Joanne Jacobs takes a look at Stuart Buck’s Acting White: The Ironic Legacy of Desegregation. Buck’s an interesting guy who brings both credentials and experience to the issue. He’s a classical musician, lawyer (Harvard) and scholar who writes on legal as well as education issues. He’s a white dad of six, including an adopted black [...]
Ohio education blogger Colleen Grady asks some good questions about graduation requirements and the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT). Thirty-two Middletown seniors who failed the OGT were not allowed to walk with their class at commencement. But three others were. These students passed an “alternate assessment.” According to the Ohio Revised Code, students can use the [...]
In what American Thinker‘s Thomas Lifson calls “a remarkable display of self-degradation,” New York State judges are thinking of joining New York’s largest teachers’ union, the United Federation of Teachers. According to the New York Post, some judges– fed up over a lack of raises for 11 years– have decided it’s time to “get some [...]
The folks who designed the No Child Left Behind legislation no doubt had their collective hearts in the right place, but they neglected to take human nature into account. After all, increasing student learning isn’t the only way to meet proficiency goals. Another way is to define down what it means to be proficient. And [...]
Jay Mathews makes a candid confession at Class Struggle: He didn’t think there there was much to the claim that schools are short-changing boys, but reading Richard Whitmire’s new book changed his mind. Mathews is a breath of fresh air compared to Wellesley College’s Susan McGee Bailey, who argues stubbornly that this is not a [...]
The meme in education circles has changed in the last few days. The focus has shifted from Race to the Top to Ed Secretary Arne Duncan and the Obama administration’s Department of Education. Instead of asking just how much the states will have to change and do to have a chance at billions in grant [...]