Education
Apr 11, 2012
Rare is the news story about right-side-of-the-aisle attempts to improve Minnesota education which doesn’t note the agitated disapproval of Education Minnesota, the state’s teachers union. Be the issue expanding educational options, alternatively licensing teachers, stressing accomplishment more and seniority less in making tough personnel decisions, or virtually any other aim other than substantially upping budgets, one can be reasonably confident that Education Minnesota will rise up so as to hunker down in opposition.
Mar 20, 2012
My American Experiment colleague Kathy Kersten recently wrote a column in the Star Tribune (March 11) about a consulting firm, the Pacific Education Group, which many local school districts already have paid a lot of money to, which argues that white people are “intellectual” and “capable of quantitative thinking,” but that black and brown people are “emotional” and “interested in feelings” and communicate through “body motions” like “rolling of the eyes.”
Feb 29, 2012
Breaking the chain between street address and the school a child attends–school choice–is not only moral, it works. Education Week recently ran a commentary from nine scholars who make that point. The nine, who include representatives from the American Enterprise Institute and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, say that in 20 years we have learned a lot about how to design choice programs, as well as how well school choice works. The article’s title reflects its content pretty well: “What research says about school choice.”
Dec 15, 2011
In a column for Bloomberg, Virginia Postrel explains how “federal subsidies intended to make college more affordable may have encouraged rapidly rising tuitions.”
She calls the idea heretical, which it may be to some. But anyone who understands anything about economics should immediately nod their heads in agreement. I think I audibly uttered, “No duh.” There’s just no question that tuition will increase when, thanks to government grants or low-interest loans, people have more money to spend on tuition.
Sep 30, 2011
Congress and the Obama administration have been wrestling for a spell on reauthorizing the guts of federal K-12 policy – known in its current iteration as “No Child Left Behind” – and they’ll keep grappling for a while longer. Of keenly pertinent note regarding that already politically intricate exercise is the recent release of two think tank-affiliated publications which make essential albeit complicating points, not about the status of weak students in the United States (NCLB’s target), but rather strong ones. Or, more precisely, the two publications focus on strong students who might do even better if not for NCLB.
Jul 29, 2011
It’s would be a stretch to say that any kid in Minneapolis Public Schools will wind up doing less well in ninth-grade algebra or tenth-grade English because of the district’s new controversy over the granting of recalculated back pay to 35 central administration officials—some of whom don’t even work there anymore—at the very same time teachers and others were being laid off. But the episode is very much reflective of the kinds of fights and diversions that routinely complicate and subtract from learning in big-city and formerly big-city school operations.
May 18, 2011
This excellent video reveals how Carpe Diem School in Yuma, Arizona boosts student achievement through blending traditional instruction with technology and extended learning opportunities.
May 17, 2011
The Star Tribune had a pretty good and balanced story on Sunday (May 15, 2011) about whether Minnesota should continue spending large amounts of money busing a fair number of students from one school and district to another in order, mainly, to improve the academic performance of minority and low-income boys and girls.
