Blog
Making Mountains Out of Molehills? Let the Reader Decide
A recent “Policy Memorandum” from the Economic Policy Institute by EPI researcher Monique Morrissey is sharply critical of our article “Peaks, Cliffs, and Valleys." Morrissey has a number of critiques of our articles, but the main one, as the title suggests, is that our metaphors are inappropriate, and there is nothing at all “peculiar” about the structure of retirement incentives in teacher pensions.
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New Ed Next Podcast: Charter Schools Narrow Achievement Gaps in New York City
Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. tackle another hot topic in...
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In Good Faith
Earlier this week I submitted the following letter to the editor to the Wall Street Journal. I don’t know whether it will be published. I am less sanguine than the paper’s editors regarding the intentions of Senator Durbin.
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Interview with Patrick Wolf about DC Voucher Study
An editorial in today's Wall Street Journal notes that Senator Dick Durbin has indicated...
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The Decline of Ed Schools: Ten Questions and Answers
America does not now need education schools. They add little and cost a great deal. They are unable to attract talented entrants and fail to add value to their graduates (either by boosting teacher performance or teacher’s lifetime incomes).
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The Costs and Benefits of Remediation
Readers of Education Next may have seen a report entitled Diploma to Nowhere from Strong American Schools last year that counted up the number of high school graduates who end up in remedial courses at the next level. The figures are dismaying.
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School Board as Cheerleader, Leader, and Micromanager
I recently got a wake-up call from a fellow school board member, upset about a comment I made to a reporter that turned up in a page-one story that morning. Was it a mistake? And should I have talked about it? To the press?
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Does Teaching More Science Content Produce Better Scientists?
A new study does not demonstrate what the authors believe it demonstrates: that teaching more science content leads only to more content knowledge, not to higher-level science competence.
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Liberating Learning
Political scientists Terry Moe and John Chubb have shifted their bets from that spoke of the school-reform roulette wheel named “school voucher” to one marked “technological innovation.”
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Fix the Preschool Misstep
In "Early Childhood Misstep" over at Forbes.com, Chester E. Finn, Jr. dissects the “Early...