School For $6 A Month
Forbes, NY, December 11, 2008
In America my efforts to widen education options and promote school choice for poor kids, like the efforts of most U.S. reformers, have always assumed that, at day’s end, the government must pay for this. Perhaps that’s true in the Western world, perhaps it’s not.

Why I Changed the Challenge Index
Washington Post, D.C., December 11, 2008
For 10 years I have been ranking high schools based on participation in AP, International Baccalaureate and other college-level exams. I call this the Challenge Index. It is the system used by Newsweek in its annual list of top high schools and by The Washington Post…

K-12 Schools Slashing Costs
Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2008
As state governors warn of significant shortfalls in their budgets, many schools districts are facing the biggest cutbacks they’ve seen in decades. And in some cases, they’re already slashing.

Wrong on Linda Darling-Hammond
Washington Post, D.C., December 11, 2008
In its Dec. 5 editorial “A Job for a Reformer,” The Post inaccurately described Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who is considered one of the top candidates to become President-elect Barack Obama’s education secretary. The claim that Ms. Darling-Hammond represents the “status quo” is ludicrous.

Private and Public, Separate And Unequal
Washington Times, D.C., December 11, 2008
No congressman sends his children to public schools in the nation’s capital; more than a quarter of the teachers in the public schools send their children to private school.

Hearing Today On Schools Opt-Out
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, GA, December 11, 2008
Gwinnett County Schools officials will go before the public today to discuss the district’s plan to raise student performance by opting out of state mandates some school officials believe restrict their ability to significantly elevate standardized test scores.

Parent Blasts New Orleans Charter School’s Expulsion Process
The Times-Picayune, LA, December 10, 2008
For more than a month, Robert Starks, a 16-year-old already far behind in school, has sat at home in limbo — waiting to find out if he is expelled from the New Orleans Charter Science and Math Academy and where he should go to school now.

U.S. News & World Report Ranks IRHS Among Nation’s Best
Sussex Countian, DE, December 10, 2008
Indian River High School, in Dagsboro, was recently recognized as one of the best high schools in the United States by U.S. News & World Report and School Evaluation Services.

Timeout on Teacher Tenure
Los Angeles Times, CA, December 11, 2008
Teachers unions have guarded the right to tenure with great devotion and tenacity. But with the head of Washington’s school district pushing for at least a timeout on tenure, and the head of the American Federation of Teachers willing to put the issue on the negotiating table, the time is ripe for a new discussion of this antiquated entitlement.

City School System Can’t Withstand Charter Cuts / Charter School Won’t “Gut” Public Schools
Gloucester Daily Times, MA, December 11, 2008
I am writing as a concerned citizen, as a parent of two children who attend our Gloucester Public Schools and as a School Committee member. I just want to say I am completely opposed to a charter school in our community.

School Officials Should Listen To Parents
Business Gazette, MD, December 11, 2008
It is time that officials with Frederick County Public Schools listened to their constituents.

Firing Calloway Should Trigger Strong State Reply
Detroit News, MI, December 11, 2008
The tenure of another Detroit school superintendent is about to come to an end, leaving the district again at square one in devising a plan to turnaround its abysmal performance. The state must step in with an even greater intervention to protect the children trapped in this miserable school system.

Controversial Law Threatens Two Ariz. School Voucher Programs
Evening Bulletin, PA, December 11, 2008
Arizona’s teachers’ union challenged the state’s two school-voucher programs in the Arizona Supreme Court this week, citing a law educational-choice supporters say was explicitly written to curb Catholic education.

Charter School Teachers Paid Less
The Coloradoan, CO, December 11, 2008
Teachers at Poudre School District’s charter schools are the lowest paid in the district, according to School Accountability Report data released Tuesday.

Interest in Charter Schools Growing
Journal and Courier, IN, December 10, 2008
A report commissioned by the Indiana General Assembly and released last week by the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University shows growing interest in charter schools, but it also found innovation and achievement results have been mixed.

Education Plan Would Kick Officials At Failing Districts To The Curb
The Commercial Dispatch, MS, December 10, 2008
State Education Superintendent Hank Bounds wants to boot out all school boards and superintendents in districts that persistently underperform. Their schools would then be consolidated into one state-run school system.