Education Next articles from March 2006

Education Next archives from March 2006

Of teacher shortages and quality: now that we can identify good teachers, let's reward them.(from the editors)
March 22, 2006... Good teaching--the kind that can routinely raise student achievement--is the most valuable of all education resources. When a teacher inspires, children learn, even when the building is antiquated, the Internet is missing, and classes are...

"Acting white".(Letter to the editor)
March 22, 2006... Roland Fryer's research reported in the last issue of Education Next ("Acting White," research, Winter 2006) uses a large nationally representative data set and innovative statistical methods to show convincingly that black students in racially...

Saving high school.(Letter to the editor)
March 22, 2006... The American High School: Can It Be Saved?" Despite the alarmist title and even more clever-but-frightening illustrations in this forum (Winter 2006), the answer that your authors [Jeffrey Mirel, Jay Greene, and Chester Finn Jr.] give seems to...

Underground education.(Letter to the editor)
March 22, 2006... I was impressed by James Tooley's story on private schools in developing countries ("Underground Education," features, Fall 2005). It is an exemplary case of field research, which tells us two key things: official statistics on school...

Charter school research.(Letter to the editor)
March 22, 2006... Has Education Next's confidence in charter schools as a promising school-reform strategy evaporated? It's hard to imagine another explanation for Marci Kanstoroom's preemptive strike against the major federal charter schools research study...

The Gates Foundation.(Letter to the editor)
March 22, 2006... I respect Paul Hill and his work. However, he mistakenly interprets the Gates Foundation's new direction ("A Foundation Goes to School," features, Winter 2006) as a move away from the ideas of "Progressives" and a victory for the...

Race talk.(Letter to the editor)
March 22, 2006... I appreciate Nathan Glazer's taking the time to review my book, Color-mute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School (book review, Winter 2006). However, he neglected the core point of the book: that "race talk dilemmas" plague American...

A setback in Dover: last rites for Intelligent Design.(the legal beat)
March 22, 2006... Will Judge John Jones's blunt, much-publicized, year-end opinion in Kitzmiller v. Dover, a Pennsylvania case on Intelligent Design (ID), be the end of lawsuits over ID or the beginning of a wave? Kitzmiller was launched after the school...

Our schools in the year 2030: how will they be different?(forum)
March 22, 2006... The past few years have seen a whirlwind of developments in school reform. Dramatic efforts to upend the 20th-century model of local schooling--among them, increased accountability and charter schooling--have made considerable advances. What if...

Is there a "qualified teacher" shortage? What factors do affect the market for teachers, anyway?(feature)(Cover story)
March 22, 2006... Washington -- As American schools reopen, a 15-year effort to "professionalize" the job of teacher is running up against a strong counterforce--the urgent need to fill classroom vacancies. --Christian Science Monitor, August 26, 2002 ...

The virtual revolution: understanding online schools.(feature)
March 22, 2006... No doubt the Internet has had a profound effect on our lives, our work and play, our politics, and our business. But in the middle of a revolution that seems so profound, no one is yet quite certain what the landscape will look like when the...

Breaking the mold: how do school entrepreneurs create change?(feature)
March 22, 2006... It was the kind of defiant act that most school principals probably have contemplated wistfully at one time or another. Disgusted by what he and his staff considered to be poorly written, poorly stapled, and generally disorganized mandatory...

Great expectations: the impact of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.(feature)
March 22, 2006... As the largest and most highly publicized initiative to improve teaching in American schools, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) has raised great expectations. It has created rigorous standards for teaching and a...

When principals rate teachers: the best--and the worst--stand out.(research)
March 22, 2006... Elementary- and secondary-school teachers in the United States traditionally have been compensated according to salary schedules based solely on experience and education. Concerned that this system makes it difficult to retain talented teachers...

Getting ahead by staying behind: an evaluation of Florida's program to end social promotion.(research)
March 22, 2006... Of the many entrenched school customs that have been reconsidered and reformed over the past decade, social promotion has been among the most resistant to change. Holding children back in the same grade has long been frowned upon, and a large...

Savage exaggerations: worshiping the cosmology of Jonathan Kozol.(The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America)(Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope)(Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools)(Free Schools)(Death at an Early Age)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Checked: The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. Crown Publishers, 2005 Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope. Crown Publishers, 2000 Savage Inequalities: Children in America's...

High school: tales from the inside.(Another Planet: A Year in the Life of a Suburban High School)(Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity: One Season in a Progressive School)(Class Dismissed: A Year in the Life of an American High School, a Glimpse into the Heart of a Nation)(School of Dreams: Making the Grade at a Top American High School)(Wonderland: A Year in the Life of an American High School)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Another Planet: A Year in the Life of a Suburban High School By Elinor Burkett HarperCollins, 2001, $12.95; 352 pages. Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity: One Season in a Progressive School By Elizabeth Gold ...

Muggles, broomsticks, quidditch, and owls that deliver mail: a cast of characters to breathe life--and the magic of good writing--into children's literature.(Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince By J. K. Rowling Scholastic Press, 2005, $29.99; 652 pages. Not long after the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth Harry Potter book, worldwide sales for the series...

The joy of gaming: how to get smart without really trying.(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter By Steven Johnson Riverhead Books, 2005, $23.95; 238 pages. Everything Bad Is Good for You. Is this title a joke? The subtitle suggests it...

Generational Change: Closing the Test Score Gap.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Generational Change: Closing the Test Score Gap. Edited by Paul Peterson (Rowman & Littlefield). In the controversial 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision, finding for the constitutionality of race-conscious college admissions policies,...

Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem - And What We Should Do About It.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem--And What We Should Do About It. Noah Feldman (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux). Back from an overseas stint helping draft a new Iraqi constitution, Noah Feldman, a prolific NYU law professor,...

School Commercialism: From Democratic Ideal to Market Commodity.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... School Commercialism: From Democratic Ideal to Market Commodity. Alex Molnar (Routledge). Ardent market skeptic Alex Molnar lambastes firms like Pizza Hut and Papa John's for providing rewards to students who meet their reading goals or...

Schooling America: How the Public Schools Meet the Nation's Changing Needs.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Schooling America: How the Public Schools Meet the Nation's Changing Needs. Patricia Albjerg Graham (Oxford). Education historian Patricia Albjerg Graham has penned a sweeping, readable history of American schooling in the 20th century. She...

Tough Love for Schools: Essays on Competition, Accountability, and Excellence.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Tough Love for Schools: Essays on Competition, Accountability, and Excellence. Edited by Frederick M. Hess (AEI Press). Hess, of the American Enterprise Institute (and Education Next), has compiled a rewarding set of 20 essays (several of...

A trip to the Rose Garden: the student who taught me how to teach.(school life)
March 22, 2006... I was 22 and straight out of my Teach For America training when I met Wendall. It was 1996, and he was an 11-year-old 6th grader in my very first class. He immediately caught my eye because he had a proclivity for being "off task." I thought he...