11.16.09 - RiShawn Biddle - The Latino teens graduating from the Animo Leadership High School just outside Los Angeles probably aren't familiar with the arguments for expanding Head Start and pre-kindergarten programs offered by advocates such as Nobel Laureate James Heckman.
By RiShawn Biddle
The students returning this fall to Hollywood High School in Los Angeles probably know more about such Tinseltown landmarks at the Walk of Fame than about the Doha Round of trade talks that collapsed for the umpteenth time last week. Nor are they likely to know about the arguments being made by the AFL-CIO, Ralph Nader's Public Citizen, and other groups opposed to free trade, for which the stalled negotiations were the sweetest music.
By RiShawn Biddle
NEW YORK -- Michael Bloomberg isn't getting a lot of help these days in securing his legacy as mayor of New York City. The state's otherwise dysfunctional legislature and new Gov. David Paterson dealt a blow to Bloomberg's school reform agenda last month when they essentially banned the use of test scores and other student data in evaluating the performance of new teachers.
By RiShawn Biddle
More than 90 percent of New Jersey's high school freshmen graduate on time. That's according to statistics reported by the state to the public and to the U.S. Department of Education, but it isn't so.
It's difficult to explain how much the world has changed in 25 years -- and for the better. Those who lived through December 1981 would be well served to pause and give thanks for the differences.
The Myth of High-Stakes Testing
One education cliche that should be left behind.
RiShawn Biddle
Fully half of the Class of 2006 at Lew Wallace High School, in the Rust Belt city of Gary, Indiana, graduated despite flunking the state's Graduation Qualifying Exam repeatedly, which they are supposed to pass to graduate. Students had had five chances to pass, but the school ushered them out into the "real world" anyway
By RiShawn Biddle
As the battle over reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act rages on, school reformers are spending as much time arguing against one another as they have combating the teachers' unions and suburban school districts vehemently opposing it. Advocates of standards and accountability, who have shaped the six-year-old law, rightly argue that it is forcing public schools to confront their longstanding problems.
