Glenn Reynolds pointed to this Cartoon Version of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom.
My fave!
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Glenn Reynolds pointed to this Cartoon Version of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom. My fave! Apropos of this week’s announcement of another high school reform initiative: The glancing impact of their lavish and ambitious ventures is no surprise to analysts…who, while cautiously optimistic about U.S. schools improving, insist that “educational reformers fail to give due weight to the resilience of schools as institutions.” What they term the “grammar of schooling” [...] A tip of the Downeast hat to those good folks at MDISchools.net, who are tipping us off to a big announcement today by the Governor, the Commissioner, and others. Here’s part of the media advisory, as reproduced at MDISchools: WHO Governor John E. Baldacci Education Commissioner Susan A. Gendron Ann Weisleder, Chair of the State [...] Camille Paglia is always an interesting read, even when she’s way out there, IMO. In the run-up to the election she was an Obama supporter and strongly supportive of Sarah Palin. Here’s the opening of her latest Salon piece: But then I gulped when Obama also pledged educational reform by putting state-of-the-art computers in every [...] In an article entitled “Most Likely to Succeed” in the current New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell investigates the question of how to hire teachers, good teachers. It’s not very easy. Good test scores don’t seem to correlate; in fact nothing does. The only way to find out if someone is a good teacher…is to have them [...] A co-worker brought to my attention a Wall Street Journal review of Patrick J. McCloskey’s “The Street Stops Here: A Year at a Catholic High School in Harlem“. At Rice High School in Harlem, where Mr. McCloskey [the author] focuses most of his book’s attention, the per-pupil cost of an education is pegged at $5,800 [...] Lou Gerstner (IBM) is making some radical proposals. Here’s the short version: - Abolish all local school districts, save 70 (50 states; 20 largest cities). - Establish a set of national standards for a core curriculum. - Establish a National Skills Day on which every third, sixth, ninth and 12th-grader would be tested against the [...] The head of a national teachers union — the other one, the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) — gave a significant speech the other day. The aspect of her speech that got the most attention (NYTimes article, HuffPo post) was a new receptiveness to merit pay for teachers and a willingness to discuss the future [...] She didn’t come up in the usual way. She’s not necessarily a very nice person. She’s the chancellor of the District of Columbia schools. She wants power, the power to fire principals, teachers, and anyone who stands — in her judgment — between public school students and success. Michelle Rhee charged in as chancellor of [...] Maybe you read the article “Lawmakers to look at new requirements for graduation” in Sunday’s Kennebec Journal. It was also listed over on the right under “Current Articles.” A reform of graduation requirements has been a motif over the last few years, with incremental changes occurring everywhere. The effort discussed here is the last big [...] The Broad Foundation is putting a lot of money, $44 million, actually, into an effort to try to test, in a conclusive way, some educational ideas …the research is intended to infuse education with the data-driven approach that is common in science and business, Dr. Fryer said. He compared the current methods of educational research [...] Those rascally right-wingers over at the Maine Heritage Policy Center are up to no good. They’ve developed a web site that allows you, the taxpayer, to figure out what this large enterprise called government — including local school districts — costs! Take a look for yourself: MaineOpenGov.org The site is a little clunky, and a [...] Pay based on performance is an idea that is coming soon to a school near you, perhaps. But are we talking about teachers pay or paying students? The 45% of CEOs who are opposed to pay for grades are often adamant in their opposition. Paying for grades is a “train wreck waiting to [...] |
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