At a school where a student drowned, more than one lesson to be learned
Four years ago, at an open house for his new middle school, I met Jose Maldonado, the New York City principal who may be put on probation after one of his students drowned on a field trip to the beach. Afterward, I wrote in the New York Sun that the school, Columbia Secondary School for […]
To raise test scores, plant a garden
Ignoring tests could be a great way to improve test scores, or so suggested a story in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. In response to pressure to raise achievement, administrators at a struggling New Jersey school planted a garden. They also added a peer-mediation program and invited “scholars to teach art, dance and music.” […]
Why the anger at closing bad schools?
A court decision last week blocking New York City’s efforts to shut down 19 failing schools may be the end of that fight, but more heated battles over whether to close schools are likely to crop up in New York and elsewhere in the coming months. The federal government is now in the process of handing […]
Saving teachers vs. saving reform: A false dichotomy?
UPDATE: The House has passed the military spending bill which includes the $10 billion teacher jobs saving measure. President Obama has threatened a veto it. First, though, the bill has to be reconciled with a Senate bill passed in May, and that could take a while. – A proposal to move a chunk of money […]
Charter schools hurt the rich but help the poor, says a new report
A new national study on charter schools will likely have the charter skeptics cheering: Mathematica researchers have found that charter schools make no significant impact on student test scores. That’s the big takeaway, but digging more deeply, the data reveal a complicated picture of whom charter schools help, and whom they hurt. Students who are already doing well […]
Small schools mean big progress, says MDRC report
In the latest look at New York City’s small school strategy, which some argue is the special ingredient in the city’s efforts to improve its graduation rate over the past eight years, MDRC confirms past findings that kids in small schools do better than their counterparts in the rest of the school system. The small schools had an […]
Charter school has “substantial impact,” but the debate goes on
A study out today finds that the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), one of the most well-known charter school operators in the country, “substantially” impacts student test scores in reading and math. Half of the KIPP schools in the study are on their way to cutting the black-white achievement gap in half in three years, […]
Want a career? Go to college, says new report
The Obama administration’s education reform slogan for public-school students might seem a little open-ended to some – what does it really mean for kids to be college- and career-ready, after all? The findings from a report released today by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce suggest that perhaps the president’s saying should […]
Are charter schools succeeding because they hold students back?
Social promotion — the practice of allowing children to move on to the next grade level with their age-group, even if they’ve performed poorly — is one of those contentious issues in education that, depending on whom you ask, you can get an earful about why it’s either critical to long-term student success or destroying public education. Over […]
Should schools help children develop their inner beasts?
David Brooks invented an odd but rather endearing way of thinking about the benefits of studying the humanities in his New York Times column today, which he calls getting in touch with one’s inner beast, “The Big Shaggy.” He argues that college students – whether they’re studying accounting or engineering – need exposure to the […]
