Education Next articles from September 2003

Education Next archives from September 2003

Let's not play favorites: religion, civic values, and public education.(from the editors)(Editorial)
September 22, 2003... Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the city of Cleveland's school voucher program constitutional because it took a neutral stance toward religion. Both religious and secular schooling options were available to parents. Now the political...

Getting paid.(correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... One would think that economist Michael Podgursky ("Fringe Benefits" Check the Facts, Summer 2003) would analyze teachers' salaries through the lens of supply and demand. Such an analysis would not examine teachers' salaries as they are, but...

Second career.(correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... As a former aerospace engineer in my eighth year of a second career as a public high-school physics teacher, I find that Peter Temin and Richard Vedder pretty much get it right in their discussion of teachers' compensation ("Are Teachers...

Does accountability work?(correspondence)
September 22, 2003... Margaret Raymond and Eric Hanushek harshly criticize (see "High-Stakes Research," Feature, Summer 2003) our study of high-stakes testing policies. Before reporting the results from our study, the New York Times journalist obtained feedback from...

Too soon to tell.(correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... In "Locked Down" (Feature, Summer 2003), Ronald Brownstein questions the efficacy of the No Child Left Behind Act's school choice provisions. For one thing, it is a little too soon to draw conclusions based on anecdotal data in the first year...

Vox pupils.(correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... The Koret Task Force on K-12 education ("Are We Still at Risk?" Forum, Spring 2003) left a crucial group out of its assessment of the education system: students. No students were on the task force, and none was even involved in determining...

Central planning.(correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... E.D. Hirsch contends that certain "nationalized, bureaucratic, nonmarket education systems" such as Japan's develop higher-order skills not by directly teaching such skills but by paying close attention to the "sequence and coherence of...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
September 22, 2003... In the second paragraph of "Philosopher or King?" (Richard Kahlenberg, Feature, Summer 2003), the phrase "of all things" was inadvertently introduced.

Lifting the barrier: eliminating the state-mandated licensure of principals and superintendents is the first step in recruiting and training a generation of leaders capable of transforming America's schools.(forum)
September 22, 2003... IN THE EARLY 1990S, IBM HAD FALLEN ON HARD TIMES. THE LEADER of the personal-computing revolution was losing billions of dollars a year and looking for a new CEO. Observers were aghast when the board of directors recruited Lou Gersmer, CEO of...

Out with the old: university-based school administration programs are incoherent, undercapitalized, and disconnected from the districts where graduates are most likely to seek employment. There is much to be learned from the way business and the military train their leaders.(forum)
September 22, 2003... LIKE FREDERICK HESS (SEE "LIFTING THE BARRIER," PAGE 12), I BELIEVE that the nation's graduate schools of education have largely failed to develop the kinds of leaders needed in K-12 education. However, I fear that his solution--virtually...

The power to perform: attracting nontraditional leaders to education will require increasing their authority and compensation, conditioned on getting results.(forum)
September 22, 2003... The traditional way of finding candidates for school leadership positions is not a promising path to finding new talent or fostering needed changes in schools and school systems. The best way is to spread the word that public education seeks,...

The neutrality principle: the Supreme Court will soon reconsider Washington State's revoking of Joshua Davey's college scholarship after he decided to major in theology. Will its decision render the Blaine amendments, provisions of state constitutions that prohibit aid to religious schools, unconstitutional?(feature)
September 22, 2003... THE LAW REGARDING VOUCHERS is in the midst of fundamental change. About a year ago, no one knew whether voucher programs could include private religious schools without running afoul of the First Amendment's establishment clause. That clause...

Disabling the SAT: how the College Board is undermining its premier test.(feature)
September 22, 2003... IN 1999, AFTER TAKING THE GRADUATE MANAGEMENT Admission Test (GMAT), the standardized exam required of applicants to business schools, Mark Breimhorst sued the test's maker, the powerful Educational Testing Service (ETS). Breimhorst was born...

The near end of bilingual: Prop 227 was supposed to eliminate bilingual education from California's schools. For the most part, it succeeded--and student performance is climbing slowly upward.(feature)
September 22, 2003... BILINGUAL EDUCATION'S 26-YEAR REIGN IN CALIFORNIA was supposed to end with the voters' passage of Proposition 227 in June 1998. The proposition declared: All children in California public schools shall be taught English by being...

Puzzled states: the success of the No Child Left Behind Act largely depends on the states' willingness and ability to implement the law. Will Washington grant them a hearing?(feature)
September 22, 2003... IN JANUARY 2002, PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH signed a comprehensive revision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Known popularly as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and passed with strong bipartisan support in Congress, this...

The politics of No Child Left Behind: lessons from the Clinton years taught Washingtonians that dollars need to be tied to gains in student performance. But did the need to build consensus give too much leeway to state capitols?(research)
September 22, 2003... THE SCENE IN JANUARY 2002 WAS A CIVICS TEXT COME TO LIFE. FLANKED by jubilant members of Congress and standing in front of a cheering crowd, President George W. Bush declared the start of a "new era" in American public education with the...

Tug of war: the Right wants schools to inculcate civic values. So does the Left. Which is why the public schools should avoid civic education altogether.
September 22, 2003... FIERCE DEBATE OVER civic education in America's public schools has erupted in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Broadly speaking, liberal approaches to civic education have emphasized the need to resist jingoism and to...

Critical demagogues: what happens when ideology and teaching mix.(check the facts)
September 22, 2003... To the egoistic and asocial being that has just been born, [society] must, as rapidly as possible, add another, capable of leading a moral and social life. Such is the work of education. --Emile Durkheim, 1911 "Critical pedagogy" a...

Progressively worse: the pantheon of misguided educational philosophers grows.(Getting it Wrong from the Beginning: Our Progressivist Inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget)(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... By Kieran Egan Yale University Press, 2002, $25; 224 pp. "Success has many fathers," an old saying goes, "while failure is an orphan." However, in the case of progressive education--a failure if ever there was one--the list of...

Sensitivity training: history and literature, heavily edited.(The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn)(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... By Diane Ravitch Alfred A. Knopf, 2003, $24; 255 pages Broadly defined, "political correctness" means being excessively sensitive to the fact that almost anything one says or writes can be found objectionable if one searches far enough...

The Global Education Industry.(Books from the IEA)(Lessons from Private Education in Developing Countries, Second Edition)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Lessons from Private Education in Developing Countries James Tooley Foreword by Birgitta Kantola Price $22.50 plus shipping The first edition of this pioneering book produced surprising conclusions from research around the world into the...

HIV and Aids in Schools.(Books from the IEA)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... The Political Economy of Pressure Groups and Miseducation Barrie Craven, Pauline Dixon, Gordon Stewart and James Tooley Price $18.00 plus shipping HIV and Aids teaching is compulsory in British schools but the content is not prescribed....

Buckingham at 25.(Books from the IEA)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Freeing the Universities from State Control Edited by James Tooley Foreword by Martin Jacomb Price $27.00 plus shipping The University of Buckingham is Britain's only fully independent university. It was founded in 1976 by group of...

Ignorance and confidence: keys to successful education reform?(education matters to me)
September 22, 2003... Mark Twain once said," To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence" Despite the irony, Twain may have been on to something when it comes to standards-based education reform. Ignorance and confidence were about all I had...