PJM Column on the Education Agenda

August 2, 2008

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

I have a column up on Pajamas Media noting that education just flared up in the presidential race recently, and then asking (and answering) the question: Just what can a president do about education, anyway, given that it’s primarily an area of state authority rather than federal?

It’s a question worth asking, because education is going to come up again before this campaign is over. Well, here are five things the next education president (they’re all “education presidents” these days) can do to improve the nation’s schools without expanding federal authority over education beyond its current level.

Leave a Comment » | NCLB, politics, teacher pay, teacher quality, vouchers | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Weekend PJM Column

June 25, 2008

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

I was out of town earlier this week and didn’t get a chance to post a link to my Pajamas Media column on the D.C. voucher evaluation, which ran over the weekend. It’s here.

Leave a Comment » | research reports, vouchers | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

PJM Column Today

June 16, 2008

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Jay and I have a column on Pajamas Media this morning with our take on Response to Intervention. A sample: 

Five years ago, we published a study with disturbing implications — literally millions of students may have been labeled as “disabled” and placed into special education when they didn’t really have a disability. Since then, we’ve been struggling to get past the many myths and misconceptions surrounding special education, trying to get people to see the problem.

Now there’s finally been a change, and there’s good news and bad news. The good news is, federal special education authorities have at last acknowledged the problem and adopted a policy designed to address it. The bad news is, the policy is no good.

That’s the way it usually goes in education reform — two steps forward, one step back. And the obstacles to reform in special education are unusually large, so the steps are baby steps.

But you know what they say: the first step is admitting you have a problem. And we’re glad to see that step has been taken.

UPDATE: Whoops, forgot the link.

4 Comments | instructional reform, special ed | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

The Real Case for NCLB

May 16, 2008

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

My column on NCLB is on Pajamas Media this morning. A sample:

When you set aside all the implausible multi-year plans, toothless sanctions, easily evaded school choice requirements, and other window dressing, NCLB boils down to one simple commercial transaction: the system got a big cash payoff, in exchange for which it agreed to give standardized tests and release up-to-date information on how students are performing.

Before NCLB, many states didn’t give standardized tests at all, or didn’t release the results in a timely and publicly useable format. Now they all do. And all 50 states now participate in the Nation’s Report Card, a single national test of a representative sample of students, which allows researchers to conduct cross-state comparisons.

This transparency represents an incredible boon. The amount of empirical research done on education has been growing at a breathtaking rate. Before NCLB, education was a fringe element at best in economics, political science, and other social science disciplines. Now it’s everywhere. A lot of that research is due to the data made available by NCLB.

4 Comments | NCLB | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Rejoinder to Sol Stern

May 1, 2008

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

My rejoinder to Sol Stern’s erroneous claims about school choice is on Pajamas Media this morning. A sample:

And what about the claim that vouchers are a political loser? Stern writes that “voucher programs for poor children … have hit a wall.” (emphasis added) He observes that there haven’t been new “voucher programs for poor children” (emphasis added) since the Supreme Court gave its blessing to vouchers in 2002.

If you read Stern’s article without knowing the facts, you’d think there had been only one new voucher program since 2002 — he mentions only the DC program. What Stern doesn’t tell you is that there have been no other new voucher programs “for poor children” because vouchers are now so successful that the programs enacted since 2002 are no longer restricted to poor children. They’re broader in scope.

I go on to defend the claim I made last week here on Jay P. Greene’s Blog that “school choice is politically stronger than ever,” and run down the empirical research on the effects of choice.

Leave a Comment » | competitive effects, politics | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

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