Education Next articles from June 2006

Education Next archives from June 2006

Let the public in: how closed negotiations with unions are hurting our schools.(from the editors)(Editorial)
June 22, 2006... The federal No Child Left Behind law has helped open school performance to unprecedented public scrutiny. Now it is time to bring equal transparency to the collective bargaining process. In one of several essays in this issue addressing...

The qualified teacher.(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2006... Michael Podogursky ("In Search of the Qualified Teacher," features, Spring 2006) points out that 10 percent of teachers nationwide (unevenly distributed by field and location) don't have regular state credentials. But he also maintains that the...

Savage exaggerations.(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2006... Marcus Winters nicely nails the empirical and conceptual fallacies in Jonathan Kozol's tiresome jihads against the alleged institutional racism causing the unequal funding of schools ("Savage Exaggerations: Worshiping the Cosmology of Jonathan...

Rating teachers.(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2006... I applaud "When Principals Rate Teachers" (research, Spring 2006), by Brian Jacob and Lars Lefgren, and its philosophy of salary differentiation for teachers. In our No Child Left Behind era, educators are aware that high-school Algebra I...

Great expectations.(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2006... The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is providing unparalleled leadership and innovation in the field of teaching. Not only have we "changed the conversation" about the teaching profession, as William Lowe Boyd and...

Florida grows a lemon: court contortions overturn a successful voucher program.(the legal beat)
June 22, 2006... Florida's supreme court is no stranger to political warfare. Before the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bush v. Gore in favor of George W. Bush, the Florida court had ruled in favor of Al Gore. And the same court played a crucial role in the state's...

Collective bargaining.(forum)
June 22, 2006... The harsh glare of state accountability systems has brought to public attention the expansive collective-bargaining agreements that local school boards negotiate with their employees. Big-city school superintendents such as New York City's Joel...

Keeping an eye on state standards: a race to the bottom? Checking for truth in advertising; are proficiency levels meaningful?
June 22, 2006... While No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires all students to be "proficient" in math and reading by 2014, the precedent-setting 2002 federal law also allows each state to determine its own level of proficiency. It's an odd discordance at best. It...

The Bostonian: Tom Payzant's focused approach to school reform.
June 22, 2006... In a national landscape dotted with dysfunctional urban school systems and short-lived superintendencies, the Boston Public School district (BPS) and its superintendent, Tom Payzant, both stand out. With over a decade at the helm, Payzant is...

Strike phobia: school boards need to drive a harder bargain.
June 22, 2006... Four decades after collective bargaining came to public education, school boards and the superintendents they hire still routinely blame teacher unions for causing massive inefficiencies, stifling innovation, and preventing changes designed to...

Keeping out the Christians: evangelical high schools meet public universities.
June 22, 2006... Jordan Trivison is a very active participant in Shannon Jonker's 12th-grade English class. On one recent morning Jordan recapped in detail several chapters of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which the students had been assigned to read the...

The union label on the ballot box: how school employees help choose their bosses.
June 22, 2006... Fifteen thousand strong, school boards are among the most numerous of this country's governmental institutions. Within the framework laid down by state and federal law, they are responsible for much of what happens on the ground in American...

Climb every mountain: teachers who think they should make a difference ... do!
June 22, 2006... The basics of No Child Left Behind (NCLB)--adequate yearly progress benchmarks, provision of supplemental services, and a "highly qualified" teacher in every classroom--are known. And the intense scrutiny of the "how to" of those basics has...

Donkey in disguise: Jack Jennings and the Center on Education Policy.
June 22, 2006... Checked (all titles published by the Center on Education Policy): From the Capital to the Classroom, Year 1 (January 2003), Year 2 (January 2004), Year 3 (March 2005) State High School Exit Exams series: A Baseline Report (August...

Sentences and sensibilities: a famous--and dearly departed--English novelist visits a modern American high school.(Jane Austen in Scarsdale: Or Love, Death, and the SATs)(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Jane Austen in Scarsdale: Or Love, Death, and the SATs By Paula Marantz Cohen St. Martin's Press, 2006, $23.95; 288 pages. What would Jane Austen write if she were chronicling life in an affluent suburb of New York City? How would...

The Reagan revolution in Sweden: a little competition comes to the schools.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... The Market Comes to Education in Sweden: An Evaluation of Sweden's Surprising School Reforms. By Anders Bjorklund, Melissa A. Clark, Per-Anders Edin, Peter Fredriksson, and Alan B. Krueger. Russell Sage Foundation, 2005, $27.50; 157...

What School Boards Can Do: Reform Governance for Urban Schools.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2006... What School Boards Can Do: Reform Governance for Urban Schools. Donald McAdams (Teachers College Press). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Don McAdams, founder of the Center for Reform of School Systems, may be the nation's leading authority on...

Forgotten Heroes of American Education: The Great Tradition of Teaching Teachers.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Forgotten Heroes of American Education: The Great Tradition of Teaching Teachers. Edited by J. Wesley Null and Diane Ravitch (Information Age Publishing). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the foreword to Forgotten Heroes Diane Ravitch...

Mayhem in the Middle: How Middle Schools Have Failed America--and How to Make Them Work.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Mayhem in the Middle: How Middle Schools Have Failed America--and How to Make Them Work. Cheri Pierson Yecke (Fordham Foundation). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This brief monograph takes a hard look at the phenomenon of middle schools...

No Child Left Behind: Peter Lang Primer.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2006... No Child Left Behind: Peter Lang Primer. Frederick M. Hess and Michael J. Petrilli (Peter Lang Publishing). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Education Next executive editor Frederick Hess and Michael J. Petrilli, formerly a Bush administration...

Determinants of Student Achievement: New Evidence from San Diego.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Determinants of Student Achievement: New Evidence from San Diego. Julian R. Betts, Andrew C. Zau, and Lorien A. Rice (Public Policy Institute of California). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] California's new secretary of education, Alan Bersin,...

Leaving "school" out of high school: the winding road to academic excellence.
June 22, 2006... Our training shoes quietly slapped the rubbery surface of the track as we barreled down the final stretch. One by one we crossed the line and doubled over, desperate to catch our breath. Despite the burning in my lungs from the cold autumn air,...