Education Next articles from June 2003

Education Next archives from June 2003

More than just pay: higher salaries will accomplish little without bolder reforms. (From the Editors).
June 22, 2003... Are teachers paid too little? This has been more of an assumption than a question in recent decades. Even raising the issue carries the risk of being labeled anti-education. Nonetheless, a few of our intrepid authors dared to tackle the subject...

Correspondence.(Letter to the Editor)
June 22, 2003... Paper tigers Terry Moe ("Reform Blockers," Feature, Spring 2003) writes with his usual analytic elegance and passionate commitment to reform, The only problem is that many of his arguments conflict with the facts. I am no fan of teacher...

Are teachers underpaid? It is often said that the nation does not properly value teaching. Is this true? (Forum).(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... AS THE NATION CONTINUES TO search for ways to upgrade the public school system, much attention has focused on how to improve the quality of K-12 teachers. The focus makes perfect sense: nothing in education is more important than what happens...

Low pay, low quality: for decades the nation has been able to school its children on the cheap by exploiting a trapped workforce of educated women. Those days are long gone. (Forum).
June 22, 2003... ARE TEACHERS UNDERPAID? As an economist, I find it difficult to question market outcomes. Goods and services generally cost the market price. Only in the event of some kind of "market failure" do we say that goods or services are either...

Comparable worth: salary data fail to account for the shorter workday and work year in teaching. Once adjusted, teacher salaries look about right. (Forum).
June 22, 2003... IT IS AN ARTICLE OF FAITH AMONG MANY SUPPORTERS OF public education that teachers are underpaid. As Gayla Hudson, a former National Education Association official, once put it, "Until you start paying teachers at the level that other...

Facade of excellence. (Feature).
June 22, 2003... Stuyvesant High, one of New York City's elite exam schools, enjoys an ultramodern building, influential alumni, and the city's brightest students, If only it could also escape the corrosive rules of the teachers' contract. ON A BITTERLY...

Security detail: an inside at safety and discipline in the hyperlegalized world of a New York City high school. (Feature).
June 22, 2003... AT THE HEIGHT OF THE BABY boom, Jamaica High School in Queens, New York, enrolled approximately 5,000 students, who attended school in triple session. Each cohort of students had to start and end school at a different time in order to maximize...

Philosopher or king? The ideas and strategy of legendary AFT leader Albert Shanker. (Feature).
June 22, 2003... THE MOST INFLUENTIAL VOICES IN AMERICAN EDUCATION during the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century were surely Horace Mann and John Dewey, respectively. But who ranks as the most consequential figure of the past 50 years? One of...

Locked down. (Feature).(school choice and educational reform)
June 22, 2003... THE DEBATE over school choice may be about to take a new turn. For years, reformers of left and right have dueled over whether the best way to shake up poorly performing public schools is to provide parents with the opportunity to switch to...

High-stakes research: the campaign against accountability has brought forth a tide of negative anecdotes and deeply flawed research. Solid analysis reveals a brighter picture. (Feature).
June 22, 2003... "MAKE-OR-BREAK EXAMS GROW, BUT BIG Study Doubts Value" intoned a front-page New York Times headline in December 2002. The article continued, "Rigorous testing that decides whether students graduate, teachers win bonuses, and schools are...

Crowd control: an international look at the relationship between class size and student achievement. (Research).
June 22, 2003... REDUCING CLASS SIZES IS ONE OF TODAY'S MOST popular education reform strategies. The Education Commission of the States estimates that such efforts cost states $2.3 billion during the 1999-00 school year alone. The federal government...

Learning to earn: more stringent high-school graduation requirements may reduce students' chances of earning a diploma. But higher standards also improve their ability to find a job. (Research).
June 22, 2003... DURING THE 19705, NEARLY EVERY STATE IN the nation began instituting tests of basic skills for high-school students as the leading edge of the so-called "first wave" of education reforms, These reforms were a response to the widespread...

Fringe benefits: there is more to compensation than a teacher's salary. (Check the Facts).
June 22, 2003... Each year, the two national teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), release their surveys of public school teacher salaries across the nation. And each year, they take advantage...

The great unknown: does the black-white test-score gap narrow or widen through the school years? It depends on how you measure. (Check the Facts).(Educational Achievement and Black-White Inequality)
June 22, 2003... Educational Achievement and Black-White Inequality By Jonathan Jacobsen, Cara Olsen, Jennifer Kinq Rice, Stephen Sweetland, and John Ralph National Center for Education Statistics, July 2001. Through the 1960s, African-Americans...

Marginal Impact: time's too short for one kid at a time. (Book Review).(four books on education)(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Upstart Startup: Creating and Sustaininq a Public Charter School By James Nehring Teachers College Press, 2002 Standards of Mind and Heart: Creating the Good High School By Peggy Silva and Robert A. Mackin Teachers College...

Study abroad: what TIMSS teaches us. (Book Review).(Why Schools Matter: A Cross-National Comparison of Curriculum and Learning)(Third International Mathematics and Science Study )(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Why Schools Matter: A Cross-National Comparison of Curriculum and Learning By William H. Schmidt et al. Jossey-Bass. 2001, $29; 400 pages The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) began with...

Meet Mr. Shannon: at Bronx Prep, a master teacher shares his expertise. (Education Matters to Me).
June 22, 2003... At the Bronx Preparatory Charter School we enjoy the talents of a aster teacher, Frederick Shannon. He had been teaching 5th grade in the classroom next door to our principal, Marina Bernard Damiba, when she began her career through Teach for...