Bounding the Treatment Effects of Education Programs That Have Lotteried Admission and Selective Attrition

Sandra Stotsky – As a condition of receiving federal Title I funds, require states to use a set of K-12 standards in mathematics, science, and English that have been judged to be internationally benchmarked by a state-level committee of discipline-based academic experts, chosen by presidents of colleges/universities in the state.

Joe Nathan – In an encouraging display of bi-partisan agreement last week, Minnesota legislators said, “yes” to collaboration between district and charter schools. Wisely, they said “no” to a proposal from the Lakes International Charter, and the Forest Lake School District that was confusing and troubling.

Michael F. Shaughnessy – This is one of those programs that has been demonstrated a failure by high quality research, but which politicians – including the Obama administration – just keep funding because it sounds good.

Arthur D. Jacobs – On page 142 of your organization’s report “The State of State of U.S. History Standards 2011” by Dr. Sheldon M. Stern and Dr. Jeremy A. Stern, (hereinafter referred to as Sterns) make the following statement as relates to Texas’ U.S. History:

The media have undergone dramatic changes in recent years. Traditional news providers － newspapers, television, and radio － are being supplemented by a remarkable range of new outlets and digital delivery systems.

Rachel Sheffield – At a House hearing on the burden of federal intervention into American schools last Tuesday, Representative Mike Kelly (R–PA) referred to federal officials as “the people that are … making the rules but have never played the game.”

Emily Ayscue Hassel – Could redesigned tenure actually help grow the size and power of an elite teaching corps that reaches far more children with high-progress learning?

Peter Meyer – In a provocative new school funding case, a federal court judge in Kansas City ruled against parents from the suburban Shawnee Mission school district who had wanted to increase property taxes above the state mandated limit.

Doug Lasken and Bill Evers – Students in California public schools are not achieving at the levels they should. Too many students are unprepared for jobs or have to take remedial courses when they start college.

Richard Rothstein – Last week, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates published an op-ed in the Washington Post, “How Teacher Development could Revolutionize our Schools,” proposing that American public schools should do a better job of evaluating the effectiveness of teachers, a goal with which none can disagree.

The Case for Paying Most Teachers the Same
Michael Petrilli – What makes the single salary schedule so pernicious isn’t just its uniformity; it’s its growth curve. Twenty-five years veterans are paid a lot more than five-year veterans even though, on average, they are equally effective. Changing that curve is at least as important as introducing more differentiation in pay.

Kenneth Stichter – This longitudinal trend study investigated student satisfaction perceptions of instructional climate in one high school district. The purpose was to probe what students define as instructional climate and whether their perception changed during a decade of expanding emphasis on accountability in California.

The graduating class from the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin should be outraged at the illegal sick-ins and out-sized demonstrations that have disrupted the educational process in Madison, Milwaukee and beyond. Until pension and health benefit policies stop gobbling taxpayer dollars, their chances of getting a good job with substantial salary increases will be negligible.

Peter Meyer – That’s the subtitle of my new story, about an experiment to take a successful religious school education model to the public sector. Let the walls come tumbling down!

Jay P. Greene – Most people are familiar with RhINOs (Republicans in Name Only), which is a pejorative for Republican officials who differ from other Republicans on certain key issues. Stuart Buck and I would like to introduce to the policy lexicon the term MPINO — .

Last week, students in several Wisconsin school districts were unable to attend school when classes were cancelled due to thousands of striking teachers throughout Madison and surrounding districts. While most teachers have returned to their posts today, protests continue in opposition to Governor Scott Walker’s (R) proposal to reform collective bargaining and pay down Wisconsin’s $4 billion deficit.

Just two-and-a-half months ago, the National Education Policy Center released a Think Twice review of a report published by the Heritage Foundation called, “Closing the Racial Achievement Gap: Learning from Florida’s Reforms.” The review, authored by Teachers College, Columbia University Professor Madhabi Chatterji, identified and explained major flaws in the Heritage report.