Education Next

Meeting of the Minds

The 2010 EdNext-PEPG Survey shows that, on many education reform issues, Democrats and Republicans hardly disagree
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Video: Marty West and Paul Peterson discuss the survey.

The 2010 Education Next-PEPG Survey

Complete Results

State Standards Rising in Reading but Not in Math

Most state standards remain far below international level
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View the Underlying Data

Competition and Charters Spur Innovation

School markets are creative, not static

Charter High Schools

Promising results from charters that educate teens

A Courageous Look at the American High School

The legacy of James Coleman

A Recession for Schools

Not as bad as it sounds

What Happens When States Have Genuine Alternative Certification?

We get more minority teachers and test scores rise

Few States Set World-Class Standards

In fact, most render the notion of proficiency meaningless

The Persuadable Public

The 2009 Education Next-PEPG Survey asks if information changes minds about school reform.

Powerful Professors

Research can change the political agenda…if the circumstances are right

The 2009 Education Next-PEPG Survey

Complete Results

Virtual School Succeeds

But can we be sure about the students?

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 Home-Schooling Special

Today's choicest choice

The Next President Had Many School Choices

Will he provide similar opportunities for others?

The 2008 Education Next-PEPG Survey of Public Opinion

Americans think less of their schools than of their police departments and post offices

Today’s Education-Industrial Complex

Why aren’t schools an issue in the 2008 election?

Excellence Reformers Need to Make a Choice

Is accountability the reform of the past?

Good News for Presidential Candidates

The public supports a wide range of education reforms

A Lens That Distorts

NCLB’s faulty way of measuring school quality

What Americans Think about Their Schools

The 2007 Education Next—PEPG Survey

Politics First, Students Last

A well-heeled commission issues a weak-kneed report

The Entrepreneurs and the New Commission

Changing minds in the education establishment

The NCES Private-Public School Study

Findings are other than they seem

Learning from Catastrophe Theory

What New Orleans Tells Us about Our Education Future

Is Your Child’s School Effective?

Don’t rely on NCLB to tell you

The Supreme School Board

Vouchers on Trial

A view from inside the courtroom

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

Voucher Research Controversy

New looks at the New York City evaluation

The Brown Irony

Racial progress eventually came to pass—everywhere but in public schools

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 [...]

Let the Public In

How Closed Negotiations with Unions Are Hurting Our Schools

Keeping an Eye on State Standards

A race to the bottom?

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 [...]

What do Americans think of the Nation’s Schools? How Widespread is the Support for Charter Schools?

Education Next and Phi Delta Kappan both released their annual polls last week. When it comes to evaluations of the nation’s schools and assessments of charter schools, they report results that are strikingly similar.

Did the Education Next Reader Poll Predict the Race to the Top Winners?

We did a bit better than chance, it seems.

Nine out of Ten RttT Winners are Blue States

At the end of round one of the RttT contest, it appeared as if politics was irrelevant. The focus was on which states had a good reform strategy. Only two winners were identified. Round two tells a different story. Congratulations must be given to the state of Georgia, for it was the only Red State winner.

Online Learning Is On the Upswing—In the Public Mind At Least

Of all the innovations and policy reform proposals in education, it is online learning that is gathering public support most rapidly. In just one year—from 2009 to 2010—the percentage of Americans who think that high school students should be given credit for courses taken online has jumped from 42 percent to 52 percent.

Mathews on Saving Schools

In his commentary on my book, Saving Schools: From Horace Mann to Virtual Learning, Jay Mathews doubts that he will find any time soon “something of the new electronic era that significantly increases achievement in reading and writing for all kids.”

Supporters of Race to the Top Outnumber Opponents, but Plurality of Public Has No Opinion, Education Next Survey Shows

According to the 4th annual survey conducted by Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance and Education Next, which will be released on Wednesday, a larger percentage of the public supports Race to the Top (RttT) than opposes it.

Summer Session in Steamboat Springs

If one goes by the nightly network fare on American television, intellectual engagement by the American public is at an all time low. So when one sees signs of cultural health and well-being, it strangely warms the heart.

Who Won the Race to the Top Poll—and Why

Nearly 400 of you took the time to cast your vote, and, on the basis of your vote, I am willing to predict that the Duncan Administration is going to hand out awards to well over a majority of the contestants.

Race to the Top Round 2

Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week about how many states are likely to win Race to the Top grants and whether politics will come into play.

In New York City, the Issue Is Reading, Not Gaps Between High and Low Performers

On Monday morning, two New York Times reporters captured the front page with their worries about the racial education gap in New York City, despite clear signs of gains in minority graduation rates. The reporters provide the reader with a host of mostly misleading state-provided test-score data, because the State of New York mis-constructed the proficiency scales on its statewide tests, thereby rendering interpretation of scores over time virtually impossible.

Will We Have the Best Courses Online in Five Years?

Within 10 years, half of all high school courses will be taken online, say Clay Christensen and Michael Horn. Bill Gates has now trumped that prediction with an even stronger one: within five years the best higher education will be available on the internet.

If Obama Beat Clinton in Colorado, Nancy Beat Barack in Washington

In the Clinton-Obama tug-of-war, the Obama team gave education reformers something to cheer when they won the Senate contest in Colorado. But the bigger victory this week went to the Clinton-Pelosi-teacher union coalition in Washington.

Common Standards Remarkably Uncontroversial

Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week about the politics and economics of the Common Core standards.

After Bucking Unions, Obama Administration Breaks Ranks with Civil Rights Groups over Charter Schools

Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week about why civil rights groups have been reluctant to embrace charter schools, even as a new Ed Next poll shows that support for charters is rising among minority parents.

Republicans to Save Obama’s Education Reforms—and Perhaps His Presidency?

Despite the rapidly changing political scene, there is reason to expect new action on the education policy front as soon as 2011 pops up on your electronic calendar.

No, Al Shanker Did Not Invent the Charter School

In its recent story about Wendy Kopp, the Wall Street Journal reminded readers that economist Milton Friedman invented vouchers, and that teacher union leader Al Shanker was supporting charter schools as early as 1988. Even though it is fashionable enough to credit Shanker for jump-starting the charter movement, Shanker did more to block charters than to advance the idea.

Compared to Other Countries, Does the United States Really Do That Badly in Math?

Many Americans were shocked to learn how poorly U. S. students were doing when the Program on International Student Assessment released its study of math achievement for 2006. But educators were encouraged in December 2008 when another respected international survey, Trends in Mathematics and Science Study, released results from its math testing for 2007. Have we unfairly maligned our schools?

Lending Federal Dollars to States Will Bankrupt Us All

Christopher Edley, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, has proposed that the U. S. government stimulate the economy by loaning money to near-bankrupt state governments.

Small Schools Work After All, A Good Study Shows

After all that sophisticated criticism of the replacement of large schools with smaller ones, it comes as a total shock to learn that students are more likely to graduate from high school in New York City if they attended one of the small high schools.

U. S. Department of Education Study Measures Impact of Switching Schools, Not Impact of Attending a Charter

The Mathematica study of charter middle schools, just released by the U. S. Department of Education, finds no achievement gains within two years for students who won the charter lottery as compared to those who did not. Ordinarily one would take such a study seriously. But as Marci Kanstoroom pointed out some years ago, the study was set up in such a way that it could not possibly tell us much about charter schools.

One Learns More by Listening than Talking

Is the stand-up lecture the better educational method? Or should students be encouraged to engage in problem solving, sometimes on their own, sometimes with the guidance of their teacher?

School Vouchers in DC Produce Gains in Both Test Scores and Graduation Rates

One should not under-estimate the impact of the DC school voucher program on student achievement. According to the official announcement and the executive summary of the report, school vouchers lifted high school graduation rates but it could not be conclusively determined that it had a positive impact on student achievement. Something about those findings sounds like a bell striking thirteen. Not only is the clock wrong, but the mechanism seems out of whack. How can more students graduate from private schools if they weren’t learning more?

Virtual Education and Common Core Standards

Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week about whether common standards create economies of scale for virtual learning products.

Is the Public School the Symbol of Democracy?

“The public school is at once the symbol of our democracy and the most pervasive means for promoting our common destiny,” wrote Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1948. Many of my friends would swear by such words even today.

Evaluating a Charter High School by Going to Commencement

Mystic Valley Regional Charter High School has been around long enough that an evaluation is in order. On graduation night, the school passed with flying colors.

Bang for the Buck from Race to the Top

Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week (June 16) about why $4 billion in prize money is causing so many states to enact reforms and whether those reforms will stick.

Obama Overturns Roosevelt: What was once forbidden is now required

The Obama Administration’s Race to the Top initiative won plaudits for encouraging states and school districts to expand charter school operations and develop merit pay plans. But those positive ideas were undermined by the Administration’s inclusion of an extraordinary, undemocratic requirement that teacher unions support state initiatives.

Are Shaker Heights Schools a Success? A Reply to Kahlenberg

The journalistic commentary on my recently released book, Saving Schools: From Horace Mann to Virtual Learning, has been better than expected. Even Richard Kahlenberg, writing for the New Republic, finds the writing to be “spry,” providing a “sweeping narrative [that] takes on all the great controversial issues in American education.” But Kahlenberg offers one line of criticism so misleading it requires a response.

State Proficiency Standards by the Numbers

Do you want to know how your state’s proficiency standards in reading and math compare to those in other states? That information is available today on this website.

Teacher Bailout Bill, R.I.P.?

Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week about the belt-tightening that will hopefully take place if the $23 billion edujobs bill dies in Congress.

What I Learned at Harvard’s Merit Pay Conference

At a conference held at Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance, which I direct, a fine paper was presented this morning by the Munich University economist Ludger Woessmann on merit pay in 28 industrialized countries around the world.

A Case for Merit Pay: It’s Easier to Identify Good Teachers than to Train Them

A just-released paper prepared by Matthew M. Chingos and myself for a Harvard conference on merit pay shows that Florida teachers who majored in education in college are no better at teaching math and reading to elementary- and middle-school students than those who did not.

Will Technology Grow or Shrink the Achievement Gap?

In his commentary on my book Jay Matthews doubts that he will find any time soon “something of the new electronic era that significantly increases achievement in reading and writing for all kids.”

School Finance Lawsuits in Red and Blue States

Video: Chris Berry talks with Education Next about how politics influences the way states react to school finance lawsuits.

How Well Did Ending Social Promotion Work Out in New York City?—Some Further Thoughts

One always learns from readers’ blog comments, even if one disagrees.

It’s the Old Teachers, not the Beginning Teachers, who are Well Paid

Who is the teachers union in Florida protecting with all of its political power? Is it the poorly paid, beginning teacher whose salary teacher unions work hard to enhance and protect? Or is it that of the old-timers who capture organizational power and use it for their own purposes?

Is New York City’s Decision to End Social Promotion Beginning to Work?

When Joel Klein became the chancellor of the New York City schools, one of his first actions, back in 2004, was to end social promotion in third grade. With the latest NAEP reading results just in, we now have some longer term basis for assessing that effectiveness of that policy.

Democrats and Republicans Respond Differently to School Finance Rulings

In a new study published by Education Next, Christopher Berry and Charles Wysong add a partisan flavor to the adequacy lawsuit story. They find that, relative to what would have happened in any case, expenditures forced by court orders depend on which political party is in power.

The National Center for Education Statistics Got the Same Answer We Did—More Than a Year Late

Recently Carlos Xabel Lastra-Anadon and I compared 2009 state proficiency standards with one another. Shortly after our report was released, a reporter asked whether our results differed from those released last fall by the U. S. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in “Mapping State Proficiency Standards on to NAEP Scales: 2005-2007.”