Education
Monday, May 27, 2013
Top Story
5/24/2013
San Diego Union-Tribune
Right now, some California students are sitting for hours pouring over testing booklets and filling in scantron bubbles. The results of that will shape the fate of their teachers, principals, district officials and become the conversation fodder for the education politics of the year to come.
Yet those students’ parents, the real education deciders, and the students themselves receive almost no feedback from their hard work. Why?
Because the California Department of Education delivers the results of the March, April and May test to principals and local school officials in mid-August and last year (after a security breach) officials didn’t get results until mid-September. Parents did not see the schoolwide results until mid-October, well after school started and 6 months after most enrollment
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Features
5/20/2013
National Review Online
School Dollars Should Follow Success, Not Just Enrollment
The decision of the Louisiana supreme court to strike down as unconstitutional the funding mechanism of the state’s school-voucher program is a major blow to school-choice supporters, but the biggest
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5/9/2013
Over the past decade, the United States has spent upwards of $100 billion on K-12 classroom technology to no discernible effect. The reason is clear: most education technology in use in K-12 classrooms
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5/7/2013
Real Clear Policy
Time may be running out for supporters of education vouchers. The very survival of the schools that would benefit most from vouchers is in doubt. Faith-based schools, especially Catholic and Jewish day
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Education Articles
| 12/7/2012 |
Executive Summary
What is the cost to the United States economy attributable to lack of basic English skills? The nation’s English learner population continues to grow dramatically. According to the 2010 Census, there
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| 11/21/2012 |
As high-quality blended learning models proliferate around the country in traditional public, public charter and private schools, keeping current can be a challenge. These videos may prove helpful.
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| 11/10/2012 |
The Washington Post
“Is my child’s school safe? Is it a good school?” These are the first questions most parents, and especially most urban parents, want to know at the start of a school year.
In the District of Columbia,
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| 10/23/2012 |
Presentation to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers
Blended learning seems to be gaining strong momentum across American public education, but it poses some distinct challenges for charter school authorizers if they remain locked into their old ways of
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| 10/16/2012 |
Some Schools are Creating a New Model for Religious Instruction. City Journal
Though they enrolled 5.2 million students at the height of the baby boom, Catholic schools in the United States have struggled with declining matriculation in the decades since and today have just under
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| 9/21/2012 |
Introduction
These nine essays chronicle prominent examples where the advancement of radical agendas has displaced the development of subject-content mastery in America’s schools of education.
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| 8/31/2012 |
Chicago Tribune
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is considered a man of iron will who has a deep commitment to reform. He should show it. Push ahead with Chicago Public School reforms and decertify the Chicago Teachers Union if necessary.
The
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| 8/22/2012 |
Event Date: October 16, 9 AM – 12:30 PM Catholic University of America, Pryzbyla Conference Center
We hope that you are able to join us for an upcoming education policy event Tuesday, October 16 in Washington, DC, sponsored by the Lexington Institute and the Catholic University of America’s Department
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| 8/21/2012 |
The Seattle Times
Charter-school growth has hit Catholic schools hard. This coming school year, for the first time more American elementary and high-school students will enroll in charter schools than in Catholic schools.
Instead
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| 8/10/2012 |
Roanoke (VA) Times
Now that Virginia has become the 18th state to give private school choice a public boost (via a limited tax credit), the time may be right to move forward with more robust measures that could extend the
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| 8/4/2012 |
The Oklahoman
With its recent adoption of opportunity scholarships, Oklahoma has become a leader in tapping the power of school choice to help families and society as a whole. The potential exists to draw on this power
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| 7/29/2012 |
Charter schools, only 20 years old, are on the rise across America as parents and students try to escape failing public schools. The growth in charter schools has hit Catholic schools especially hard,
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| 7/20/2012 |
Enhancing the Catholic Mission with Data, Blended Learning, and Other Best Practices From Top Charter Schools
Executive Summary
Catholic K-12 education in the United States is in crisis – with rapidly declining enrollment, untenable financial models, and new competition from public charter schools.
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| 6/20/2012 |
Presentation, National Charter School Conference
Lexington's Don Soifer gave the following presentation at the National Charter Schools Conference in Minneapolis. He discusses the benefits of innovative charter school solutions for children of active
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| 6/3/2012 |
East Valley Tribune (Arizona)
Arizona’s system for educating English Learners has undergone substantial restructuring in the past 12 years, including new funding levels and formulas. While this has resulted in changes to some long-languishing
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| 6/1/2012 |
With online classes becoming more widely available for elementary and secondary students in Virginia, participation and enrollment are starting to grow. Last year, 119 school divisions provided online
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| 5/13/2012 |
Richmond Times-Dispatch
In the early 1990s, Virginia parents rose up in protest and ultimately struck down something called the Common Core of Learning that state education officials were proposing to implement in every public
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| 3/14/2012 |
Executive Summary March 2012
Two important developments have impacted English Language Learners (ELLs) in U.S. public schools during the past decade. The first is that their performance on standardized tests has become a meaningful
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| 3/13/2012 |
Thom Hartmann's syndicated show "The Big Picture"
Lexington’s Don Soifer debates higher education finance with liberal television host Thom Hartmann on his nationally-syndicated television program “The Big Picture.” The host advocated expanding federal
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| 3/13/2012 |
Virginia’s General Assembly finalized a number of sensible improvements to the state’s charter school laws in the closing hours of its 2012 legislative session. The changes seem unlikely to shift the
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| 2/12/2012 |
Richmond Times Dispatch
In the coming weeks, Virginia lawmakers will decide whether to change the state's education laws to allow a new movement of high-quality public charter schools to open their doors.
Virginia has allowed
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| 1/27/2012 |
Don Soifer is a guest on former New York Governor David Paterson’s afternoon talk show on one of New York City’s largest stations. They discuss the procedural obstacles to firing bad teachers in New
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| 1/6/2012 |
Indiana, a state where both student performance and minority achievement gaps approximate the national average, has been taking significant steps toward a promising educational future. With a scholarship
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