One in 10 U.S. students in grades preK-12 attends a private school, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education. Surprised it’s not a higher share? Perhaps even more surprisingly, the private school share of total enrollments has decreased over the past 15 years, from about
Educators in the Nation’s largest state are breathing a deep sigh of relief that public schooling has been freed from the political and economic morass in which it has been mired for over a decade. Bottles of champagne are not yet being popped because educators want to be sure that
Daily, members of Congress orate on the need for American schools to improve. Yet today, the legislation authorizing every major federal program to assist education has expired or will soon lapse due to the lack of action by Congress. The only way these programs continue temporally is under a Congressional
American tourists are often amused when traveling on the London “tube” to hear the announcement at each station to “mind the gap.” This attention-getting advice is meant to warn passengers exiting the subway car to step over the space between the car and the platform. American education has its own
Many people hope that magic solutions can be found to improve low-performing schools. Philanthropists, hedge fund millionaires, and others interested in reform have put their funds and faith in charter schools or virtual learning, as though these approaches have special powers that will produce a sudden breakthrough to educational excellence.
Two basic functions are essential to democratic societies: educating the young and defending citizens from attack. But in the U.S. today, quite different attitudes have developed about each of these functions. In a nutshell, our nation’s schools are considered failures, while the armed forces are beyond reproach. This double standard
Mitt Romney has pledged that if elected president he will enact a voucher program that would allow parents of low-income and special needs students “to choose from any district or public charter school, or a private school where permitted by state law.” This position has become the norm for Republican
The classic scene from a sports movie occurs in the locker room at half time when the coach delivers a rousing speech to motivate the players to win. Beneath this cliché lies a basic truth — that in sports, the desire of the players to do their best is as
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American schools are not as good as they need to be, according to President Obama, the Republican presidential candidates, business leaders, and many others. It has not been for want of trying to improve education, so the problem must be the way we have gone about it. Over the last
In 19th century England, children were told by their parents that if they didn’t behave, Father Christmas would bring them coal for Christmas instead of nice presents. Two weeks ago, American children in large urban school districts did not produce the higher test scores hoped for by adults. Does this
Benchmarking is popular in business. After studying the performance of the top companies in a particular arena, other companies emulate the leaders’ best practices seeking the same level of success. This method has made its way into education. For example, the new common state standards for reading and mathematics were
