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For more on this topic, please see “2+2=Litigation,” by Joshua Dunn, which appears in the Fall 2010 issue of Education Next.

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For more on this topic, please see “Stuck in the Middle,” by Jonah E. Rockoff and Benjamin B. Lockwood, which appears in the Fall 2010 issue of Education Next.

The survey finds a modest uptick in support for charter schools overall, but a large increase in support in the minority community. Parents who live near a charter school are more supportive of charters than the public at large (and know more about how charters work).

For more about the survey, please see “Meeting of the Minds,” by William Howell, Martin West, and Paul E. Peterson.

To read Nathan Glazer’s review of the book from the Fall 2010 issue of Education Next, please see “Lessons from a Reformer.”

In February, First Lady Michelle Obama launched her “Let’s Move” initiative, which aims to fight childhood obesity by, among other things, increasing physical education. And this spring, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill called the FIT Kids Act that aims to enlist schools in the war against obesity by requiring districts to report what is taking place in P.E. classes.

Are traditional P.E. classes likely to be effective in fighting obesity? In a 2006 article for Education Next , “Not Your Father’s PE,” economists John Cawley, Chad Meyerhoefer, and David Newhouse wrote “requiring more PE seems like a logical response to the childhood obesity epidemic, but will mandating more time in gym classes actually result in more exercise for kids?” They found that “relatively little research has systematically examined how much PE (as it is currently constituted) contributes to weight loss or lowers the risk of obesity, and what little research there is finds no association between PE and weight loss and obesity.” In “Don’t Sweat It,” an article in the same issue that looked at efforts to ramp up physical education classes, Bob Cullen concluded that “simply passing legislation mandating a little more of the same PE just isn’t going to do.”

As students and teachers explain in this video, traditional P.E. classes may not offer students a real workout, particularly when those students are in high school. Students don’t like having to change into gym clothes and get sweaty in the middle of the day. So P.E. teachers may end up grading students based on whether they change into their P.E. clothes.

A report released this spring by the American Heart Association and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education found that, while most states require some kind of physical education, few require students to exercise for a specific amount of time.

The 25^th Hour P.E. class at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, is different. Students enrolled in the class don’t break a sweat during the school day. Instead, they work out three times a week, before or after school. While the students are jogging, swimming, playing pickup basketball, going to soccer practice, or walking the dog, they wear monitors that track how long they exercise and whether their heart rates are in the target zone. Students meet with a P.E. teacher once a week to download the data from their monitor to her computer and discuss their workouts. Grades are based on how long students keep their heart rates in the target zone.

The poll finds support among both Democrats and Republicans for test-based accountability for students and schools, merit pay, and charter schools. Americans are divided along party lines over the issues of school spending and teacher tenure, however.

For more about the survey, please see “Meeting of the Minds,” by William Howell, Martin West, and Paul E. Peterson.

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A transcript of the interview is available here.

Both books will be reviewed in a future issue of Education Next.

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Parents assign higher grades to schools with higher levels of student achievement, not schools in which students demonstrate greater gains.

The study found that parents from disadvantaged groups are no less informed about student achievement than better-educated or higher-income parents.

The study, “Grading Schools,” which will appear in the Fall 2010 issue of Education Next, is now available online.
A press release discussing the article’s findings is available here.

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For more on this topic, see “State Standards Rising in Reading but Not in Math” in the Fall 2010 issue of Education Next.

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For more on this topic, please see “EdNext Poll Shows Civil Rights Groups Out of Touch on Charters.”

For more on this topic, please see “Is Desegregation Dead?” in the Fall 2010 issue of Education Next.

For more on this topic, please see “Is Desegregation Dead?” in the Fall 2010 issue of Education Next.

For more on this topic, see “Is Desegregation Dead?” in which Susan Eaton and Steven Rivkin examine the relationship between school demographics and student achievement. The forum will appear in the Fall 2010 issue of Education Next.

For more on this topic, please see “Invisible Ink in Teacher Contracts” in the Fall 2010 issue of Education Next.

From Reason.tv:

Before hurricane Katrina ravaged the city in 2005, New Orleans had one of the worst performing public school districts in the nation… Today, New Orleans has the most market-based school system in the US. 60% of New Orleans students currently attend charter schools, test scores are up, and talented and passionate educators from around the country are flocking to New Orleans to be a part of the education revolution. It’s too early to tell if the New Orleans experiment in school choice will succeed over the long term, but for the first time in decades people are optimistic about the future of New Orleans schools.

For more from Education Next on the effect of Hurricane Katrina on the education system in New Orleans, please see “Hope After Katrina,” by Kathryn Newmark and Veronique de Rugy, and “In the Wake of the Storm,” by Michael B. Henderson.

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NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children
By Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
Published by Twelve (September 2, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0446504122
ISBN-13: 978-0446504126
Publisher’s Website

Additional Audio Book Excerpts Available Here

Chester Finn, Terry Ryan, and Michael Lafferty are co-authors of a new book, Ohio’s Education Reform Challenges: Lessons from the Front Lines. An excerpt from that book, Authorizing Charters, will appear in the Fall 2010 issue of Education Next.

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For more on spelling bees, and other academic competitions, please see “Competition Makes a Comeback” by June Kronholz in the Summer 2010 issue of Education Next.

For more on this topic, please see “School-Finance Reform in Red and Blue” in the Summer 2010 issue of Education Next.