Author
Paul E. Peterson
Articles
A Courageous Look at the American High School
The legacy of James Coleman
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Video: Paul E. Peterson talks with Nathan Glazer
What Happens When States Have Genuine Alternative Certification?
We get more minority teachers and test scores rise
The Persuadable Public
The 2009 Education Next-PEPG Survey asks if information changes minds about school reform.
For-Profit and Nonprofit Management in Philadelphia Schools
What kind of management does better than the district-run schools?
What Is Good for General Motors
For years, our public schools have paid as little attention to personnel costs as General Motors has.
The 2008 Education Next-PEPG Survey of Public Opinion
Americans think less of their schools than of their police departments and post offices
Ticket to Nowhere
In the wake of A Nation at Risk, educators pledged to focus anew on student achievement. Two decades later, little progress has been made
The Children Left Behind
Now it is certain, on its third anniversary, that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a monumental achievement. The accountability provisions of the law shine a bright light on the performance of schools across the nation, forcing many of them to attend to long-ignored problems.
But new evidence confirms what was known when the law [...]
Johnny Can Read…in Some States
Johnny can’t read … in South Carolina. But if his folks move to Texas, he’ll be reading up a storm. What’s going on?
It turns out that in complying with the requirements of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), some states have decided to be a whole lot more generous than others in determining whether students are [...]
Of Teacher Shortages and Quality
Good teaching—the kind that can routinely raise student achievement—is the most valuable of all education resources. When a teacher inspires, children learn, even when the building is antiquated, the Internet is missing, and classes are bigger than usual.
So teacher quality matters. A lot. Yet the standard measure of quality today, the teaching credential or [...]
Blog Posts/Multimedia
Saving Schools and Virtual Schooling
Video: Education Next’s Paul E. Peterson talks about his new book, Saving Schools, and about the advantages of virtual schooling, with Nathan Glazer.
We Need Fewer Teachers, Not More
In Sunday’s NYT, Elizabeth Green explains beautifully the challenges of classroom teaching. She says we will need millions of additional teachers to cover baby boom retirements, and wonders how we can find enough good ones. The answer is that we can’t.
The New Normal for Federal Education Spending
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week about whether the federal share of education spending is likely to remain at 15 percent and whether the $1 billion bonus for reauthorizing ESEA this year is likely to be awarded.
A Virtual Race to the Top
Now that the first round of Race to the Top awards have been announced, we can appreciate the impact that this new federal initiative is having on stimulating new thinking at state and local levels. Promising money to states if they come up with sensible ideas seems to work more effectively than punishing schools and districts for low performance. But some of the truly bold new ideas in education today are escaping the attention of RttT policymakers.
Has Integration Made Raleigh’s Schools Great?
Video: Nathan Glazer talks with Education Next about whether the policy of assigning students to schools to achieve socioeconomic diversity in Raleigh-Wake County has worked.
Diane Ravitch on “the Nature of Markets”
Ignoring basic economic principles, Ravitch asks us to keep intact our hopelessly disabled school system, now stagnant for half a century or more. She thinks she can get American schools to adopt her favored curricular reforms—even though they have refused to do so despite her multi-decade advocacy.
Choice and Residential Segregation
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week about a new Fordham Institute report identifying 2800 public schools that only prosperous kids can attend. A more choice-based public school system, such as the one endorsed by a new Brookings Institution report, would provide more opportunities for poor kids to attend better schools, they note.
What’s Next in Education: Common Ground or Battle Ground?
Are the right and the left coming together on education policy? President Obama’s budget address is encouraging, if ambiguous. Looking elsewhere, one also finds mixed signals. Consider the two reports that came out last week, one on charter school segregation by a UCLA group headed by Professor Gary Orfield, the other a Brookings report headed by Grover Whitehurst, the widely respected former head of the Institute of Education Sciences.
How Vouchers Came to New Orleans
Video: Michael Henderson talks with Education Next about how Louisiana managed to pass a voucher law.
Obama is Getting the Message
A few days ago I urged the President to shift education upward on the national agenda. Now it appears that he had already anticipated the upset in Massachusetts and was beginning to make the grand pivot even before election day.
Washington Post Wrong in Calling RttT the Largest Federal Education Expenditure
The $4.35 billion or so dollars spent on the Race to the Top, coupled with the extra billion now proposed by the president, is small beer compared to the $75 billion dollars that the stimulus package handed over to local districts for programming as usual. Yet the Administration has succeeded in persuading the allegedly skeptical, tough-minded reporters in Washington that RttT is the biggest federal education program ever mounted.
If Only Obama Had Made Himself the Education President. . .
Even more than the current presidential approval rating of 48 percent, Republican Senator-elect Scott Brown’s morning-after celebration just one year to the day after Barack Obama took the oath of office tells us that something has gone wrong with the President’s governing strategy.
How Much Teacher Unions Spend in Your State
Teacher unions are quietly undermining charter and merit pay legislation that is supposed to help states “race to the top.” To exercise such power, a hefty cash box comes in handy.
Studies Find No Effects
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week (Jan. 7) about whether randomized field trials in education should be abandoned, since they so rarely find that the treatments have any effects.
New York Times on the Wall Street Journal: The Stove Pot Calling the Mixing Bowl Black
In what is certain to be the top hilarity story of the week, New York Times columnist David Carr “thoughtfully” reveals what he sees as the drift to the right on the part of his company’s great rival, the Wall Street Journal.
Focus of School Reform Shifting to Teachers
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week about whether teacher quality is eclipsing accountability and choice as a reform strategy and what role research plays in this.
Are Middle Schools or Middle Schoolers the Problem?
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week (Dec. 10) about why it is so hard to talk to adolescents
about school and what schools can do to encourage parent involvement.
Technological Innovation is Our Best and Final Hope for Saving High Quality Math and Science Education
More than half of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are immigrants, wrote Paul Kedrosky and Brad Feld in a Wall Street Journal editorial last Wednesday. Kedrosky and Feld cite this fact to argue that visas for talented foreigners are desperately needed to sustain the growth sectors in the American economy. Their point is well taken, but the fix is only short term. The United States needs to begin growing its own creative talent by educating the best of our young people in science, math, and cognitive science skills from an early age.
Biggest Spender in Politics: The NEA
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week (Dec. 4) about what the National Education Association is buying with its campaign contributions, which total $56.3 million and exceed the campaign contributions made by any other organization in America.
Is the Decline of the Mainstream Press Bad for Education?
Education is the top in only 1.4 percent of news coverage by television, radio, newspapers and news web sites, a report issued by the Brookings Institution tells us. Should we be distressed? Perhaps, but we shouldn’t be surprised.
Race to the Top Versus the Money Chase
The National Education Association (and its local affiliates) gave $56.3 million dollars to state and federal election campaigns in 2007 and 2008, more than any other entity. The much smaller American Federation of Teachers tossed in another $12 million dollars into political campaigns. This enormous cash nexus that swamps anything any business entity has contributed creates a huge problem for Arne Duncan.
Saving Jobs or Stimulating Reform?
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week (Nov. 24) about the effect of the stimulus package on education, a sector that has proven to be very good at job creation.
Election Postmortem
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week (Nov. 19) about what the results of the 2009 off-year elections mean for education.
Will Congress Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut?
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week (Nov. 4) about a bill passed by the House that would send $8 billion to states to boost the quality of preschools and expand the number of preschool spots for disadvantaged children.
Stimulating Stagnation in Education
According to a New York Times report, the Obama Administration admits that over half of the jobs it created or saved by its stimulus package were in the field of education. Had that money really been spent in ways to promote educational productivity, it would have been faithful to the investment goals of the stimulus package.
Voters Choose Neighborhood Schools over Socioeconomic Diversity
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week (October 29) about Wake County, North Carolina, where voters earlier this month elected new school board members who have pledged to undo the county’s controversial policy of assigning students to schools based on income (to achieve diversity).
In Memoriam: Theodore Sizer
What is most important is that Sizer, as establishment a figure in education as any, never forgot what was most important: searching for the successful ways of educating the next generation.
The Nobel Committee Isn’t the Only One Giving Speculative Prizes
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week (October 22) about wishful thinking in the education reform community. Do school reformers need to temper their enthusiasm about the reform du jour?
Instead of Creating Charters, Just Incarcerate the Students
A Massachusetts state commission has solved the high school drop-out problem. Just incarcerate the students. That’s the thrust of its recommendation.
Nobel Prize Winner Elinor Ostrom and Her Theory of Co-Production
The selection of political scientist Elinor Ostrom as worthy of a Nobel prize in economics has been as astonishing to many economists as was the choice of President Obama as peacemaker of the year. In her case, the question is not “What has she done?” but “Who is she?” To those of us influenced by her work, however, her selection has been deeply satisfying.
Teacher Specialization
Video: Frederick Hess talks with Education Next about reading specialists, den mothers, and teacher pay in the 21st century.
Will Michelle Rhee Triumph?
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week (October 14) about education politics in Washington, D.C., where Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee recently fired 229 teachers.
Will the Federal Role in Education Double?
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week about Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s recent speech, the future of federal education spending, and making NCLB’s successor tighter about ends and looser about means.
Charter Schools Narrow Achievement Gaps in New York City
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk about Caroline Hoxby’s random assignment study of student achievement in charter schools in New York City.
Evaluation of D.C. Voucher Program
Video: Patrick Wolf talks with Education Next about his “gold standard” evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and about the likely future of that program.
Liberating Learning
Political scientists Terry Moe and John Chubb have shifted their bets from that spoke of the school-reform roulette wheel named “school voucher” to one marked “technological innovation.”
How Much Support Is There for Merit Pay?
Opinion on merit pay has yet to consolidate in one direction or another, as a lot of people have yet to make up their mind.
What Congress Is Not Working On
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. gab about NCLB this week, and consider whether the law will be reauthorized by 2014, which is the deadline for all students to achieve proficiency.
Charter Schools, Unions, and Linking Teachers with Student Achievement Data
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. discuss the week’s education news, including an announcement that a charter school in Massachusetts has signed a collective bargaining agreement with its teachers, an agreement that includes merit pay.
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