Author
Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Articles
Can Digital Learning Transform Education?
Education Next talks with Chester E. Finn, Jr., and Michael B. Horn
Exam Schools from the Inside
Racially diverse, subject to collective bargaining, fulfilling a need
First, We Need a Brand New K–12 System
Part 1 of a forum on whether digital learning can transform education
A Battle Begun, Not Won
The following essay is part of a forum, written in honor of Education Next’s 10th anniversary, in which the editors assessed the school reform movement’s victories and challenges to see just how successful reform efforts have been. For the other side of the debate, please see Pyrrhic Victories? by Frederick M. Hess, Michael J. Petrilli, [...]
Authorizing Charters
Helping mom-and-pops in Ohio
Education Data in 2025
Fifteen years hence, we will know exactly how well our schools, teachers, and students are doing
E Pluribus Unum?
Two longtime school reformers debate the merits of a national curriculum
The Preschool Picture
Universal preschool will be a boon for middle-class parents. How it will help poor kids catch up is not so obvious.
More Money for Less Accountability?
I don’t think so!
Troublemaker
The education of Chester Finn
Crash Course
NCLB is driven by education politics
What Innovators Can, and Cannot, Do
Squeezing into local markets and cutting deals
A New New Federalism
The case for national standards and tests
Selective Reporting
Quality Counts 2001, A Better Balance: Standards, Tests, and the Tools to Succeed by the editors of Education Week
Just the Facts
School Figures: The Data Behind the Debate
by Hanna Skandera and Richard Sousa
Hoover Institution, 2003, $15; 342 pp.
Faulty Engineering
The diversity of values within American society renders public schools ill-equipped to produce the engaged citizens our democracy requires
Lost at Sea
Early 20th century Progressive reformers established elected school boards as a means of shielding public school systems from the politics and patronage of corrupt city governments. Citizens, rather than political dons or their favored appointees, would govern the community’s schools with the community’s interests at heart. Today, however, elected school boards, especially in America’s troubled [...]
Book Alert
The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market, by Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane; Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap, by Richard Rothstein; Leaving No Child Behind? Options for Kids in Failing Schools, by Frederick M. Hess and Chester E. Finn Jr., eds.; Standards Deviation: How Schools Misunderstand Education Policy, by James P. Spillane
Paying Teachers Properly
That the uniform salary “schedule” for teachers is obsolete and dysfunctional is a truth widely accepted but rarely challenged.
Tread on Me—but Lightly
The Era of Big Government Is Complicated
Things Are Falling Apart
Can the center find a solution that will hold?
Blog Posts/Multimedia
Why Private Schools Are Dying Out
A few elite institutions at both the grade-school and college levels are doing better than ever. But their health conceals the collapse of private-sector options in the U.S.
For Pete’s Sake, Let’s Try It
Why so bleak about parent triggers?
Conservatives and the Common Core
When a group of state leaders, many of them Republicans, can come together to set expectations for the curricular core that surpass what most of them set on their own, conservatives ought to applaud, not lash out
Will the Assessment Consortia Wither Away?
If ACT and College Board scarf up much state business, there won’t be a lot left for the consortia.
Texas: Big, Proud…and Wimpy?
By scrapping ten of the state’s fifteen “end of course” exams, Texas essentially forfeits uniform academic expectations and returns to the days when individual districts, schools, and teachers decided which students get diploma credit for which classes.
Margaret Thatcher, Education Reformer
Foreign policy isn’t all that Margaret Thatcher and her team had in common with Ronald Reagan and his. The 1980s also saw much crossing of the Atlantic—in both directions—by their education advisers, too.
Accountability Dilemmas
A useful new report from Public Agenda and the Kettering Foundation underscores the painful divide between parents and education reformers on the crucial topic of what to do about bad schools.
Education Governance for the Twenty-First Century
Perhaps the biggest failing of the education system is its fragmented approach to making decisions. There are too many cooks in the education system and nobody is really in charge.
Obama for Governor!
But first clean up Head Start
The Issue Left Behind
Republicans and education reform
On Closing Schools
Secretary Duncan and his team were mobbed the other day by agitated parents and kids protesting the closing of public schools around the land.
Cutting to the Chase
As the U.S. education world eagerly awaits more information about the new assessments that two consortia are developing to accompany the Common Core standards, big questions remain about cut scores.
Gifted Students Have ‘Special Needs,’ Too
Are our national education-reform priorities cheating America’s intellectually ablest girls and boys? Yes—and the consequence is a human capital catastrophe for the United States.
Oh, Starr-y Superintendent
Joshua Starr has emerged as a fully fledged anti-reformer, pushing back against the sorts of changes that the Joel Kleins, Arne Duncans, and Jeb Bushes are striving to make.
Revamping Teacher Preparation and Licensure
The Council of Chief State School Officers has come forth with a sober, comprehensive, and exceptionally well-thought-out set of recommendations for fundamentally revamping the preparation and licensure of both teachers and principals.
MOOCs in Size Small, Please
Could MOOCs work in K–12 education, too?
Just How Potent Are Teacher Unions?
Are union biceps as brawny as ever, or growing flabby with age? Short answer: It depends, particularly on which state you look at.
Getting Real about the Common Core
States today have sharply divergent views of what stakes, if any, to attach to test results for kids.
College Board Snags Gates Veteran Stefanie Sanford
The College Board will re-appear as a lead actor on the ed-reform policy stage and we are apt to see it spearheading major developments in both K–12 and higher education.
Inequality for All: The Challenge of Unequal Opportunity in American Schools
This wonky but important book is a distinctive, deeply researched, and amply documented plea for full-scale implementation of the Common Core math standards.
Bar Exam for Teachers?
Thanks, Randi, for a proposal that would make Al proud—and that could conceivably do American education some good.
Jeb Bush on Education Reform
I don’t know whether his hat is edging into the 2016 presidential election ring, but I do know that Jeb Bush gave a heck of an education keynote on Tuesday morning at the national summit convened in Washington by his Florida-based Foundation for Excellence in Education.
Let a New Teacher-Union Debate Begin
Examining the power—and the impact—of education’s 800-pound gorilla
The Election Contests that Really Matter
The states are where the action is
Indiana and the Common Core: Tony Bennett Got It Right
Tony Bennett is bogged down in a two-front war in his bid for reelection as Indiana’s State Superintendent.
The Best Bargain in American Education
Exam schools are a good value, indeed a real bargain, not just for thousands of young Americans and their families, but also for the wider society
Gotham’s Exam-School Problem
The NAACP filed a federal civil-rights complaint against New York City, alleging that the special test used for admission to selective public high schools is discriminatory.
How the Common Core Changes Everything
Implementation, done right, must be comprehensive. Which means what?
Common Standards≠ National Curriculum
Dana Goldstein has written a mostly on-target profile of David Coleman, who takes the helm of the College Board in just a few weeks. Here are a couple of things she doesn’t get exactly right.
The Chicago Strike’s Silver Lining
What this episode demonstrated was that what teacher unions care about has practically nothing to do with what’s good for the kids and everything to do with what teachers want for themselves.
Young, Gifted, and Neglected
Smart kids shouldn’t have to go to private schools or get turned away from Bronx Science or Thomas Jefferson simply because there’s no room for them.
Maintenance of Inefficiency
School district officials who have attempted to do more with less have been stymied by federal maintenance-of-effort requirements for special education.
Vouchers − Darwin= ??
How upset should one be that some of the private schools participating in Louisiana’s new voucher program teach creationism and reject evolution?
Raising the Floor, but Neglecting the Ceiling
The demand for rigorous gifted and talented programs and high schools like TJ vastly outstrips the supply.
Even with Limited Leverage, Uncle Sam Can Promote School Choice
Romney’s plan to voucherize Title I and IDEA has considerable merit—but it’s not the only way the federal government could foster school choice and it might not even be the best way.
The Credit-Recovery Scam
The flap over quality control, academic fraud, false claims, and shortcuts in the world of credit recovery will not die down until American education (and the elected officials who set its key policies) face up to two realities.
Rigorous National Standards: Necessary but Not Sufficient
One major reason for our slipshod academic performance is the disorderly, dysfunctional way we’ve been handling academic standards.
Disruptive Innovation and Independent Public Schools
Independent public schools of choice could turn out to be as disruptive to traditional education systems as those crummy little Sony radios turned out to be to the vacuum-tube behemoths and as Honda was to Detroit.
Confessions of a Former Luddite
Not so long ago, I doubted that computers, cell phones, and the internet would make any more difference in American education than television had.
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