Closing Schools Works — If It’s Done Right
Closing persistently ineffective schools can be a promising strategy, but only if you replace seats in those schools with seats in more effective alternatives.
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How to Pay Teachers More without Busting the Bank
By balancing the ratio of salaries to retirement benefits and reforming pension structures, we can vastly improve teacher compensation.
After Katrina, Fundamental School Reform in New Orleans
After Hurricane Katrina's destruction, New Orleans's failing public schools were reborn as thriving charter schools.
Charter Schools Lose in L.A.
Last week, the Los Angeles school board had the opportunity to fundamentally improve its lowest-performing public schools by transferring them to successful charter-school operators. Instead, the board handed the schools ...
The Amazing Randi
In what could prove a turning point in favor of education reform, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten came out in favor of considering student performance on standardized tests ...
Testing for Tenure
While everyone else was putting the final touches on their Thanksgiving-dinner grocery lists, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was picking a fight with his state legislature and ...
Send More Students to College
A dangerous idea has been gaining momentum within education-reform circles: Too many young people are going to college. Since Charles Murray took up this line in a series of Wall ...
End the Special-Ed Racket
Your fourth grader is struggling in school, and you aren’t sure why. At his teacher’s suggestion, you hesitantly agree to let the school district test him for a learning disability. ...
Grading Teachers
In 2007, only 57 percent of fourth graders in New York City and 44 percent of fourth graders in Chicago could claim even basic literacy according to the National Assessment ...
Robots Don’t Pay Dues
Imagine that an ordinary American family — let’s call them the van Winkles — fell asleep in 1959 and awoke today. Technology would have changed much of their daily lives. ...