Mollie Hemingway The Pulitzer prize-winning editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press has called for the murder of Michigan lawmakers with whom he disagrees. The reason? The lawmakers voted for legislation that would give parents more choices to avoid Michigan’s failing public schools. Detroit’s public schools are failing academically and nearly insolvent, the New … Continue reading Commentary on Michigan K-12 Tax & Spending Policies
Neal McCluskey: Despite the large increases in federal aid since the 1960s, public school academic performance has ultimately not improved. While scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress have improved for some groups and younger ages, math and reading scores for 17-year-olds—essentially, the school system’s “final products”—have been stagnant. In addition, America’s performance on … Continue reading “K-12 spending under the U.S. Department of Education and its predecessor agencies rose from $4.5 billion in 1965 to $40.2 billion in 2016, in constant 2016 dollars”
Caitlin Emma: The difference between the schools was in their readiness to make use of the sudden infusion of money. In Miami, school district officials had prepared for the grants. They had the support of teachers, unions and parents. In Chicago, where teachers fought the program and officials changed almost yearly, schools churned through millions … Continue reading Spending More & Getting Less: Here’s why $7 billion didn’t help America’s worst schools
Alex Zimmerman: “They buried us while we were breathing,” said Deidre Walker, a math teacher at J.H.S. 145, a Bronx middle school that will now close at the end of the school year. “The resources weren’t given.” All five schools are part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Renewal initiative, a program designed to flood them … Continue reading Despite pushback, education panel votes to close five schools in de Blasio’s turnaround program
Noah Smith: The case against spending more on schools comes in two basic forms. One is to look at various U.S. states, and see whether the ones that spend more on education enjoy better outcomes. This has been done many times, with decidedly mixed results. Some studies show little state-by-state correlation between spending levels and … Continue reading Commentary On Money And Schools
Forget about students spending one year in each grade, with the entire class learning the same skills at the same time. Districts from Alaska to Maine are taking a different route.
Instead of simply moving kids from one grade to the next as they get older, schools are grouping students by ability. Once they master a subject, they move up a level. This practice has been around for decades, but was generally used on a smaller scale, in individual grades, subjects or schools.
Now, in the latest effort to transform the bedraggled Kansas City, Mo. schools, the district is about to become what reform experts say is the largest one to try the approach. Starting this fall officials will begin switching 17,000 students to the new system to turnaround trailing schools and increase abysmal tests scores.
Wall Street Journal Review and Outlook: The Texas Supreme Court did the expected last week and struck down the statewide property tax for funding public schools. But what was surprising and welcome was the Court’s unanimous ruling that the Texas school system, which spends nearly $10,000 per student, satisfies the funding “adequacy” requirements of the … Continue reading WSJ: Texas School Finance Lesson