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In Plain Sight: Simple, Difficult Lessons from New Jersey's Expensive Effort to Close the Achievement Gap
Gordon MacInnes,
Century Foundation Press,
1/9/2009
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Improving On No Child Left Behind: Getting Education Reform Back on Track
Richard D. Kahlenberg,
Century Foundation Press,
10/15/2008
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America's Untapped Resource
Richard D. Kahlenberg,
Century Foundation Press,
1/14/2004
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Public School Choice vs. Private School Vouchers
Richard D. Kahlenberg,
Century Foundation Press,
9/24/2003
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Can Separate Be Equal? The Overlooked Flaw at the Center of No Child Left Behind
Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
4/23/2004
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Divided We Fail: Coming Together through Public School Choice
The Century Foundation,
Century Foundation Press,
9/18/2002
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All Together Now
Richard D. Kahlenberg,
Brookings Institution Press,
2/15/2001
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A Notion at Risk
Richard D. Kahlenberg,
Century Foundation Press,
9/15/2000
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Raleigh's Innovative Economic Diversity Plan
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
3/1/2010
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On Sunday, The New York Times outlined the growing threat to Wake County (Raleigh), North Carolina’s innovative and successful plan to integrate schools by economic status. The program, which was lauded in the Times five years ago for its ability to increase minority achievement, while maintaining high achievement for whites, seeks to ensure that no school has more than 40% of students eligible for subsidized lunches. This past October, however, the plan came under attack in the ostensibly nonpartisan school board election, where opponents of the diversity plan were heavily funded by the Republican Party. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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What Educators Should Learn from ER
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Gordon MacInnes,
The Century Foundation,
2/1/2010
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Educators could learn a thing or two from the craft of medicine, even medicine practiced on television. Doctors on the popular television series ER, for example, are not surprised to learn that mortality rates are higher at County General Hospital than at Pleasant Valley Community Hospital. Doctors at County see a lot more drug abusers, gunshot victims, obese diabetics, alcoholics, and the homeless, not to mention heart attacks, strokes, and concussions. Pleasant Valley might see more lawn mower and hockey injuries, to go along with heart and cancer problems. Its patients arrive in better overall health, have regular check-ups, and better insurance coverage. These factors make a difference—a huge difference—in outcomes between the two hospitals. Continue Reading on the Taking Note blog.
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Obama's No Child Left Behind Revisions
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
2/1/2010
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According to today’s New York Times, President Obama will propose a number of important changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which under the Bush Administration was known as No Child Left Behind. The good news is that Obama plans to eliminate some of the most problematic features of NCLB. The bad news is that he may introduce some new problems, drawing on the administration’s current “Race to the Top” education program. Continue Reading on the Taking Note blog.
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What Educators Can Learn from ER
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Gordon MacInnes,
The Century Foundation,
1/29/2010
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Educators could learn a thing or two from the craft of medicine, even medicine practiced on television. Doctors on the popular television series ER, for example, are not surprised to learn that mortality rates are higher at County General Hospital than at Pleasant Valley Community Hospital. Doctors at County see a lot more drug abusers, gunshot victims, obese diabetics, alcoholics, and the homeless, not to mention heart attacks, strokes, and concussions. Pleasant Valley might see more lawn mower and hockey injuries, to go along with heart and cancer problems. Its patients arrive in better overall health, have regular check-ups, and better insurance coverage. These factors make a difference—a huge difference—in outcomes between the two hospitals. Download the Issue Brief (PDF).
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SOTU and Education
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
1/28/2010
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On the education front, President Obama's State of the Union address was notable in three respects. First, he adroitly tied his reforms in higher education to his larger message about holding banks accountable. Currently, the government subsidizes banks to make low interest student loans for college. Cutting the banks out and making loans directly will save billions of dollars that Obama directs to increasing Pell Grants and other education programs, such as better pre-K. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Digital Promise Project Reaches Goal for Creation of National Center For Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies
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1/27/2010
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After more than a decade of nationwide effort, the Digital Promise Project has achieved an essential goal the creation of the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies. The Digital Promise Project had its beginnings as a project sponsored by The Century Foundation. This year the Department of Education, as provided by their 2010 appropriations legislation, will make available the initial funding required to launch the National Center. In the words of the Centers authorizing legislation, The purpose of the Center shall be to support a comprehensive research and development program to harness the increasing capability of advanced information and digital technologies to improve all levels of learning and education, formal and informal, in order to provide Americans with the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the global economy
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View the Press Release (PDF).
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Bloomberg’s Flawed Teacher Evaluation Mandate
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Gordon MacInnes,
The Century Foundation,
12/1/2009
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Better a mayor or governor willing to fight for improved teaching and learning than one trapped by the status quo. However, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s newly proposed policies seem destined to out-run the capacity of educators to implement the fair and workable system of teacher evaluation he promises.Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Does Obama Believe in School Integration?
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
11/17/2009
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Over the past 10 months, we’ve heard a great deal about the Obama Administration’s support for charter schools, education standards, and performance pay for teachers. But what does the Administration think of racial and socioeconomic school integration? On Friday, a slew of major civil rights organizations held a national conference at Howard University Law School and invited several key Obama Administration officials to speak, including Carmel Martin, Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development at the Department of Education; Russlynn Ali, the Education Department’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights; and Derek Douglas, Special Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs in the Domestic Policy Council. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Turnaround Schools That Work: Moving Beyond Separate but Equal
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11/12/2009
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Nov. 12, 2009, Washington, DC — Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s far-reaching efforts to transform the country’s lowest-performing schools into successful ones don’t reach far enough, according to a new report from The Century Foundation. In “Turnaround Schools That Work: Moving Beyond Separate but Equal,” TCF Senior Fellow Richard Kahlenberg details why “turnaround” approaches that focus on changing principals and teachers but fail to address issues related to parents and students have fallen short of expectations. In the report, he also looks at charter schools, such as Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) schools and the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) Promise Academies. He finds that, while these schools have been highly successful with low income students, the models would not likely be successfully employed to improve student achievement in the nation’s five thousand lowest-performing public schools, which are the focus of Duncan’s current efforts.
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Eight Reasons Not to Tie Teacher Pay to Standardized Test Results: A New Issue Brief from The Century Foundation
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10/28/2009
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Should teachers be judged by how well their students perform on standardized test? The U.S. Department of Education has determined that the answer is “yes.” In the proposed rules for the Race to the Top Fund—the federal program that is seeking to distribute $4.3 billion in aid to states that are implementing innovative and ambitious plans for increasing student achievement—Education Secretary Arne Duncan insists that in order to receive these funds, states should be ready evaluate and compensate teachers based in part on how well their students perform on standardized tests.
In a new issue brief, Eight Reasons Not to Tie Teacher Pay to Standardized Test Results released today by The Century Foundation, Fellow Gordon MacInnes points out why this plan doesn’t make the grade.
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Download the PDF verson.
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Kristof’s Misplaced War on Teacher Unions
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
10/15/2009
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For years, conservatives have routinely denounced teacher unions as the biggest problem in education. Not poverty or segregation, which four decades of research have consistently found to be the number one and number two predictors of low performance. Instead, the democratically-elected representatives of America’s teachers are to blame. For the right wing, these attacks have been wrong-headed but politically rational: teacher unions forcefully oppose the right’s pet ideas (including publicly funded private school vouchers), and work hard to elect liberal candidates who pledge to devote greater resources to public education. More recently, however, we’ve seen the rise of the liberal critic, who oddly regurgitates right wing talking points on teacher unions. Nicholas Kristof’s column in this morning’s New York Times is a prime example. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Avoid Top-down Policies that Disrespect Teaching
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Gordon MacInnes,
The Century Foundation,
10/7/2009
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Education Secretary Arne Duncan has a point--the prevailing system for preparing, recruiting, evaluating, retaining, and compensating teachers does not work well. There is broad agreement that prospective teachers require more clinical experience; that inexperienced teachers need more and better mentoring; that evaluations of classroom teachers are routinized and of little value; that accumulated course credits do not usually pay off in better classroom performance; that seniority doesn’t guarantee quality instruction; and, that it is too cumbersome and expensive to dismiss bad teachers. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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No Child Left Behind’s Incentive Game
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Marco Basile,
The Century Foundation,
8/17/2009
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At a recent education policy gathering of top social scientists from fifteen universities and several policy research organizations, the best line of the day came from a reporter at the back of the room. Various longitudinal studies of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) had been presented at a conference dedicated to evaluating the 2001 Act by the time a young reporter raised his hand, stood up, and asked with a straight face: “Could any of today’s speakers please tell us whether or not the No Child Left Behind Act is working?” Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Housing Integration in Westchester
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
8/12/2009
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Yesterday’s New York Times brought welcome news that suburban Westchester County New York had agreed to a landmark housing desegregation settlement to create more than 600 homes and apartments for moderate income residents in overwhelmingly white communities. For many people, the idea of integration – of housing and of schools – has a 1970's ring to it, but if we really want to provide equal opportunity for kids, and to fulfill the promise of a single nation, the Westchester agreement must be a harbinger of things to come.Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Secretary Duncan: Keep Charters out of the Muck, Please
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Gordon MacInnes,
The Century Foundation,
7/9/2009
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Secretary Arne Duncan used his speech before the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools to spotlight the “bottom 5%” of America’s public schools. Numbering about 5,000, Duncan urged the charter school community to consider taking on some of these schools and turn them around. He was clear that not every charter school operator is up to this challenge, naming a few multiple-site groups like KIPP and Green Dot as possible candidates.Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Brown v. Board of Education at 55
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
5/20/2009
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This past Sunday marked the 55th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, but to the extent it was noticed at all, the case’s meaning was pretty well diluted beyond recognition. Brown was about ending segregated schooling and upending the noxious legal principle laid down in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate” schooling for black and white could be “equal.” Today, however, Brown has become for most education leaders a loose metaphor for improving education for minority students and is utterly divorced from the original notion that so long as disadvantaged minority students attend schools separately from more advantaged white students, those schools will be unequal. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Obama: Stay Away from Notre Dame's Commencement
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
Steve Shadowen,
The Century Foundation,
5/15/2009
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Conservative Catholics have been berating Notre Dame for extending a commencement-speaking invitation to a pro-choice president. We agree that President Barack Obama shouldn't speak at Notre Dame—but abortion has nothing to do with it. Notre Dame practices pervasive discrimination in its admissions policies. Every year the school reserves 25 percent of the seats in its entering class for children of alumni. These "legacy preferences" result in applicants being granted or denied admission based not on their merit but on their ancestry. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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What Obama's Education Speech Was Missing
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
3/10/2009
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In President Barack Obama's speech on education today to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, he outlined four pillars of K-12 school reform: Investing in early childhood initiatives; encouraging better standards and tests; recruiting, preparing and rewarding outstanding teachers; and promoting innovation through charter schools and longer school days and school years. These are mostly very good and important ideas, worthy of support, but I was left wondering about a fifth pillar -- the need to attack the fountainhead of unequal schooling: our system of educating low-income and minority students separately from middle-class and white students. Especially before an audience of Latinos, whose children are more segregated in schools even than African Americans, why not address this question head-on? Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Building on Success: Educational Strategies that Work
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Greg Anrig,
The Century Foundation,
3/5/2009
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As President Barack Obama continues to shape his domestic agenda, he has indicated that he plans to identify, support and expand programs that work, while eliminating things that don’t work. In a new policy brief from The Century Foundation, Greg Anrig, vice president for policy, looks at three highly successful state education initiatives that are working for children, their families, and their communities.
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Download the Report.
View Press Release
View related book: Improving On No Child Left Behind: Getting Education Reform Back on Track
View related book: In Plain Sight: Simple, Difficult Lessons from New Jersey's Expensive Effort to Close the Achievement Gap
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A Better Alternative on DC School Vouchers
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
3/3/2009
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The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal editorial pages have teamed up to denounce a provision in the 2009 omnibus spending bill which they say will effectively kill the ongoing Washington D.C. school voucher program that gives public funds to low-income students to attend private and religious schools. Part of the argument made by The Post and The Journal, is that it would be unfair to dump these voucher students midstream back into the largely dysfunctional Washington D.C. public school system. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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The Problem with Ethnic Charter Schools
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
1/15/2009
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On Monday, a committee of the New York State Board of Regents approved a proposal to create a Hebrew-language charter school in Brooklyn. The school is part of a growing movement among charter schools to target specific ethnic or racial groups. As Sara Rimer noted in a front page New York Times story on Saturday, there are 30 ethnic charter schools in Minnesota alone, catering to groups such as Somali, Ethiopian and Hmong immigrants. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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The Best and Worst in Education - 2008
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
12/22/2008
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In many ways, 2008 was a great year for education, with the election of a new president who is willing to both invest in and reform American schools. Also encouraging was the emergence of a new kind of school integration based primarily on economic status to replace race-based plans struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. At the same time, however, 2008 was deeply disheartening year for education, as long-running tensions between some civil rights groups and liberal pundits on the one hand, and teacher unions and academics on the other, threatened to deteriorate into an all-out education war on the left.. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Arne Duncan Moves to the National Stage
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
12/16/2008
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President-Elect Barack Obama’s new choice of Education Secretary, Chicago schools CEO Arne Duncan, is receiving wide praise from various factions of the Democratic Party, and even from some Republicans. Everyone seems to support the choice, from outgoing Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to the National Education Association. Like Obama, Duncan has embraced charter schools and teacher pay for performance, which pleases some, but he’s also implemented reforms in cooperation with the local teachers union, and doesn’t demonize teacher voice like some do. Moreover, as a big advocate of pre-K programs in Chicago, he recognizes that poverty is the biggest source of the achievement gap, not teacher unions. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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In A New Book from The Century Foundation National Education Experts Offer Advice for Next Administration on How to Fix No Child Left Behind
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10/15/2008
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October 15, 2008, Washington —Among the early challenges for the new president and Congress next year will be getting national education reform back on track by fixing the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which is up for reauthorization. NCLB was passed in 2001 with broad bipartisan support, but the controversial legislation, which requires states receiving federal funding to test students in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and to hold schools accountable for making adequate yearly progress in raising student achievement, is now widely acknowledged to need a major overhaul when it is reauthorized.
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View in PDF.
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Ocean Hill-Brownsville at 40
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
9/9/2008
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New York City public schools opened peaceably again this year, making it all the more remarkable to recall the chaos that rocked the system 40 years ago. On what was to be the opening day, September 9, 1968, the vast majority of city schools were shut down as more than 50,000 New York City public school teachers went out on strike. The day marked the beginning of the first of three walkouts that kept 1.1 million students out of school for a total of 36 days through mid-November, constituting what was at the time the longest and largest series of teacher strikes in American history.Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Opening School Choice to the Suburbs
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
The Century Foundation,
8/27/2008
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One of the big problems with the No Child Left Behind Act is its failure to deliver on the promise to allow kids in low-performing schools to transfer to better performing institutions. Only about 1% of students transfer under the Act’s provisions, in part because in many urban districts, there are very few good schools to transfer into. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Radical idea: Open the doors of affluent suburban schools to Chicago students
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Richard D. Kahlenberg,
Chicago Tribune,
8/22/2008
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Sen. James Meeks' (D-Chicago) proposed student boycott of Chicago public schools next month has sparked furious controversy. Should students miss their first day of class for the worthy goal of promoting equity in public school spending? Leaders such as Mayor Richard Daley and Chicago Public Schools Chief Arne Duncan are worried about the disruption involved as Meeks seeks to enroll Chicago students at New Trier High School in Winnetka.
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