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May 9, 2008
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Is fatalism the alternative to romanticism?
 Charles Murray's forthcoming education book looks like a humdinger, as most of his have proven to be. Like any astute author, he's already dribbling out portions of it to whet appetites and create buzz. In a long, tough-minded essay in The New Criterion, titled "The age of educational romanticism," Murray accuses those who think most kids can achieve at high academic levels of romanticism. Checker Finn disagrees, and he tells us why, here.
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Who Will Save America's Urban Catholic Schools?
by Scott W. Hamilton
4/10/2008
America's urban Catholic schools are in crisis. Over 1,300 of them have shut down since 1990, mostly in our cities. As a result, some 300,000 students have been displaced--double the number affected by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. This report, which includes a comprehensive survey of the attitudes of U.S. Catholics and the broader public towards inner-city Catholic schools, examines this crisis and offers several suggestions for arresting and perhaps reversing this trend in the interests of better education.
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Fund The Child: Bringing Equity, Autonomy, and Portability to Ohio School Finance
3/12/2008
Ohio can boast of praiseworthy gains over the past decade in making school funding more equitable across districts, but there is more work to be done. To mitigate the school-finance inequities that remain within districts and gear school funding toward the realities of student mobility, school choice and effective school-based management, this report recommends that Ohio embrace Weighted Student Funding (WSF), which allocates resources based on the needs of individual students and by sending dollars directly to schools rather than lodging most spending decisions at the district level.
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Too Good to Last: The True Story of Reading First
by Sol Stern
3/5/2008
Too Good to Last: The True Story of Reading First is an in-depth and alarming study of Reading First's betrayal. Under the leadership of White House domestic policy chief Margaret Spellings and with support from Congress, Reading First was to provide funding to primary-reading programs that were based on scientific research. Backlash and brouhaha followed. Aggrieved whole-language program proprietors complained bitterly that their wares couldn't be purchased with Reading First funds. Then the administration turned its back on Reading First, allowing the program to be gutted and starved of funding.
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The Leadership Limbo
by Frederick M. Hess, Coby Loup
2/14/2008
In the era of No Child Left Behind, principals are increasingly held accountable for student performance. But are teacher labor agreements giving them enough flexibility to manage effectively? The Leadership Limbo: Teacher Labor Agreements in America's Fifty Largest School Districts, answers this question and others.
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2007 Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Sponsorship Accountability Report
11/28/2007
For information on Fordham's unique role as a charter school sponsor in Ohio, there's no better source than The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Sponsorship Accountability Report 2006-07. The report offers a comprehensive account of Fordham's sponsorship policies and practices-as well as individual profiles of all Fordham-sponsored schools. Included in the profiles are descriptions of each school's educational program, school philosophy, and overall academic performance.
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Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate: Do They Deserve Gold Star Status?
by Sheila Byrd, Lucien Ellington, Paul Gross, Carol Jago, Sheldon Stern
11/13/2007
This report examines whether the reputation the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs have for academic excellence is truly deserved. Our expert reviewers looked at the four AP and IB courses most similar to the core content areas in American high schools--English, history, math, and science--and found that, in general, the courses do warrant praise. In a few cases, they deserve gold stars.
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The Proficiency Illusion
by John Cronin, Michael Dahlin, Deborah Adkins, G. Gage Kingsbury
10/4/2007
NCLB allows each state to define proficiency as it sees fit and design its own tests. This study compares state tests to benchmarks laid out by the Northwest Evaluation Association to evaluate proficiency cut scores for assessments in twenty-six states. The findings suggest that the tests states use to measure academic progress and student proficiency under NCLB are creating a false impression of success, especially in reading and especially in the early grades.
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Whole-Language High Jinks
by Louisa Cook Moats
1/29/2007
If you thought whole-language reading instruction had been relegated to the scrap heap of history, think again. Many such programs (proven to be ineffective) are still around, but they're hiding behind phrases like "balanced literacy" in order to win contracts from school districts and avoid public scrutiny. Louisa Moats calls them out in Fordham's new report, Whole-Language High Jinks.
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