In advance of school choice week, we should ask, “How widespread is school choice in Minnesota?” The answer is “modest, at best.” On the plus side, it has the second-best law on charter schools in the nation, according to the Center for Education Reform. The center cites the following: There are no caps on the number of charter schools. A variety of institutions–colleges, school districts, and […]
k-12 education
Making Lemonade out of a Lemon: How Minnesota Can Save $30 Million a Year
There’s still $4 billion in “stimulus” money dedicated to education, and the Foundation for Educational Choice has some ideas for how to spend that money in a way that will produce long-term savings. A new report by Brian Gottlob suggests that the money be distributed to states for the purpose of creating school scholarships. While “Race to the Top” funding (which has also come out of […]
Waiting for Superman: Why charter schools have lotteries
In yesterday’s installment on “Waiting for Superman,” I closed by asking why the students who wanted to enter a charter school had to be on a wait list or endure a lottery. The short answer: laws on the books today are part of the problem. In his book, Learning as We Go: Why School Choice is Worth the Wait, Paul T. Hill asks why there aren’t […]
Waiting for Superman, Part 2
Yesterday I wrote about education reform and Waiting for Superman in general terms. Today I’ll give you a more detailed review. I want to believe in public schools, but … One thing I like about the movie is that it makes clear that it isn’t just libertarian-minded economists who want structural reforms in schools. As it starts, we hear Davis Guggenheim, the film’s director, talking about his […]
Waiting for Superman, Part 1
Public schools are facing “an inconvenient truth” in the form of a movie produced by the man behind Al Gore’s eco-disaster movie. Will it save the fate of America’s children? I’ve just returned from seeing it, and I have one word of advice: Go. Uptown Landmark theater. This week. Waiting for Superman is a documentary about some horrible public schools and several children who attend […]
Plagiarism in MSU report?
Now this is interesting. The report from Michigan State University, which I mentioned in a blog post, may have been plagiarized. A scholar at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, for which I have done some work, noticed some similarities between the MSU report and work published elsewhere. Click here for more from Mackinac.
A Yellow Light on District Consolidation
Should Michigan force-feed a consolidation of school districts? Perhaps. After all, public schools are funded almost entirely with public money, and a large chunk of that comes through the political apparatus in Lansing. A new report from Michigan State University suggests that consolidation could save Michigan taxpayers a lot of money. But should lawmakers proceed? The answer is complicated. Consider, for example, the the introduction to […]
MSU Prof: We’re over-medicating children
Currently, 4.5 million children are diagnosed with ADHD. Todd Elder, a professor at MSU, says that close to 20 percent of those children may be diagnosed incorrectly, simply because of an arbitrary line drawn on the calendar. According to a university press release, these children may be “misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder simply because they are the youngest ” and most immature ” in their […]
Time for differentiation in schooling
Instead of developing national, college-prep standards for high-school students, maybe we should be fostering some diversity in what students gets out of their time in school. The surprising advocate of this idea? Chester E. Finn Jr., whose Thomas B. Fordham Institute has been an advocate of strong academic standards. In this commentary, Finn worries that the Common Core movement might lead to more students dropping […]
District consolidation saves money–but only to a point
Would Minnesota benefit from having fewer school districts? I don’t know, but based on the evidence I’ve read, I’m skeptical. Here’s what I know after some research into the question: Matthew Andrews, William Duncombe, and John Yinger (all of Syracuse University) say there may be some efficiencies to be gained from moving from consolidating very small districts–specifically, those with 500 or fewer students to those with 2,000 […]