Opinion
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Intense Battle Looms over NCLB
Opinion -No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which marked its fourth birthday January 8, is likely to provoke increasingly intense debate on Capitol Hill throughout 2006. Amid ever-shifting political dynamics, it will be up for congressional reauthorization in 2007. -
Establishing School Choice in Washington, D.C.
Opinion -Editor's note: In late October of last year, Virginia Walden Ford--executive director of D.C. -
Green Party Making a Difference in Maine Schools
Opinion -When Ben Meiklejohn, a musician and artist, and Steven Spring, a former math teacher from Washington, DC and director of the Great Schools Coalition of Portland, Maine, were elected as Green Party members to the Portland School Committee in 2003, the -
New Analysis of International Exams Reveals Worse U.S. Performance
Opinion -In international academic comparisons, U.S. students appear to do relatively well in fourth grade but slide thereafter. A new report analyzing three such comparisons, however, suggests even the nation's fourth-graders might be struggling. -
Quick Read Delivers Long-Term Plan for Reform
Opinion -Delivering on the Promise of the 95% Reading and Math Goals by Lynn Fielding, Nancy Kerr, and Paul Rosier The New Foundation Press, Inc., 2004 328 pages, $50, ISBN: 0966687515 You can read Delivering on the Promise in about six hours. -
Heartland Comment on Florida Supreme Court Decision on School Choice
Opinion -By declaring Florida's Opportunity Scholarship Program unconstitutional, the State Supreme Court of Florida has robbed hundreds, maybe thousands, of disadvantaged children of a better future. -
Debate over Darwin in Schools Gets Mixed Results on Election Day
Opinion -On November 8, 2005, two major changes occurred in the battle over teaching evolution in America's public schools. -
New Program Educates Charter Schools about Unions
Opinion -Sarah Rosenberg has no intention of joining the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers (MFT). "The union would slow everything down," said the outspoken sixth-grade social studies teacher at Edward W. Brooke Charter School in Boston. -
Minn. Online Physical Education Program Finds Niche
Opinion -While it may be a little early to say the trend is sweeping the nation, online physical education programs are gaining popularity in states from Florida to Minnesota. -
Seventeen States OK Cyber Charters
Opinion -Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Wyoming have laws authorizing cyber charter schools. -
Understanding Educational Innovation, Stagnation
Opinion -Editor's note: This is the first of a seven-part series showing why charter schools do not have the freedom needed to create significant educational improvements by means of innovation. -
Fla. School Choice Advocates Push for Accountability
Opinion -In early December, school choice advocates in Florida were busy preparing for another legislative session focused on passing accountability legislation for the state's scholarship programs. -
Texas School Finance System Unconstitutional
Opinion -The Texas Supreme Court ruled November 22 that the state's school finance system--commonly referred to throughout the state as "Robin Hood" because it takes money from property-rich school districts and gives it to property-poor ones--is unconstitutional -
Heartland Institute Fellow Leads Project on Unintended Consequences
Opinion -Unintended consequences abound in politics and government, and in the private sector as well. Increased expenditures by school districts fail to bring the expected improvements in student achievement. High tax rates produce less revenue than lower rates. -
Power Motivates Unions
Opinion -Some wonder why the teacher unions, long so fervently opposed to charter schools, are now aggressively trying to recruit their teachers. Matthew J. -
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Law Banning Cyber Charter Schools May Be Harming Education in Rural Tennessee
Opinion -A report released by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research on October 31 suggests the state's three-year-old charter school law, which expressly prohibits the authorization of cyber charters, may be preventing thousands of rural students from -
Texas Students Routinely Promoted Without Passing
Opinion -According to a report released in late October by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), social promotions in the Lone Star State continue almost unabated three years after the beginning of a concentrated effort to end the practice of moving students to the -
Schools Should Share Services to Save, Study Says
Opinion -School districts across the country are constantly calling for more funds, but additional money might be available in their existing budgets if they'd take advantage of opportunities to share services with other districts, according to an October 2005 -
Book Review: A Crash Course in Profitable Politics
Opinion -Review of Crash Course: Imagining a Better Future for Public Education Written by Chris Whittle (Riverhead Books, 2005) 269 pages, $16. -
Coming U.S. Workforce Unprepared for Knowledge Economy, Author Warns
Opinion -Review of The 2010 Meltdown: Solving the Impending Jobs Crisis Written by Edward E. Gordon (Praeger Publishers, 2005) 288 pages, $39.95, ISBN 0275984362 Edward E. -
Myth Buster
Opinion -Review of Education Myths: What Special-Interest Groups Want You to Believe and Why It Isn't So Written by Jay P. Greene (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005) 265 pages, $24. -
Total Recall
Opinion -California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) was elected during a Wild West-style recall election of former governor Gray Davis (D) in October 2003. -
Reform Activist Inspires Parents at Heartland Event
Opinion -Editor's note: In late October 2005, Virginia Walden Ford--executive director of D.C.
