Education

Exhibit #473 for the Prosecution’s Case That the NEA Has Less to Do with Education than Left-Wing Politics

By Justin Katz | June 3, 2008 |

Yes, that’s an organization composed mainly of teachers offering up unimaginative slogans that promote left-wing clichés:

In the Fair Funding Formula, Some Communities Will Be Treated More Fairly Than Others

By Carroll Andrew Morse | May 27, 2008 |

And the frontrunner for this year’s Emperor’s New Clothes Award for Stating the Obvious is Richmond Town Councilor Henry R. Oppenheimer, for his recent comments on the General Assembly’s latest version of an educational “funding formula”. Andrew Martin of the Chariho Times reports on the effect the proposed “funding formula” would have on Chariho District…The…

Promises Bought and Futures Sold

By Justin Katz | May 25, 2008 |

Julia Steiny is must-reading today: After collecting my thoughts and temper, I wrote back. It seemed to me that teaching a child to read was the principal mission of any school and was, therefore, funded. Rhode Island has one of the highest per-pupil expenditures in the nation. If not to teach reading, what is it…

A Glimpse of the Problem’s Roots

By Justin Katz | May 23, 2008 |

This factoid, coming out of the revolt in Tiverton, keeps ringing in my ears: … Mr. Cotta and other officials said that legally the school budget cannot be cut below what it was for this year… Is that true? If so, it’s insane! Efficiencies, need, and priorities can’t shift? I’ll have to look into that…

Diagnosing RI’s Problem with the Third “R”

By Carroll Andrew Morse | May 22, 2008 |

According to Jennifer D. Jordan of the Projo, a statewide mathematics “summit” held yesterday at Rhode Island College identified the following areas as contributing to the state’s 22%-proficiency rate in high-school math achievement…Some classroom teachers lack deep content knowledge in math, which makes it impossible for them to help their students reach the higher standards.Many…

Ending Bumping

By Justin Katz | May 12, 2008 |

Perhaps no practice is a better distillation of the blight that is teacher unionization than bumping. I’m with Julia Steiny in thinking that it ought to end, but the suggestions of the Business Education Partnership that she describes in her column, yesterday, are worth considering as half-way measures: To professionalize education personnel practices, Blais and…

Re: Re: Another Reason to Private School in Rhode Island

By Justin Katz | May 3, 2008 |

Actually, what struck me about Rhody’s comment was how this early sentence betrays the ridiculousness of his point: If any of us were sent back to work under a court order, our attitude might not be that great, either. Most of us, I venture to suggest, cannot envision circumstances in which a court would have…

Re: Another Reason to Private School in Rhode Island

By Monique Chartier | May 3, 2008 |

Under Justin’s post, commenter Rhody remarks: The teachers are back to school (under a court order), they don’t have a new contract, and still people are kicking them. If any of us were sent back to work under a court order, our attitude might not be that great, either. Remember, kids coming out of college…

Another Reason to Private School in Rhode Island

By Justin Katz | May 3, 2008 |

Here’s another shining example of what public sector unions — specifically teachers’ unions, specifically the NEA — have wrought: The state Department of Education does not endorse the high school’s plan for students to stand before their English classes to present their senior projects — a new graduation requirement here this year. … Most of…

Mitigating the College Oversell

By Justin Katz | April 30, 2008 |

Our society appears to be in the process of deciding that college oughtn’t be a foregone conclusion for every young American. Indeed, Marty Nemko calls the Bachelor’s degree “America’s Most Overrated Product”: Even worse, most of those college dropouts leave the campus having learned little of value, and with a mountain of debt and devastated…