Education
Amanda Ripley considers the results when one compares high-end test scores in math: We’ve known for some time how this story ends nationwide: only 6 percent of U.S. students perform at the advanced-proficiency level in math, a share that lags behind kids in some 30 other countries, from the United Kingdom to Taiwan. But what…
Yes, of course there’s a big difference between taxation and fundraising, but this quotation, from an article about Rhode Island residents’ having to raise money to keep public school sports going illustrates where poor management and skewed priorities are leading school districts: All the fundraising can be exhausting. “It’s like a second job for everyone…
Debates concerning what to do about the deterioration of public education appear to be honing the matter down to an essential question: What is elementary and secondary education for? Retired founding editor of Education Week Ron Wolk appears to take what might be seen as the establishment side of that question: Is a rigorous high-stakes…
This is becoming a growing wave of like opinion: “We have too many college seats,” [former Keene State College instructor Craig] Brandon, a Surry resident, says in an interview. “We don’t need that many college graduates. The reality is that we overeducate people, which would be OK if it were free, but it’s not free.”…
Ted Nesi is a bit too credulous about statements from Governor-elect Lincoln Chafee’s spokesman, Mike Trainor: … Chafee spokesman Mike Trainor told me in a phone interview a few minutes ago. “I just spoke to the governor-elect about this, and with all due respect, you may be jumping to conclusions that are not necessarily accurate,”…
Maybe I’m getting crotchety in my middle age, but this sort of intrabureaucracy debate strikes me as precisely the species of meaningless and unnecessary noise that obfuscates public discourse while raising doubts about public management of anything: What is the point of a charter school — to be a laboratory for educational innovation and provide…
Conservatives should rightly be skeptical about national education initiatives like Obama’s Race to the Top. Short of violent coups, government would never expand — and totalitarians would never take power — if their promises weren’t attractive. And we shouldn’t forget that those who would collect power to themselves must do so within the social context…
So Education Commissioner Deborah Gist is placing the protection of the funding formula above all else in education, and I can’t help but wonder why she believes it to be so critical. I suppose it’s a compounding component of the state’s budget for education, and allowing it to come up shy at the beginning bodes…
Testifying before the Warwick Charter Review Commission, current Warwick School Committee Chairman Christopher Friel has come to the conclusion that the Warwick School Committee has outlived its usefulness and should be integrated into city government. Traditionally, school committees were responsible for establishing curriculum and adopting educational standards and policies within their respective communities. The school…
News that Rhode Island Commissioner of Education Deborah Gist is working alongside the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers (aptly, RIFT) sets off my scam alarm, and it’s not just the fact that the smarmy Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D, Ocean Drive) is at the front of the line heralding a “firm belief” in “true reform.” Mostly,…