2008

A Guide to Contracting Out School Support Services: Good for the School? Good for the Community?

Wendy — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:32:05 -0600

A Guide to Contracting Out School Support Services: Good for the School? Good for the Community?

Alternative Certification of Teachers

Wendy — Sun, 11 May 2008 23:11:12 -0600

New Policy Brief: Alternative Certification of Teachers

At Sea in a Marketing-Saturated World: The Eleventh Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends: 2007-2008

Wendy — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:18:28 -0600

Three trends identified in the 2007 Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism continued to develop in 2008. Advertising is becoming ever more pervasive; the boundary between advertising and editorial content is becoming less distinct; and the relationship between marketers and consumers is becoming more interactive. Advertisers and marketers are pursuing divergent strategies, both hiding advertising inside ostensibly neutral editorial matter and directly enlisting consumers as agents and collaborators in the ongoing advertising process.

Charter Ranking Roulette: An Analysis of Reports That Grade States’ Charter School Laws

epicpolicy — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:33:25 -0700

Publisher American Journal of Education, 114(2).
Page Numbers 273-298

Educational Innovation and Diversification in School Choice Plans

Wendy — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:58:46 -0600

New Policy Brief: "Educational Innovation and Diversification in School Choice Plans"

Fellows’ Education Letters to the President

Wendy — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:47:24 -0700

Fellows’ Education Letters to the President

Funding Formulas, School Choice, and Inherent Incentives

Wendy — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:44:02 -0600

New Policy Brief: "Funding Formulas, School Choice, and Inherent Incentives"

High Schools Add Classes Scripted by Corporations

WorkStudy — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:29:47 -0600

Author: Anne Marie Chaker
Source: Wall Street Journal

In the newest twist in schoolhouse commercialism, corporations are creating curricula, lesson plans, and materials in the hope that students will become employees.

High Stakes, but Low Validity? A Case Study of Standardized Tests and Admissions into New York City Specialized High Schools

Wendy — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 12:19:08 -0600

High Stakes, but Low Validity? A Case Study of Standardized Tests and Admissions into New York City Specialized High Schools

How Legislation and Litigation Shape School Choice

Wendy — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:20:52 -0600

New Policy Brief: "How Legislation and Litigation Shape School Choice"

Multiple Pathways: 21st Century High Schools that Prepare All Students for College, Career and Civic Participation

Wendy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:23:28 -0700

Multiple Pathways: 21st Century High Schools that Prepare All Students for College, Career and Civic Participation

Negotiating Public and Private: Philosophical Frameworks for School Choice

kevin — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:19:13 -0600

New Policy Brief. "Negotiating Public and Private: Philosophical Frameworks for School Choice"

Preschool Education and Its Lasting Effects: Research and Policy Implications

Wendy — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:12:23 -0600

Preschool Education and Its Lasting Effects: Research and Policy Implications

Profiles of For-Profit Education Management Organizations: 2007-2008

Wendy — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:11:07 -0600

Profiles of For-Profit Educational Management Organizations

Profiles of Nonprofit Education Management Organizations: 2007-2008

Wendy — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 08:38:34 -0700

Profiles of Nonprofit Education Management Organizations: 2007-2008

Promoting ELL Parental Involvement: Challenges in Contested Times

epicpolicy — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:36:20 -0600

This policy brief analyzes factors related to the implementation of effective parental involvement with English Language Learners (ELLs). It analyzes characteristics of the ELL student and parent population; barriers to ELL family engagement with schools; and characteristics of traditional and non-traditional parental involvement models. Diversity in ELL parents and their communities speaks to the need for both traditional and non-traditional models for ELL parental involvement.

Reports on 10 state public opinion surveys on K-12 school choice

Wendy — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:01:15 -0700

The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice has published 10 state reports based on surveys of likely voters in those states. According to the reports, the surveys demonstrate state residents’ endorsement of vouchers allowing parents to send children to private schools. This review finds this conclusion suspect due to several factors. Too many people contacted by phone failed to participate in the survey, thus compromising the generalizability of findings. In addition, many of those surveyed did not know about the educational issues on the surveys, such as voucher policies.

Review of Choice and Education across the States

Wendy — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:26:30 -0600

Choice and Education across the States, published by the Heartland Institute, is an advocacy document that assigns letter grades to states based on the extensiveness of each state’s school choice system. The report asserts, based on a faulty use of past research, that an increase in school choice will strengthen accountability and improve student achievement. It awards most states low grades, reflecting a desire for more school choice throughout the nation.

Review of Education Olympics 2008: The Games in Review

Wendy — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:03:27 -0600

Review of Education Olympics 2008: The Games in Review

Review of High-Achieving Students in the Era of NCLB

Wendy — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:41:59 -0600

A recent report from the Fordham Institute considers potential instructional policies for high-achieving students that should be considered in the forthcoming reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. The report finds: 1) achievement growth among high-achieving students has been slower than that of low-achieving students; 2) this trend can be traced to state accountability practices; and 3) teachers would support new policies targeted to high achievers. This review examines several premises of the report’s conclusions, both implicit and explicit.

Review of Markets vs. Monopolies in Education: A Global Review of the Evidence

Wendy — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:48:16 -0600

The Cato Institute report examines international evidence on outcomes from public and private education. The paper makes three key claims: private schools outperform public schools in “the overwhelming majority of cases”; private schools’ superiority is greatest in countries where the education system has more market features; and “the implications for U.S. education policy are profound.” Each claim is problematic. The first is based on an atypical method of summarizing academic literature and excludes two important research studies.

Review of Promising Start: An Empirical Analysis of How EdChoice Vouchers Affect Ohio Public Schools

Wendy — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 21:28:40 -0600

A Friedman Foundation report attempts to find empirical support for the contention that competition from private schools, through voucher programs, improves the effectiveness of public schools. In the first year of Ohio’s new EdChoice voucher program, the report claims to have found substantial academic gains at public schools exposed to the possibility of losing students to vouchers. Despite being presented as scientifically rigorous, the report suffers from serious methodological shortcomings.

Review of Public Charter Schools: A Great Value for Ohio’s Public Education System

Wendy — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:22:07 -0700

This Buckeye Institute policy brief sets out to document problems and inequities in charter school finance in Ohio, but it falls short in providing a comprehensive presentation of evidence. It ignores relevant research literature and extensive findings from the official state evaluation. It incorrectly assumes that charter schools serve the same types of students and provide the same range of services, and it does so based on only partial revenues.

Review of The Effect of Special Education Vouchers on Public School Achievement

Wendy — Wed, 21 May 2008 20:48:44 -0600

A new report published by the Manhattan Institute for Education Policy, “The Effect of Special Education Vouchers on Public School Achievement: Evidence from Florida’s McKay Scholarship Program,” attempts to examine the complex issue of how competition introduced through school vouchers affects student outcomes in public schools. The possible contributions of this report, however, are outweighed by research design problems, failure to take into account alternative explanations, and unsubstantiated assumptions about the direction of possible selection bias.

Review of The Misplaced Math Student: Lost in Eighth-Grade Algebra

Wendy — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 21:00:06 -0600

Review of The Misplaced Math Student: Lost in Eighth-Grade Algebra