonment.
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Merit Pay: Feasible or Folly?
Friday, September 8, 2006
U.S. Freedom Foundation
David W. Kirkpatrick Senior Education Fellow
A recurring theme in public education is the desirability of merit/performance/incentive  pay.  It has been promoted off and on for years, and tried at various times and places. but only in limited ways.
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Higher Education has been Oversold
Friday, September 8, 2006
Pope Center
by George Leef
It was just this time of year - the beginning of a new academic year - in 1980, when it first occurred to me that higher education in America had been oversold.
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MU Helps Create New Leaders in St. Louis Public Schools
Friday, September 8, 2006
First Class Graduates from Intense Program Committed to Improving School District
COLUMBIA , Mo. - Peggy Starks has been keeping very busy as the new principal of Phillip J. Hickey Elementary School in St. Louis . Her journey to reach this point started in 1977 and more recently put her through an intense program that partners the University of Missouri-Columbia with St. Louis Public Schools to create new leaders for the district. The New Leaders Project (NLP) is modeled after the New York City Leadership Academy.
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NEW NIMH RESEARCH PROGRAM LAUNCHES AUTISM TRIALS
Friday, September 8, 2006
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has launched three major clinical studies on autism at its research program on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland.
These studies are the first products of a new, integrated focus on autism generated in response to reported increases in autism prevalence and valid opportunities for progress. Initial studies will define the characteristics of different subtypes of autism spectrum disorders (ASD)

Free Textbooks!
Thursday, September 7, 2006
LewRockwell.com
In the tradition of Wikipedia.
Free textbooks for everyone-that's the goal of the Global Text Project , an initiative spearheaded by Rick Watson, a professor in the University of Georgia Terry College of Business. Watson's goal is to produce a library of 1,000 textbooks that will be created with wiki technology and will be made available to students around the world.
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Measuring Up 2006: The National Report Card on Higher Education
Thursday, September 7, 2006
National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education
Measuring Up 2006 consists of the national report card for higher education and fifty state report cards. Its purpose is to provide the public and policymakers with information to assess and improve postsecondary education in each state. Measuring Up 2006 is the fourth in a series of biennial report cards.
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Measuring Up 2006: The National Report Card on Higher Education
Thursday, September 7, 2006
National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education
Measuring Up 2006 consists of the national report card for higher education and fifty state report cards. Its purpose is to provide the public and policymakers with information to assess and improve postsecondary education in each state. Measuring Up 2006 is the fourth in a series of biennial report cards.
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An Interview with Education Rights Attorney, Steven E. Glink
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Dr. K. P. Loftus
Dr. K:   What led you to concentrate your legal practice in the area of students' rights?
Steve: It started out as a bit of a fluke. At the time, I was a school board lawyer in my father's firm. An acquaintance of mine asked me to help his son in an expulsion case. I did so, but then realized how much power the schools have over the kids and their parents. I felt, at that moment, that the kids and the parents needed a voice.
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Commentary : In Memorium: Steve Irwin
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Michael F. Shaughnessy
Eastern New Mexico University
Portales , New Mexico
As many of you know, Steve Irwin, the famous "Crocodile Hunter" died in a tragic accident while swimming with a sting ray off the Great Barrier Reef .
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SCHOOLS NOT COMMUNICATING WITH PARENTS ABOUT SPECIAL EDUCATION LEGAL RIGHTS
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
The Advocacy Institute
If parents and schools are to be partners in the education of children with disabilities, clear communication is essential. Although the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires schools to tell parents about their rights under the law - referred to as "procedural safeguards notice" - in "understandable language," most are falling short of this requirement, says a study reported in the research journal Exceptional Children. Read this special report about the study and find out how your state's Procedural Safeguards Notice scored.
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Freedom of Assembly in NYC
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Ron Isaac
In New York City there has been talk lately of imposing restrictions on the right and freedom of assembly. Hearings on this matter were scheduled at the Police Department recently. In my view, the police here have generally exercised excellent professionalism, but they are sworn to enforce laws not of their making.
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As Goes Harvard. . .
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Commentary Magazine
Donald Kagan
Harvard University has been much in the public eye in recent years, especially during the brief but eventful presidency (2001-2006) of Lawrence Summers. Two well-known law professors were accused of misusing the words of others in books they had written, and a famous professor of economics was charged by the U.S. government with fraud while working on a Harvard project.
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In Defense of Testing Series
College Board Announces Scores for New SAT® with Writing Section
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
"We're pleased that we now have a cohort of students who have taken the new writing section of the test. The addition of writing has made the SAT a better measure of the skills students need to succeed in college and later in life. We will continue to work with schools and colleges to encourage high standards and a greater focus on writing in the classroom," said Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board.
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An Interview with Mark Herring: Why the Library is STILL better than the Internet
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Michael F. Shaughnessy
Eastern New Mexico University
You are somewhat well known for your poster on why the library is better than the Internet. What prompted you to do that poster?
The poster has an interesting history, at least to me. In 2001, after I had been in my current job just over a year, the president of our institution sent word that he wanted talking points for his visits with the legislature, vis-à-vis libraries and the impact of the Web on them. I saw this as a chance to dispel an extraordinary notion I was then recently encountering: that libraries were already, or were becoming, obsolete because of the Web.
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We Can't Close the Academic Achievement Gap
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
By Marty Solomon
For over a decade now, our public schools have been focused---almost paralyzed---over eliminating the Academic Achievement Gap in test scores between poor and more affluent students. But it has been to no avail because the schools cannot eliminate this gap. There are hundreds of legislators, teachers and researchers who will tell you that they have the secret program of study or the magic bullet. And although almost all "solutions" have been attempted, none have generally worked while, at the same time, the gap persists in every state.
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Immigration Milestones: The 1986 Amnesty
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
by Tom Shuford
No society is immortal . . . Even the most successful societies are at some point threatened by internal disintegration and decay . . . Yet some societies, confronted with serious challenges to their existence, are also able to postpone their demise and halt disintegration . . . (Samuel P. Huntington)
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The No Child Left Behind Accountability Bomb
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
by Kevin R. Kosar
During her tenure as Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, has spent a good deal of time brokering deals with states. This is because states have been trying to craft their testing programs to avoid the sanctions imposed by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
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A quarter century of US 'maths wars' and political partisanship
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
David Klein, California State University, Northridge, USA
This article traces the history of the US 'maths wars' from 1980, and discusses the political polarizations that fuelled and resulted from the disagreements
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CRESST ANALYSIS OF CALIFORNIA ACCOUNTABILITY PROGRESS REPORT
Monday, September 4, 2006
Los Angeles, CA – Researchers at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) released today an analysis of results from the 2005/2006 California’s Accountability Progress
Report.
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The U.S. Edge In Education
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Washington Post
By Richard H. Brodhead
Even as they welcome students back to campus, our country's colleges and universities are deluded by their own historical excellence, and their many contributions to U.S. strength may be eroding. That, at least, is how a special commission of the U.S. Education Department sees it.
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An Interview with Kurt F. Geisinger: About Buros Mental Measurements Yearbook and Center
Monday, September 4, 2006
Michael F. Shaughnessy
Eastern New Mexico University
Who should be receiving "accommodations" for tests like the SAT or ACT and why? Should all students with a documented disability receive accommodations on standardized tests?
Accommodation rules need to be set specific to the purpose of the test and the testing program, within the legal constraints of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other relevant laws, including those at the state and local level.
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CRESST ANALYSIS OF CALIFORNIA ACCOUNTABILITY PROGRESS REPORT
Monday, September 4, 2006
Los Angeles, CA – Researchers at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) released today an analysis of results from the 2005/2006 California’s Accountability Progress
Report.
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Social Class, Schooling and Achievement...Again
Monday, September 4, 2006
Education Policy Institute
On August 9th, 2006  New York Times reporter Diana Jean Schemo wrote a column, It Takes More Than Schools to Close Achievement Gap [PDF] , which raised the issue of how much non-school factors determine student educational success. In her column she reflected on EPI Research Associate Richard Rothstein's work in  Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap . Schemo's article generated many responses, including an important one by Chester E. Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, in its publication,  Gadfly . Rothstein has in turn written a response to Finn (a shorter version is being published in  Gadfly , but his full response [PDF]  is available online).
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The ABCs of Public Education in North Carolina
Monday, September 4, 2006
John Locke Foundation
By Terry Stoops
The New Oxford American Dictionary defines an acronym as "a word formed from the initial letters of other words, e.g., radar, laser." Acronyms are indispensable rhetorical tools because they allow us to communicate efficiently without jeopardizing our message.
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In the Best Interests of the Children
Monday, September 4, 2006
LewRockwell.com
Linda Schrock Taylor
Educational priorities in America's schools, public and private, are rarely based on definitive long-range goals to meet the complete needs of students. There are certainly many fine educational examples, but too often those are limited in scope and not district-wide.
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Where's the courage in education reform?
Monday, September 4, 2006
Town Hall
Star Parker
Los Angeles Mayor Antonia Villaraigosa soon will exercise more control over Los Angeles' deeply troubled school system as result of legislation that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to sign.
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Why All This Secrecy About the SAT?
Monday, September 4, 2006
BeLogical.com
Terri Leo
Texans have a right to know where their students stand on reading and grammar usage on the SAT. The College Board decided not to release any data regarding the 49 multiple-choice grammar/usage questions. This is outrageous since this part of the Writing test is worth close to 70% of a student's Writing score. 
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Children At Risk
Monday, September 4, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
by Nick Jackson
"The fear of the religious right is that the schools of today will be the governments of tomorrow. And you know, they're right. If we do our jobs right, we're going to raise a generation of kids who don't believe the claims of the religious right.".....
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Detroit Teaches Another Lesson in Special Interest Politics
Sunday, September 3, 2006
By Dan Lips
A teachers' union strike is threatening to delay the start of the school year in Detroit's public schools. It's just the latest lesson about how special interest politics disserves kids.
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Rebuild. Rebirth. Renew.
Sunday, September 3, 2006
Naomi Dillon and Kathleen Vail
One year after Katrina, New Orleans embarks on a great experiment to radically reshape
its schools, but will the effort succeed?
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Recover.
Sunday, September 3, 2006
Lawrence Hardy
Gulf Coast schools are struggling through red tape, devastation, and declining enrollment
in an effort to return to `normal.'
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Response.
Sunday, September 3, 2006
Noel Hammatt
For a longtime board member, East Baton Rouge's management of post-Katrina challenges is an example of how to do it right.
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The Future Is Flat
Saturday, September 2, 2006
By Victor Rivero
For students to have the necessary skills to succeed in a global world, districts must embrace technology -- now
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'I Pledge Allegiance.'
Saturday, September 2, 2006
Lewrockwell.com
Now can I teach?
by Mark R. Crovelli.
It would appear that the State of Colorado has suddenly developed a new-found appreciation for the Constitution of the United States. At least, that's the impression the State legislature is trying to give with it's new law requiring professors and teaching assistants at state colleges and universities to take an oath promising to "uphold the constitution of the United States and the State of Colorado."

Providing the Big Picture
Saturday, September 2, 2006
By Victor Rivero
Selling the public on your district's 21st century needs is an onerous -- but necessary task
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Teaching Your Staff
Saturday, September 2, 2006
By Victor Rivero
Professional development programs are critical, but the method of training is what truly matters
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Teaching Your Students
Saturday, September 2, 2006
By Victor Rivero
Building connections -- through online learning and a rigorous curriculum -- is a must for today's students
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Hurricane Katrina Still Leaves a Wake in Schools Children's Traumatic Stress Impairs Academic Performance
Saturday, September 2, 2006
National Child Traumatic Stress Network
Durham, NC - A year after Hurricane Katrina, research led by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) suggests that many children returning to school in New Orleans this week and next may still have a hard time concentrating and studying.
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Smearing education choice
Saturday, September 2, 2006
Bluegrass Institute
By John Stossel
This month, papers all around America reported that according to the U.S. Department of Education, "children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools."
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Double dose of standards
Saturday, September 2, 2006
Education Gadfly
Standards-based reform is one of the two driving engines of education improvement in the United States and has been at least since 1989. (The other engine, of course, is school choice in its infinite variety.) Though many states commenced this process on their own, federal encouragement--beginning with the Improving America's Schools and Goals 2000 Acts, both passed in 1994, then NCLB in 2001--has caused them all to do so.

21st Century High Schools
Saturday, September 2, 2006
Texas Public Policy Foundation
New Designs Produce New Results
By Jamie Story
This paper provides a real-world account of some of the most successful schools in Texas. These schools are capitalizing on the benefits of school choice, parental involvement, academic rigor, and high expectations.
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College Rankings: Pay Your Money, Take Your Choice   
Friday, September 1, 2006
U.S. Freedom Foundation
David W. Kirkpatrick Senior Education Fellow   
In his 2000 book, Off Camera, Ted Koppel wrote, "The nation is pregnant with lists...we are madly prioritizing events, people, accomplishments." There tends to be an aura of credibility and authority about lists, even if not justified.  
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Young Children at Risk for Failure in School Need Early Intervention
Friday, September 1, 2006
New Book Details Tactics for General Educators to Use in the Classroom
COLUMBIA, Mo. - School reforms and the No Child Left Behind Act have made it more important than ever to take a preventative approach to young children at risk for failure, according to a new book released this week by a researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
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CUBE Survey Says Safety is Critical Issue as Urban Students Return to School
Friday, September 1, 2006
National School Boards Association
Experts Offer Tips to Students, Parents on Maintaining Safe Climate
Alexandria, Va. - The recent uptick in violence involving young people in several cities, including Boston, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C., has raised concerns about the kind of classroom environment that urban school students face as schools open.
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CURING THE NATURE-DEFICIT DISORDER
Friday, September 1, 2006
Edutopia
By Milton Chen
Years ago, a San Francisco educator told me a startling fact: There are children who live in that seven-square-mile city bordering the Pacific Ocean who have never seen it. Teachers tell me that some high school students have never put their hands in soil and have never grown a plant. It's very disturbing how small the worlds of many children are -- and that their parents, caregivers, and teachers have not taken them to nearby places of interest.
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SHOULD PUBLIC SCHOOLS REQUIRE UNIFORMS?
Friday, September 1, 2006
Edutopia
By Sara Bernard
The first day of the new school year is fast approaching (or, in some cases, already past), and many students have begun asking themselves that burning question: "What should I wear?" But in more and more schools across the country, this issue is no longer a worry. An increasing number of public schools require that all students dress in school-prescribed outfits
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An Interview with Molly Griffis: Paradise on the Prairie
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Michael F. Shaughnessy
Eastern New Mexico University
I understand that you have a new book about to be released entitled " Paradise on the Prairie". What is this new book all about?
" Paradise on the Prairie" is what 6th Oklahoma Territorial Governor Thompson Ferguson called the land which on November 16, 1907 , became the western half of the state of Oklahoma . It is also the title of my 8th and newest book, which recently received the coveted Seal of Approval from the Oklahoma Centennial Commission.
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Dr. Leonard Shlain: What the Alphabet Engenders
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Children of the Code
Dr. Shlain is a popular science writer not a scholar of the history of writing. Consequently, this interview does not have the level of academic authority as other COTC interviews. However, though the theories discussed are controversial, the interview provides an opportunity to explore some of the many fascinating implications of becoming 'code users'. Whether agreeing or disagreeing with the theories posited, this interview should prove thought-provoking to anyone interested in learning about the role of alphabetic literacy in shaping the history of western civilization.
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Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) new Web site
Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) at the U.S. Department of Education will launch its new Web site devoted to information and resources on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004) as amended by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004.
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NEW RESEARCH SHOWS BOYS LEARN MORE FROM MEN, GIRLS LEARN MORE FROM WOMEN TEACHERS
Thursday, August 31, 2006
EducationNext
"Learning from a teacher of the opposite gender has a detrimental effect on students' academic progress.  My best estimate is that it lowers test scores for both boys and girls by approximately 4 percent of a standard deviation and has even larger effects on various measures of student engagement," said the study's author, Thomas S. Dee, an economist at Swarthmore College
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MAJOR FLAWS FOUND IN HARVARD ANALYSIS OF GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED PUBLIC, PRIVATE SCHOOL RESEARCH
Thursday, August 31, 2006
The Think Tank Review Project
TEMPE, Ariz. - A new report from Harvard's Program for Education Policy and Governance (PEPG), "On the Public-Private School Achievement Debate," claims that private schools outperform public schools. According to University of Illinois professors Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski, the report applied inappropriate models to account for the demographic differences between students.
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NEW WHITE PAPER: "CAREER PATHWAYS" MODEL HELPS REGIONS AND STATES INTEGRATE ECONOMIC AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS-AND YIELD GREATER RETURN ON PUBLIC INVESTMENTS
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Study details how approach is ideally suited for communities focused on economic growth and creating opportunities for incumbent workers, jobseekers, and students
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CALL FOR PAPERS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON STUDENT DISCIPLINE:
Thursday, August 31, 2006
NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON STUDENT CONDUCT 
2 to 5 APRIL 2007 , Potchefstroom , South Africa 
INVITATION TO PRESENT A PAPER AT AN UPCOMING CONFERENCE
The Research Project on student discipline in schools at the Faculty of Education Sciences of the North-West University (Potchefstroom Campus) takes pleasure in providing academics and Education practitioners an opportunity to meet and exchange ideas on a burning, current national and international issue in education, namely discipline in schools.
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Education spending decisions shouldn't be made without facts
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Evergreen Foundation
Marsha Michaelis , Director, Education Reform Center
It's easy to have an opinion. It takes a little more work to have an informed opinion.
A recent survey of 400 registered voters in Washington shows that almost everyone has opinions about whether or not the state is spending enough on its K-12 public schools, but almost nobody knows how much is actually being spent.
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Findings From the 2-year-old Follow-up of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort
Thursday, August 31, 2006
NCES report, Age 2: (NCES 2006-043) shows the wide range of skills and abilities demonstrated by children at an early age. For example, 84 percent of children recognize and understand certain spoken words at about 2 years of age, while 4 percent show beginning counting skills.
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Do vouchers encourage different types of schools to enroll different mixes of students?
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Gregory Elacqua
A major challenge to education vouchers is how to increase freedom of choice without increasing student stratification by achievement, income, or race. For more than a quarter-century, Chile has operated a universal voucher system and produced research data that addresses this issue.
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Saving America
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Institute for Democracy from Mathematics
Colin Hannaford
I can save America . But I need your help to do it. My background is to have taught school mathematics for twenty-five years. Before this I was a soldier. Perhaps because soldiers are expected to think for themselves nowadays, eventually I made a surprising discovery as a teacher. It is this discovery that can save America.
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An Interview with Marv Marshall : Discipline without Stress ® Punishments or Rewards
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Michael F. Shaughnessy
Eastern New Mexico University
How can Principals, Teachers, and Parents Promote Responsibility & Learning?
Understand that although an adult can temporarily CONTROL a young person, no one can change how another person feels, thinks, or wants to be. Control is only temporary, as are external rewards and punishments. Also, it is a fact of life that no one can change another person; people change themselves. The least effective approach to influencing another person to change is through coercion. This negative focuses on obedience rather than on collaboration and promoting responsibility.
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Los Angeles Mayor's Supporters Plan Victory Rally
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
By Jennifer Solis
With passage of AB1381, and signing by the Governor all but certain, the supporters of the mayor's plan to take over the LAUSD will rally Wednesday morning at Animo High School.
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Transitive-Verb Surfers, Sentence Comprehension, and Do-It-Yourself Testing
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
By Robert Oliphant
What's more delightful than watching a two-year old, just on the verge of speech, who can understand and comply with a request like, "Please pick up a cookie and take it over to Uncle Oscar"? Or conversely what's more terrifying than to reach the bottom of a printed page (often late at night) and realize you HAVEN'T UNDERSTOOD WHAT YOU JUST READ - even though you knew the meaning of each word one by one.
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NCLB Outrages
Reading First, Science Last
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
In 2002, the U.S. Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act. It contained a radical idea, long overdue: That schools receiving federal dollars should use programs and practices that have been proven to be effective in scientifically based research, defined as studies in which
programs were compared to matched or randomly assigned control groups.
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Another School Year: Another Hostile Environment
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
by Nancy Levant
Given another year or two, perhaps the public school system will simply eliminate the need for parents altogether via the mandatory volunteer service and pending legislation to enforce mandatory military service for both genders. ....
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Schools need competition now
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Town Hall
John Stossel
It's amazing what competition does for consumers. The power to say no to one business and yes to another is awesome. Too bad we don't apply that idea to schools themselves.
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California's Educational Content Standards and Their Implications for Basic Educational Conditions and Resources
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
by William S. Koski & Hillary Anne Weis
This article examines the statutory and policy framework for California's standards-based reform and accountability scheme and argues that this scheme, not unlike others throughout the country, fails to ensure that all children are provided with the necessary resources and conditions to achieve at the high levels prescribed by the state's content standards.
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In Defense of Testing Series
The Commission on No Child Left Behind
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
NASBE Legislative Brief
Foundation-funded commission holds national hearings, solicits public input prior to NCLB reauthorization.  Everyone, it seems, is already gearing up for the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act scheduled for 2007.
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An Interview with Jakub Voboril: About Doing Well on the ACT'S and SAT'S.....
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Michael F. Shaughnessy
Eastern New Mexico University
You have recently been in the news as you have done quite well on the ACT test and the SAT test. Tell us about it.
This past June, I took both the SAT and the ACT within eight days of each other.  In late June, I checked the online unofficial score result of my SAT and discovered that I had received a perfect score.  A few weeks later, I received my official ACT result and found that I had aced the ACT as well.  A few weeks after that, I received the official SAT score results confirming my perfect score.  I certainly did not expect these scores, but I always believed that I was capable of doing something like this, so receiving these results was a very fulfilling experience.
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AMERICANS SAY EDUCATION SHOULD BE THE TOP PRIORITY FOR LOCAL LEADERS
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Public Education Network
New campaign - Give Kids Good Schools - aims to empower Americans and provide tools and information needed to help improve our nation's public schools
WASHINGTON, DC- In a recent national poll released today, the American public said public education is the number one issue local leaders should address, edging out health care, the economy and fears of terrorism at the local level. The poll was released at the launch of Give Kids Good Schools , a campaign aimed at helping the public improve America's public schools. Give Kids Good Schools is sponsored by Public Education Network, a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to quality public education for all children.
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IMPACT SCHOOLS MAY DISCOURAGE SCHOOL ATTENDANCE
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Fordham University Policy Center
A centerpiece of New York City Department of Education (DOE) efforts to overhaul the public schools, in its initial implementation, at least, appears to have pushed students away from their high schools rather than creating the “safe environments for learning” predicted by City Hall, according to a Fordham University policy center.
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Stopping the Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Pipeline By Enforcing Federal Special Education Law
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
By Jim Comstock-Galagan, Esquire Executive Director, Southern Disability Law Center and Rhonda Brownstein, Esquire Legal Director, Southern Poverty Law Center
David Smith (not his real name) was a 15 year-old, 7th grader at a Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, junior high school who was headed for juvenile detention and, most likely, a life of prisons and jails. The fact that David had been identified as a child with an educational disability (Emotional Disturbance) and had an Individualized Education Program (IEP) in place did not stop his school from suspending him for 79 days during the abbreviated, post-Katrina 2005-2006 school year.
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And "W" takes the Series!
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
By Nancy Salvato
It is the bottom of the ninth inning in game seven of the World Series. The score: 3-3, with two strikes, and runners positioned on 1 st and 3 rd .  The stadium is quiet.  And here we go. the windup.and the pitch; it's a fast b.he swings, walloping that ball right over the 1 st base line.  Runners advance and.
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RESEARCH FINDS SCHOOL PHYS-ED CLASSES DO LITTLE TO PROMOTE EXERCISE, FIGHT OBESITY
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
STANFORD --Increasing the number of required physical education (PE) courses in school has no detectable effect on weight or the likelihood of obesity among students, according to a new study in the fall issue of Education Next. These findings come as state legislatures grapple with concerns over how best to address increasing rates of childhood obesity. 
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Early start crucial to tackle financial aid for college
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Town Hall
Lynn O'Shaughnessy
If you're the parents of a student who has just one more year to go in high school, you might be telling yourself the worst is over.
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Prison School Administration
Monday, August 28, 2006
LewRockwell.com
Oh, sorry, make that public school. Linda Schrock Taylor.
When a fellow teacher stopped me in the hall to whisper a brief description of the book he was reading, I listened. The book, he explained, discussed individuals in positions of authority who abuse the trust that they have been given, as well as the lives over which they rule .

Meritocracy - used, misused and abused chaos
Monday, August 28, 2006
By Daniel Pryzbyla
With high-stakes testing disputes still at flood level, you'd think "meritocracy" - as it has been perceived - would be the least debatable squabble in education circles. "Take out your dictionaries, class."
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271 Jobs and Education: The Big Hoax in Wisconsin and the United States
Center for the Study of Jobs & Education in Wisconsin And United States
Monday, August 28, 2006
By Dennis W. Redovich
The great numbers of high paying jobs of the future that are claimed to require college graduation and high academic skills for all high school students are a hoax. The majority of the jobs of the future in Wisconsin and the United States are low or average paying jobs that require short term or moderate-term on the job training and do not require high-level academic skills in academic areas, particularly in higher mathematics.

An Interview with Rebecca Hagelin: About Beginning the School Year
Monday, August 28, 2006
Michael F. Shaughnessy
Eastern New Mexico University
Rebecca, what is the most important gift that parents can give their kids during the coming school year?
The greatest gift we parents can give their children is always the same - our time. We need to spend time explaining the cultural dangers, understanding peer pressure and our kid's fears, helping them create solutions to challenges and just listening and being there!
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The Pedagogy of Oppression: A Brief Look at 'No Child Left Behind'
Monday, August 28, 2006
Monthly Review
by Peter McLaren and Ramin Farahmandpur
The origins of the current standards-based movement in public education can be traced back to the early twentieth century when curriculum theorists like Ellwood Cubberley and others attempted to align school curricula to the needs and demands of the U.S. economy by developing a scientific approach to designing and planning them. 1 From the 1950s to the 1970s, with the Cold War in full swing, the "back to basics" movement gained momentum in teacher education programs and graduate schools of education.
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NEW KIPP PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOLS IN NEW ORLEANS
Monday, August 28, 2006
THE BROAD FOUNDATION AND U.S. FUND FOR UNICEF
ANNOUNCE $2.45 MILLION TO FUND
NEW ORLEANS - A year after Hurricane Katrina, The Broad Foundation and the U.S. Fund for UNICEF announced today a total of $2.45 million to fund two current and three planned KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) public charter schools in New Orleans . Based on a model that has improved achievement for students across 16 states and last year raised student achievement for New Orleans evacuees on average more than two grade levels in reading and math, the five KIPP New Orleans schools aim to eventually serve more than 2,400 students.
An Interview with Michael Feinberg: About KIPP

How to Raise an A+ Student
Three very different families reveal their secrets to success.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Readers Digest
By William Beaman
When it comes to education, our children are in trouble. Up to a quarter of them don't finish high school. Of those who do and go on to college, more than four in ten need remedial classes. That's hardly a surprise given the results of a recent U.S. Department of Education study, which found that just one in three eighth-graders scored at grade level in reading, math or science.
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Texans Need Another Dose of Property Tax Relief
Monday, August 28, 2006
Empower Texans
By:Marc Levin and Sachiv Mehta
When Americans think of protests, liberal college students in tie-dyed shirts may come to mind, but Texas property taxpayers are now reclaiming the revolutionary legacy of colonists who protested British taxes and Texas settlers who rose up against the tyrannical rule of Santa Ana. With an August 16 demonstration at the Texas Association of Counties annual conference and hundreds of thousands formal protests inundating appraisal districts, property taxpayers throughout the state are revolting against de facto property tax increases resulting from ballooning appraisals.
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ECS Online Redesigned Teacher Compensation Database Goes Live
Monday, August 28, 2006
DENVER, CO -- The Education Commission of the States (ECS) Teaching Quality and Leadership Institute announces the launch of its Redesigned Teacher Compensation Database, the newest contribution in a line of products providing quality resources to policymakers on teacher compensation redesign through a project supported by The Joyce Foundation.
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Some Reflections On the Education of Ms. Groves: All Systems Go?
Monday, August 28, 2006
ABC Dateline
Featuring One Teach for America Intern
Vicky Dill & Delia Stafford
We don't blame Ms. Groves; it's not her problem. She just wanted to teach. She self-selected into a profession which bases admission on grade point average, transcripts, and desire which, research suggests, predicts nothing. Minimal training from Teach for America was followed by nine months of increasing and daily struggle while Ms Groves was learning to teach on the nation's neediest and most vulnerable youth.
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Pedagogy of Poverty
The Pedagogy of Poverty Versus Good Teaching
Sunday, August 27, 2006
BY MARTIN HABERMAN
Haberman Foundation
Recognizing the formidable difficulty of institutionalizing new forms of pedagogy for the children of poverty, Mr. Haberman nonetheless believes that it is worthwhile to define and describe such alternatives.
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Exploding the Charter School Myth
Sunday, August 27, 2006
New York Times
Congress needs to grasp the obvious: the quality of the teacher corps is more crucial to school reform than anything else.
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A Break From Reality
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Boston Globe
By Tom Keane
Do incoming freshmen really need a year off before beginning the rigors of college? Please.
Followers of the zeitgeist say the "gap year" is the hot, new fad in collegiate life. Instead of stepping right from high school senior to college freshman, kids are applying to college but then taking a year off .
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Rain On The Charter School Parade
Saturday, August 26, 2006
TomPaine.com
There is more evidence that "school choice" isn't much of a choice at all.
The charter school evangelists, including their high priests in the Bush administration, keep getting doused by the cold rain of reality. The  latest report  from the Department of Education's own National Center for Education Statistics puts a further dent in the Bush administration's attempt to sell charter schools as a panacea for the woes of public education.
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P-20 Councils
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Democratic Leadership Council
Ensuring student success from preschool through entering the workforce
A well-educated workforce provides a strong foundation for a flourishing economy. Though state and community leaders may know and agree with this, we continue to send students through an education system that may barely prepare them for each consecutive grade level and may not begin to prepare them for the business world.
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With Feminized Men, Who will Fight The War on Terror?
Saturday, August 26, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
Carey Roberts
Forty years ago the National Organization for Women was founded. That marked the beginning of an unholy jihad to deconstruct masculinity. Now, a low-level hostility to all things macho pervades our culture.....
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A Breakthrough Year for School Choice
Saturday, August 26, 2006
By Dan Lips and Evan Feinberg
As American students prepare for school, millions of families are benefiting from an opportunity that once would have been unimaginable to them-the power to choose their children's school. Political trends suggest that even more parents will enjoy that same opportunity in the years ahead. That's a major win for parents.
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Pre-K: Shaping the System That Shapes Children
Saturday, August 26, 2006
The Manhattan Institute
By Stephen Goldsmith and Rhonda Meyer
This year, states will add almost one billion additional education tax dollars to their budgets as politicians in more than twenty states consider moving toward a Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) system.
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Lesson Learned
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Jan Larson
The school year has barely gotten started, but the teachers in my local Texas school district have already taught students a valuable lesson. You can get your way if you scream, cry and hold your breath until you're blue in the face...
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An Unknown School Reform: The Four-Day Week 
Friday, August 25, 2006
U.S. Freedom Foundation 
David W. Kirkpatrick Senior Education Fellow
Public schools are perhaps the most reform-resistant of all institutions.  One reason is that, as some studies have shown, individual educators tend to be unusually conservative (small c), tradition-bound and averse to change.  At the same time, parents and the general public have an image of what schools should be like and they are not very receptive to anything they regard as experiments with children.
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Towards a Unified Theory of Grading
Friday, August 25, 2006
(original post Jan-2005)
Jonathan Dresner
Grading is a form of communication. The problem is that it's a shorthand form of communication used by people who do not agree (or even discuss) what the symbols mean. Worse, each recipient of these symbolic communications has their own rough idea of what they mean, based on their own experience and anecdotal evidence, and often interpret them much more broadly and personally than they are intended.
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Back-To-School Kit 2006
Friday, August 25, 2006
Schwab Learning
The new school is around the corner! Going back to school can be stressful, but even more so for kids with learning disabilities. SchwabLearning.org's Back-to-School Kit delivers the information you need now and to plan for the coming school year. 
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NIH RESEARCHERS COMPLETE UNPRECEDENTED GENETIC STUDY THAT MAY HELP IDENTIFY PEOPLE MOST AT RISK FOR ALCOHOLISM
Friday, August 25, 2006
Scan of human genome may provide important new tools for prevention and treatment
Researchers at the Molecular Neurobiology Branch of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health, have completed the most comprehensive scan of the human genome to date linked to the ongoing efforts to identify people most at risk for developing alcoholism.
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'User’s Guide to Computing High School Graduation Rates, Volume 1:
Friday, August 25, 2006
Review of Current and Proposed Graduation Indicators' and the 'User’s Guide to Computing High School Graduation Rates, Volume 2: Technical Evaluation of Proxy Graduation Indicators.'
To download, view and print Volume 2

Involving Families in High School and College Expectations
Friday, August 25, 2006
Education Commission of the States
A synthesis of the research on the college aspirations of many students and their parents today, as well as the documented lack of information far too many families possess on the necessary steps to make the transition from high school to postsecondary.
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Universal Preschool study committee packed with pro-u-pre-k ringers.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Vermont Education Reporter
Should Vermont expand the K-12 public school system to include two years of taxpayer financed preschool for all 3 & 4 year olds regardless of special or financial need? The debate has been raging fiercely for over a year.
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WHAT'S NEXT?
Friday, August 25, 2006
Edutopia
By Grace Rubenstein
The prospect of a new school year brings both hope and gnawing questions. For students (Can I pass algebra? Will I keep or lose my friends?) and their teachers (Can I reach the troubled student assigned to my class? Will I be able to handle the new demands heaped on
me?), the future, contemplated in the final sizzling days of summer, can seem murky. This blank slate often inspires fresh goals and sharpened senses, but even the most ambitious agenda can't erase the fact that so much of what is to come cannot be known.
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PRACTICING LEARNING BY LEARNING
Friday, August 25, 2006
Edutopia
By Jim Moulton
When one-to-one computing comes to a school, teachers, librarians, administrators, and technical staff have plenty to learn. A project's kiss of death can easily arrive in the form of feeling completely prepared, of already knowing everything that needs to be known.
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An Interview with Dr. Marion Blank: About New Ways to View Reading and Reading Instruction
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Michael F. Shaughnessy
Eastern New Mexico University
In The Reading Remedy, you cite government figures showing that approximately 40% of normal, healthy children are failing in learning to read. Is this really the case nationwide?
The figure is so unbelievably high that the immediate feeling is "It can't be true." Unfortunately it is. For example, in a report on the past decade titled Reading : The Nation's Report Card, the National Assessment for Educational Progress found 37 percent to 40 percent of fourth graders to be reading "below basic levels.
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Roy Romer's Farewell
Thursday, August 24, 2006
By Jennifer Solis
While The LAUSD superintendent still has a few weeks remaining on the job, before retiring after six years at the helm of the Los Angeles Unified School District , he gave his farewell address this morning before the LAUSD administrators' annual gathering.
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The Divided Self
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Psychotherapy Networker
by Ron Taffel
Media-saturated millennium kids live in a disconnected world that spawns intense inner fragmentation. If we are to help them heal these splits, we need to move beyond the constraints imposed by our business-as-usual methods.
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Cyberspaced
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Psychotherapy Networker
by Mary Sykes Wylie
Hanging out with the in crowd on MySpace.com.
Some weeks ago, The New York Times reported on a group of Amazonian Indians-the Nukak-Maku-who wandered, nearly naked, out of the jungles into a small Colombian town and declared their intention of settling down there. The Nukak, the article said, had no last names, no concept of money, property, government, the future, or the existence of a country called "Colombia," the nation they inhabited.
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Title IX According to the Dixie Chicks
Thursday, August 24, 2006
By Debbie Schlussel

Football player Eric Butler may be America's new sex symbol.
But don't look for him in People Magazine or in provocative poses on pin-up posters. Butler is a symbol of equal rights for the male sex in college and high school sports.
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A Closer Look at Charter Schools Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (NCES
2006-460)
Thursday, August 24, 2006
A special oversample of charter schools, conducted as part of the 2003 fourth-grade NAEP assessments, permitted a comparison of academic achievement for students enrolled in charter schools to that for students enrolled in traditional public schools. The school sample comprised 150 charter schools and 6,764 traditional public schools
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The History Wars: now for the hard part!
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Mervyn Bendle
Australia desperately needs to promote a unifying sense of national identity.
The Australian History Summit was convened in Canberra last Thursday to find a solution to the crisis in the study and teaching of history that has blighted intellectual and cultural life in Australia.
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An Interview with Paul Chimera: About Nuts, Bolts and Anecdotes!
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Michael F. Shaughnessy
Eastern New Mexico University
I understand that you have recently written a book entitled Nuts, Bolts and Anecdotes. Briefly, what is your book about?
Well, the full title is Nuts, Bolts & Anecdotes: Journalists Discuss Interviewing and Note Taking in Their Own Words. It's further sub-titled A Handbook for Journalists and Students of Journalism and Media Writing .
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BOW WOW ET AL
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
by Will Fitzhugh, The Concord Review
If your friends look at you strangely if you don't seem to know who Bow Wow or Busta Rhymes is, you are probably an American teenager. If your friends look at you strangely because you do know who Ruth Bader Ginsburg is, you are probably an American teenager.
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The Hidden Draft in Our Schools
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
A Case Study: Klein High
Prologue on a Reckless Recruiting
Captain Eric H. May, MI/PAO, USA
Last year the big scandal in the Houston-area recruiting racket was Sergeant Thomas Kelt, who threatened those he was recruiting with arrest if they didn't enlist into the Army, thereby giving a new meaning to "impressing potential recruits." 
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