Author
Paul E. Peterson
Articles
The International Experience
What U.S. schools can and cannot learn from other countries
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Photos: Additional images from the Education Next-PEPG Conference
The Public Weighs In on School Reform
Intense controversies do not alter public thinking, but teachers differ more sharply than ever
Eighth-Grade Students Learn More Through Direct Instruction
Students learned 3.6 percent of a standard deviation more if the teacher spent 10 percent more time on direct instruction. That’s one to two months of extra learning during the course of the year.
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, [...]
Happy 10th Anniversary, Education Next!
Over the decade, we have witnessed—perhaps contributed to—the advance of school reform.
Meeting of the Minds
The 2010 EdNext-PEPG Survey shows that, on many education reform issues, Democrats and Republicans hardly disagree
State Standards Rise in Reading, Fall in Math
Most state standards remain far below international level
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View the Underlying Data
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 [...]
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
The Right Role for the Federal Government
Give parents the information they need to pick their school of choice
Teacher Unions, Mac the Knife, and Dollar Power
During the 2010-11 fiscal year, the NEA invested $18.8 million dollars in a bewildering array of grateful non-profit groups and organizations
Resist Those Calls for the Formation of a Third Party
A lot of people, unhappy with both the Obama Administration and the Republican alternative, are searching for a middle way.
What Do the Latest NAEP Scores Tell Us about NCLB?
Did the federal law, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), close the education gap? Now that Congress is talking about reauthorizing NCLB, it struck me that it would be worthwhile to see what the latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tell us about the direction the nation has moved in the years since the law was passed.
Views of EdNext Readers In Line With Those of General Public (except on Teachers Unions)
Ed Next readers—or at least those who participate in our polls—are not all that different from the public at large, except that they seem to know more about the issues and are thus more inclined to take a position on them. That’s what we discovered when we asked the same questions of readers as were posed to a representative cross-section of the public as a whole in 2011.
Jeb Bush, Melinda Gates, Sal Khan and the Coming Digital Learning Battle
The debate between blended and online learning will continue. Too much politically is at stake for it to be otherwise.
Regardless of Who is to Blame, Accountability and Merit Pay are Taking Some Heat in Texas
I am encouraged when Sandy Kress tells me that the moves away from accountability and merit pay that have taken place recently in Texas were forced upon Governor Rick Perry and Robert Scott, the state’s education commissioner, by legislative pressures beyond their control.
Is Rick Perry Abandoning School Accountability and Merit Pay?
Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott was in enemy territory recently, telling the folks at Massachusetts’s Pioneer Institute (including some who favor Romney, such as myself [full disclosure] ) about the virtues of the Texas education system, a topic of national significance now that Rick Perry’s chariot has leaped to lead position in the Republican presidential nomination race.
Do Rich People Know What’s Going On in Their Local Schools?
The savvy, well-heeled people who populate our affluent suburbs are expected to know what is going on. Those who send their children to public school settle only for the best. Not surprisingly, most are happy with what they get. Yet it turns out that many, probably most, of the schools in affluent neighborhoods deserve no better than a “C.”
Public Wants Single-Sex School Option, Even Though Professors Do Not
If there is no evidence as to which type of schooling is to be preferred, why not let parents choose which type of schooling is best for their child?
Power to the Principals
Podcast: Paul Peterson and Chester Finn discuss a study of Chicago principals who were given the power to choose which teachers to fire.
Obama’s Jobs Bill Takes from States and Cities as Much as It Gives Them
Now that President Obama has let both the expenditure and revenue-raising shoes drop, it is clear that the costs to state and local governments of the new jobs bill could very well equal—perhaps exceed—the benefits they might receive.
An Easy Way to Calculate the Rising Cost of Schooling
Information on the cost and performance of the Wellesley Public Schools may be available somewhere else in the vast reaches of the internet, but to quickly access accurate information you have to go to education.com
A Year Late and a Million (?) Dollars Long—the U. S. Proficiency Standards Report
The U. S. government just provided the public with much the same information Education Next shared with readers a year ago: A comparison of state standards in reading and math at the 4th and 8th grade levels.
With a Math Proficiency Rate of 32 Percent, U.S. Ranks Number 32
Thirty-two percent of U.S. students in the class of 2011 were proficient in mathematics when they were in 8th grade. Coincidentally, that places the United States in 32nd place among the 65 nations of the world that participated in PISA, my colleagues and I report today.
NCLB Waivers
Podcast: Paul Peterson and Chester Finn discuss efforts by Arne Duncan to give states some leeway with respect to NCLB.
Education.com Tells Me How Much I Pay—and What I Get
Now that I know how much is being spent, I realize little more is to be gained from spending more.
How Obama Will End the Debt Crisis on His Own Hook: The NCLB Precedent
Substituting presidential preferences for explicit laws passed by Congress is an extraordinary invocation of executive power, but Secretary Duncan says it is necessary to take such actions because of the NCLB stalemate. That stalemate is small potatoes compared to the debt crisis.
GOP Candidates on Education
Podcast: Paul Peterson and Chester Finn discuss education policy and the Republican candidates for president.
Shouldn’t the Public Sector Share the Pain?
If the right cuts are made, the public sector can remain equally effective but operate in a more efficient manner.
President’s Approval Rating Turns Negative: Not accidentally, bipartisanship does too
Two numbers that have come out since last Friday are depressing the chances for action on federal education policy. Everyone now knows that employment ticked upward to 9.2 percent, but few have noticed that Obama’s Real Clear Politics (RCP) job approval rating, positive for most of 2011, turned negative early Sunday morning.
School Board Wagnerian Opera—Why Not?
Would it be possible to get some opera company – perhaps students at some adventurous school for the performing arts – to do a school-reform Ring cycle?
Rhee’s Popularity Rises with the Public, but Not with the Powerful
Michelle Rhee’s public popularity has shifted upward, but the elites who chair the committee set up by the National Research Council to assess Rhee’s chancellorship are holding firm to their anti-Rhee convictions, no matter what the evidence.
Do Merit Pay Systems Work? What Can We Learn from International Data?
Recently, Education Next released a path-breaking, peer-reviewed study by Ludger Woessmann which estimated long-term impacts of merit pay arrangements for teachers on student performance. Even though the study was executed with great care and sophistication a group which receives funding from teacher unions has persuaded a reviewer to write a misleading critique of the paper.
The Longevity Increase—What?
Teacher union leaders are outraged that the Watertown, Mass. school committee has rejected a negotiated contract that would give them a longevity increase. That’s extra payment for just “Being There.”
Michelle Rhee v. Her Critics
What’s the evidence that Rhee was no better than her predecessors? And that other cities are doing just as well?
Taking the Measure of Michelle Rhee
Podcast: Paul Peterson analyzes two new reports on Michelle Rhee’s performance as D.C.’s Schools Chancellor and describes his new findings on the gains made by D.C. students.
Why Mayoral Control Works: Evidence from New York City
It is hard to imagine a school board finding a way to reverse its decision within a three-month period. But for Bloomberg, the price was too high. If he was to keep his own mayoralty on track he had to master the problem at Tweed Hall without delay.
DC Children Can Thank Boehner— and Randomized Trials
Boehner deserves a thank you from the children of the District of Columbia for knowing how to play the one best policy card at his disposal. But Boehner could not have played that card had he not had convincing evidence that the voucher program he was trying to restore had been effective.
Educating Rita: Digital Learning in the Sixties
“Educating Rita” makes the case both for digital learning and for end-of-the year external examinations.
Are Experienced Teachers Really That Much Better?
Unions like to concentrate big salary gains—and pension benefits—on the more experienced teachers, because those are the teachers who tend to have clout within the schoolhouse and inside the union.
A Pedagogical Divide in the World of Digital Learning
Digital learning is coming but the battle over its form and content is just beginning.
The Education School Master’s Degree Factory
Simply by giving up the extra payment awarded to teachers with master’s degrees, school districts in Florida could save better than 3 percent of their teaching personnel costs without losing any of their classroom effectiveness.
Every Number Needs a Denominator
One judges a country’s educational system capacity to challenge its most talented students by calculating the proportion of its students that are advanced in math, science and reading, not the raw number.
Eliminating those Pesky Education Earmarks
With the Democratic walk-out in Wisconsin, all bets are off on what only recently seemed to be the possibility of a bipartisan consensus on what to do about No Child Left Behind. But that does not mean that 2011 will not see significant action on federal education policy.
When It Comes to Collective Bargaining, States Should Follow the Feds
I am hopeful that the president will endorse a policy that has enabled him to take initial steps to reduce federal deficits. He should not disparage governors who seek similar authority at the state level in order to help solve their own pressing fiscal problems.
National Democratic Party Supports Attack on the Democratic Process
The unmitigated partisan harangue is annoying. Far more disturbing, however, is the refusal by Democratic legislators to participate in the democratic process simply because their views are currently in the minority.
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