http://www.reformk12.com/ not rocket science!]]> en-us 2006-01-18T04:35:37-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000212.nclk For an excellent sampling of the best the Education Blogosphere has to offer, please check out Week 50 of the Carnival of Education, which is published by the good folks at The Education Wonks.... Education Reform ceb 2006-01-18T04:35:37-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000210.nclk Yesterday would have been the 77th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In his last speech, he told the story of his brush with a would-be assassin: You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The... Racial Issues ceb 2006-01-17T00:38:29-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000209.nclk After the passage of No Child Left Behind, each state had to come up with a system for measuring student progress, complete with metrics for success on a number of different criteria. Schools that don't meet the goals must at least show they're making progress each year, which is called "Adequate Yearly Progress" or AYP. Here's Pennsylvania's plan, presented as... Testing & Grading ceb 2006-01-16T00:09:28-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000208.nclk When a student graduates from high school, yet cannot read, the question is "how did this happen?" Usually the response from the educational community is to shrug their collective shoulders and say, "We have no idea, but it's worthy of study." This apparently is quite an imponderable, for kids have been graduating for years without basic skills (or maybe they... Education Reform ceb 2006-01-14T00:53:46-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000207.nclk Opponents to the concept of education vouchers say that they drain money from public education. It's an interesting piece of criticism: dollars to pay for an Opportunity Scholarship voucher in Florida (recently deemed unconstitutional) were actually state funds originally slated to go to the public schools, but diverted to the private school of the parent's choice. While there are some... Misconceptions ceb 2006-01-10T00:06:29-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000206.nclk There are several ways to find out what's new here at ReformK12.com without actually visiting our site on a regular basis, and that's to subscribe to either a news feed or a daily email. News Feeds: There are several online newsreaders or "news aggregators" which collect all the recent headlines (from sources to which you've subscribed) and present them in... Off topic ceb 2006-01-08T16:35:23-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000205.nclk Mr. Lawrence relates an amusing anecdote over at Get Lost, Mr. Chips. He was subbing for a teacher whose high school journalism class apparently was signed up to use a "mobile computer lab" on a cart: There's this rolling cart that was brought into the room filled with laptops (the teachers have to sign up for it) and in order... Discipline & Behavior ceb 2006-01-07T21:50:29-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000204.nclk We're fairly appalled at the story (first spotted at Number 2 Pencil) of the pathological child rapist (his spree lasted 4 years with the same pre-teen victim) who's been given a mere 60-day prison sentence. Even though at minimum confessed child-rapist Mark Hulett could have received 8 years in prison (we think 20 would be more appropriate), the kindly... Discipline & Behavior ceb 2006-01-05T21:15:28-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000203.nclk Yesterday's Wall Street Journal reports that Governor Jodi Rell of Connecticut isn't very supportive of that state's charter schools, which are currently at their quota limit, and cannot grow without legislative help. Connecticut has a weak charter school law, which means that it is all the more difficult for charter proponents and operators to open new schools and run them... Charter Schools ceb 2006-01-05T11:59:51-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000202.nclk In this second part of a two-part series, we continue our response to Mark Manley's argument at Thespis Journal that public schools are unfairly maligned. He writes: By continually depleting funds from the public education system, mandating that public schools must subject their students to an endless battery of high stakes tests, and by creating a system of mismanaged, inexplicable,... Education Reform ceb 2006-01-04T02:27:57-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000201.nclk We recently had a positive email exchange with Mark Manley, who writes Thespis Journal, and among other things is a public high school teacher in Xenia, Ohio. Mr. Manley inspired our article last week about how there's no war on public education, just battles waged against incompetence and problematic areas within public education. He feels there should be more balance... Education Reform ceb 2006-01-03T00:08:12-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000200.nclk In our continuing series on how there's no war on public education, today we tackle Teacher Certification. (In future articles we'll address Mediocrity, Opposition to Competition, Opposition to Home Schooling, Lack of Discipline and Safety, Zero Tolerance Run Amok, and Lack of Accountability.) We've written before on teacher certification and how we feel that the current model is an unnecessary... Cert. & Teacher Training ceb 2006-01-02T00:16:18-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000199.nclk Via Joanne Jacobs, we learn of a success story in Los Angeles. The Watts Learning Center (WLC), a K-5 charter school serving "nearly all African American and low income" students, has dramatically raised the achievement of its students. For the Pacific Research Institute, Lance T. Izumi writes: In the Pacific Research Institute’s recent book, Free to Learn: Lessons from Model... Charter Schools ceb 2005-12-30T23:56:30-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000198.nclk On Wednesday we pointed out that while there's no "War on Public Education" there are a few areas which need serious reform. Pointed criticism of these areas leads some to believe that people are just "bashing" public education, which simply isn't true. Today we have a few words on Teacher Unions and Political Activism. (In future articles we'll address Teacher... Politics ceb 2005-12-29T19:05:48-05:00 http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000197.nclk An interesting exchange occurred recently online. Michelle Malkin posted a column called "Indoctrination, Not Education" containing the line "Reason number 95,385 to keep your kids out of government schools" and some folks took umbrage. Essentially her column simply contained two instances of students being subjected to the political biases of their teachers, with no commentary from Ms. Malkin other than... Education Reform ceb 2005-12-28T22:26:28-05:00