Education Next articles from June 2002

Education Next archives from June 2002

Two steps forward? 2002, a year full of promise in education reform. (From the Editors).
June 22, 2002... Although September 11 briefly arrested the nation's work on domestic issues, 2002 is still shaping up as a significant year for education reformers. When President Bush affixed his signature to the No Child Left Behind Act on January 8,...

Correspondence.
June 22, 2002... Quick fix Margaret Raymond and Stephen Fletcher's findings ("Teach for America," Research, Spring 2002) from their initial evaluation of Teach for America (TEA) are nor too surprising, given the makeup of TFA recruits and the teachers...

Sizing up test scores. (Forum).(Statistical Data Included)
June 22, 2002... ONE OF THE BASIC CRITIQUES OF USING TEST SCORES for accountability purposes has always been that simple averages, except in rare circumstances, don't tell us much about the quality of a given school or teacher. The high scores of students in a...

Expert measures. (Forum).
June 22, 2002... IN ONE SUBURBAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, TEACHERS ACROSS the system were ranked and evaluated according to the contribution they had made to student learning--based on a value-added analysis of state test results. When they were ranked again the next...

The business model: value-added analysis is a crucial tool in the accountability toolbox--despite its flaws. (Forum).
June 22, 2002... LIKE THE MAKERS OF HOT DOGS, PSYCHOMETRICIANS, economists, and other testing experts know too well what goes into the creation of achievement tests. Their intimate knowledge of the technical difficulties involved in measuring student...

Enemy of the good: no standardized test is perfect. But they're useful nonetheless. (Forum).(Brief Article)
June 22, 2002... VALUE-ADDED ASSESSMENT IS FLAWED, EVEN SERIOUSLY flawed. Nevertheless, I remain committed to the use of testing and value-added techniques to improve America's public schools. Voters and policymakers should hold school districts and their...

Vouchers on trail: will the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Zelman end the voucher debate? (Feature).(Statistical Data Included)
June 22, 2002... LEGAL EXPERTS ARE ALREADY DRAWING ANALOGIES between Zelman v. Simmons-Harris and landmark rulings like Brown v. Board of Education and the seminal First Amendment decisions that have shaped American jurisprudence over the past half century. How...

Bipartisan choolmates: President Bush deserves credit for forging a consensus on federal education policy. But it will all be for naught if the law is not enforced. (Feature).
June 22, 2002... AMID A THRONG OF CHEERING TEENAGERS IN THE Hamilton High School gymnasium, President Bush declared victory. "Today begins a new era, a new time in public education in our country," he intoned confidently into the microphone. "As of this hour,...

Swing state: the downs and ups of accountability in California. Will the state's political leadership stay the course this time around? (Feature).(Statistical Data Included)
June 22, 2002... CALIFORNIA, NORMALLY A BELLWETHER STATE, ITS trends and culture spreading as fast as buzz on the latest Steven Soderbergh flick, was a late arrival to the modern school accountability movement. Even the 1994 federal Title I reforms, which...

Monster hype: how a few isolated tragedies-and their supposed causes-were turned into a national "epidemic". (Feature).(Statistical Data Included)
June 22, 2002... CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSIONS ABOUT SOCIAL issues, especially within education, almost always involve statistics. Numbers have become an essential element in policy rhetoric, a form of evidence needed to persuade others. Statistics let us claim that...

The power of peers: how does the makeup of a classroom influence achievement? (Research).(Statistical Data Included)
June 22, 2002... What does the term "peer effects" mean in a school environment? It includes the effects of students' teaching one another, but that is only the most direct form of peer effects. Intelligent, hard-working students can affect their peers through...

Unrequited promise: tracing the evolution of New American Schools, from feisty upstart to bulwark of the education establishment. (Research).
June 22, 2002... IN THE SUMMER OF 1991, in response to President George H.W. Bush's major education initiative, CEOs from a number of major corporations established the New American Schools Development Corporation (NASDC, later shortened to New American...

Waiting for utopia: the New York Times education columnist believes in education reform. He just doesn't think it has much to do with schools. (Check the Facts).
June 22, 2002... IT'S EASY TO TELL when someone is in the grip of a Big Idea That Explains Everything. Tunnel vision sets in; every analysis, whatever the topic, becomes an occasion for the grand theory to appear. Evidence is read and supplied selectively, in...

Data vacuum: only larger voucher experiments will yield answers. (Essay Review).
June 22, 2002... School Vouchers: Examining the Evidence By Martin Carnoy Economic Policy Institute, 2002. Rhetoric Versus Reality: What We Know and What We Need to Know About Vouchers and Charter Schools By Brian Gill, R Michael Timpane, Karen Ross, and...

Surface wounds: thus far, public schools have hardly noticed competition. (Book Review).(Revolution at the Margins: The Impact of Competition on Urban School Systems)
June 22, 2002... Revolution at the Margins: The Impact of Competition on Urban School Systems By Frederick M. Hess Brookings Institution, 2002, $45.95; 268 pages. As reviewed by Edward B. Fiske For the most part, the language of economics has...

In the shadow of terror: life returns to not quite normal at Stuyvesant High. (Education Matters to Me).(Brief Article)
June 22, 2002... It's a bitter-cold morning in New York City as I cross the Stuyvesant Bridge--known to the rest of the world as the TriBeCa Bridge--and hurry toward the school doors, eager to escape the knifesharp wind, On the threshold, though, I'm stopped...