Education Next articles from March 2002

Education Next archives from March 2002

Certifying the intangible: no one really knows what makes a good teacher. (From the Editors).(Brief Article)
March 22, 2002... Do we need good teachers? Don't be silly. Of course we do. We can all recall a teacher who made a big difference in our lives. And now we have research, as reviewed in Dan Goldhaber's Feature essay, which shows more clearly than ever before...

Correspondence.
March 22, 2002... A-Plus for vouchers? In "The Looming Shadow" (Research, Winter 2001), Jay P. Greene of the Manhattan Institute examines whether the threat of vouchers under Florida's A-Plus program forced the state's failing schools to improve. The A-Plus...

Teaching's gatekeepers. (Forum).(Brief Article)
March 22, 2002... Should education schools continue to be the only route to teaching in the public system? For the past half-century states have guaranteed university and college-based schools of education a steady stream of students and revenues by...

The certification connection: licensure ought to guarantee that every classroom comes equipped with a skilled knowledgeable teacher. The new performance standards for teachers are making that possible. (Forum).
March 22, 2002... I recently game across a flyer from the National Private Schools Association offering, among other things, certification for private school teachers. Intrigued, I went to the association's website discovered these requirements: provide...

A tenuous hold: education schools have lost the confidence of the public and policy makers alike. They'll need to relinquish their monopoly on teacher preparation in order to gain it back. (Forum).
March 22, 2002... As dean of an education school, more and more. I find myself asking, to my own surprise: Is it time to sever the link between the university programs that prepare teachers and the public bodies that certify them? For half a century, college and...

Break the link: the fact that schools of education could no longer rely on a captive body of aspiring teachers would expose them to the cleansing winds of competition. (Forum).
March 22, 2002... Picture Gerard, a 28-year-old business consultant who majored in economics at Williams College and graduated with a 3.7 GPA. Gerard has been working for a consulting firm in Stamford, Connecticut, but is looking for a new, more fulfilling...

The feds step in: will the new federal accountability standards spur school improvement? (Forum).(Brief Article)
March 22, 2002... ROM HIS FIRST DAYS IN OFFICE, President Bush made education reform one of his chief priorities. Congress responded with a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that requires states to ensure that all students...

Unwarranted intrusion: isn't it ironic that Republicans sponsored the single largest--and potentially the single most damaging--expansion of federal power over the nation's education system in history? (Forum).
March 22, 2002... Inside the Washington, D.C., beltway, the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is seen as either a sea change in federal education policy or a half-measure designed to demonstrate the political leadership's...

A new partnership. (Forum).
March 22, 2002... The move toward federally imposed accountability standards is necessary to ensure that federal funds are enhancing educational opportunity especially for poor and minority students. It will all be for naught, however, if Congress doesn't...

Tortuous routes: in California, alternative certification has become a crucial source of new teachers. It would be even more crucial if its cumbersome requirements didn't dissuade so many promising candidates. (Feature).
March 22, 2002... THE URBAN SCHOOL DISTRICTS OF CALIFORNIA HAVE a well-publicized shortage of teachers. So they're eager to move well-qualified candidates into the classroom, right? Not always. Nontraditional candidates--namely recent college graduates and...

Mystery of good teaching: the evidence shows that good teachers make a clear difference in student achievement. The problem is that we don't really know what makes a good teacher. (Feature).
March 22, 2002... WHO SHOULD BE RECRUITED TO fill the two to three million K--12 teaching positions projected to come open during the next decade? What kinds of knowledge and training should these new recruits have? These are the questions confronting...

Randomly accountable: failing to account for natural fluctuations in test scores could undermine the very idea of holding schools accountable for their efforts--or lack thereof. (Research).
March 22, 2002... THE ACCOUNTABILITY DEBATE TENDS TO DEVOLVE INTO A BATTLE between the pro-testing and anti-testing crowds. But when it comes to the design of a school accountability system, the devil is truly in the details. A well-designed accountability plan...

The teach for America evaluation: herewith, the first evidence on its recruits' actual performance in the classroom.(Statistical Data Included)
March 22, 2002... SINCE 1990 THE NEW YORK-BASED TEACH FOR America (TFA) program has placed more than 7,000 teachers in some of the nation's most challenging school districts, The nonprofit organization recruits high-achieving seniors from top colleges and asks...

Cooking the questions: Phi Delta Kappa's annual poll is regarded as the definitive measure of where Americans stand on education issues. But are its surveys biased and its reporting self-interested? (Check the Facts).(Statistical Data Included)
March 22, 2002... The 33rd Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools By Lowell C. Rose & Alec M. Gallup Phi Delta Kappa International, 2001. Support for vouchers is declining. Or so we are told by Phi...

Positive spin: the evidence for traditional teacher certification, reexamined. (Check the Facts).
March 22, 2002... A constellation of interest groups, including education schools, powerful foundations like Carnegie and Rockefeller, and a variety of professional associations, has been urging states to adopt stricter licensing and certification requirements...

Democracy in education: America's latest voluntary organization: the charter school. (Book Review).(Inside Charter Schools: The Paradox of Radical Decentralization)
March 22, 2002... Inside Charter Schools: The Paradox of Radical Decentralization Edited by Bruce Fuller Harvard University Press, 2000, $31.50; 288 pages. The soaring popularity of charter schools among parents, education reformers, and politicians...

Low expectations: straight A's, yet not ready for college. (Education Matters to Me).(Brief Article)
March 22, 2002... My high school was certified as "college preparatory." I was able to take introductory calculus, advanced chemistry and biology, and even several English literature courses for college credit, I graduated as valedictorian of my decent-sized...