May 2004 School Reform News

The May issue of School Reform News features an exclusive interview with Sol Stern: product of public schools, parent, journalist, policy analyst, and author of Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice.

Stern calls himself “a late bloomer” on the school choice issue, starting as a “public education consumer” whose “reporter’s instincts took over” as his children worked their way through public schools. Says Stern, “if you have a school that is horrendous, that is destroying children, then it’s morally incumbent on us as a society to provide any opportunity for those children to get out and find a school that works for them ...”

The issue’s “Just the Facts” feature offers an extensive data table on teacher salaries and overall education spending; several articles throughout the issue address teacher quality, unions, certification, and merit pays.

The issue also offers the Friedman Report School Choice Roundup and covers the failure of K-12 education to prepare students for college and work; the need for productivity, rather than simply more money, in public education; DC vouchers and No Child Left Behind; charter schools; and teaching teachers to teach reading.