This article examines a wide array of research on the link between school choice programs and student segregation and draws implications for the Obama Administration's policy promoting the national expansion of charter schools. The research demonstrates how the proliferation of charter schools risks increasing current levels of segregation…

The national track record for state-to-district assistance is not stellar. It is tactics in the absence of strategy and activities in the absence of accomplishment. The problem is systemic: State departments need to transform their organizational structures to facilitate rather than hinder effective assistance strategies. The starting place is…

Two significant metaphors in the education discourse describing student and teacher roles in academic achievement are Student-as-Product, and Student-as-Consumer. These fail to take into account the importance of students' active engagement in their own learning. Current policy initiatives around education reform reflect these deficits as…

The authors tell a story of the effects of state and national immigration policies on one teenage girl, and use that situation to call for change that will benefit her and similarly situated students in U.S. schools. The girl was brought to the U.S. when she was a toddler, attended American schools, never returned to or visited her native Mexico,…

The past year has seen the emergence of a broad consensus on raising the standards for entering the teaching profession. The NEA, AFT, and Council of Chief State School Officers all have said they want higher entry standards. Such an exam would be modeled after other professions and is a potential game changer. If sufficiently rigorous, the exam…

Passage of the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) in 2000 established requirements for public libraries and schools to adopt Internet filters on their computers in order to receive federal funding. That has firmly, if unintentionally, established the World Wide Web as a no man's land in public education, where few are allowed to…

By encouraging a single-minded focus on instructional leadership, the training, socializing, and mentoring of school leaders has unwittingly fostered a culture of caged leadership. Leaders are expected to succeed via culture, capacity building, coaching, and consensus--no matter the obstacles in their path. Those are all good things, the author…

The author compared NCLB-prompted standards-based reforms with earlier reforms and found that earlier manifestations of standards-based reforms may have been more productive and constructive. NCLB, with its emphasis on accountability through high-stakes testing, has produced many perverse results alongside documented achievement gains, the author…

In the election battle between former Gov. Mitt Romney and President Obama, the writer looks at Obama's record and concludes he's earned a second shot, especially considering how different his policies are from his competitor's. Amid a climate of scarce resources and even scarcer political goodwill, President Obama has taken steps to provide all…

Answering the question of how a Romney administration would tackle education requires us to keep three things in mind. First, education is a minor issue in this election and would be a secondary concern for a Republican President focused on economic growth, the deficit, tax cuts, and reversing the Affordable Care Act. Second, there are few stark…

For decades, the American elementary and secondary education system has operated somewhat as the railroads did before Lincoln's day, with each state setting its own expectations for what students should know and be able to do. To address that problem, nearly every state, with little fanfare, has adopted the Common Core State Standards for student…

A consensus is emerging about how school leaders affect school performance, and how important principals are to improved student learning. Yet the national reform policies--No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top (RTT)--incorporate assumptions about school and district leadership that are very much at odds with this research. NCLB and RTT call…

Raising academic standards while eliminating achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students are among America's primary national educational goals. According to a growing body of research, America will attain its goals of equity and preparing students to function effectively as citizens and productive workers only through a…

U.S. education is at a transformational moment. The choices we make will determine whether our schools become collaborative and democratic or prescriptive and authoritarian. The policies proposed by the federal government for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act will create some good schools for some students while…

Over 5 million students are learning English in America's public schools, accounting for more than 10% of the K-12 population. That's a 50% increase in the last decade. This demographic change has been matched by changes in national policy. Before No Child Left Behind, states set their own accountability policies. Now, they must demonstrate that…