Category Archives: Policy

Charter School Funding: Bugaboo Factor

September 26, 2010 – 8:37 pm

100s of charter school studies have assessed the viability of the movement particularly on student achievement as measured by standardized tests. One study shows charter schools students do better than comparison groups, another shows they are about the same, another shows charter school students do poorer than comparison groups. Two major criticisms of these studies [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Assessment, Charter schools, Reform, Reports, Research | Comments (0)

Alternatives, the National Scene

September 5, 2010 – 10:10 am

Dan Daly, executive director of IALA wrote recently of the organization’s efforts to impact state and national policy: This past June, IALA hosted the Tri-State Alternatives Leadership Summit in Bloomington and formed The IALA Coalition for Innovative Education. Leaders from the following ten organizations participated; IALA, MN Association of Alternative Programs, IA Association of Alternative [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Choices, Education Evolving, EdVisions Cooperative, Reform | Comments (0)

Gardner, Advocate for Educational Pluralism

September 4, 2010 – 3:52 pm

Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard and well known for his books including Multiple Intelligences and Five Minds for the Future, writes of the importance of a variety of educational programs to fit different students. In a recent article, he writes that after studying various approaches such as Reggio Emilia (a program he particularly [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Choices, Personalized Educ, Research, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Multiple Assessments: Hope Survey

August 9, 2010 – 5:41 pm

What effect is the current standards movement and teaching to the test having on our students? What do you know about how students at your school view the school environment? Now your school can find out by seeing the school from the eyes of your students based on their responses on the Hope Survey. This [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Assessment, High schools, Part 21st Cent Skills, Personalized Educ, Reform, Research, Students, Survey, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Prologue to Revolution: Exciting Approach

August 4, 2010 – 10:37 am

“Prologue to Revolution,” a seven page report by Francis Duffy, lists four “industrial-age” paradigms hampering school change, describes why they persist in the face of evidence to the contrary, and asks about the reader’s beliefs as a road to action. This readable piece provides a compelling argument for school transformation and suggests avenues for its [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Reform, Reports, Research, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

New Book Blames Students

June 15, 2010 – 1:27 pm

Bad Students Not Bad Schools by Robert Weissberg, U of Illinois professor emeritus of political science, is a throwback to highly traditional education when principals exercised the power to throw kids out. This easy read, colorfully written with a degree of exaggeration, ultimately lapses in frustration at how to fix schools. Several chapters describe the failures of many [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Choices, Competition, Students, Uncategorized, Vouchers | Comments (0)

Graduation For All

January 13, 2010 – 4:11 pm

Here are a couple of very interesting and extensive articles on graduation rates and the need to promote graduation for all students.  The first article talks mostly about the graduation gap between the upper 2/3 of high school students and the lower 1/3, made up mostly of urban, low-income African American and Latino students.  The [...]

By admin | Also posted in Alternatives, Articles, At risk programs, Reform, Reports | Comments (0)

School Choice Expanding Worldwide

July 16, 2009 – 8:35 pm

Since the early 1990s when the nation’s first charter school was opened in St. Paul, MN, the scope and availability of school-based options to parents has steadily expanded in the U.S. and abroad. No longer can traditional education be a public monopoly. Sponsored by the National Center on School Choice (NCSC), this 648 page ($115) Handbook of [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Charter schools, Choices, Magnet schools, Reform, Research, Vouchers | Comments (0)

Valuable Resources on Alternative Education

February 26, 2009 – 5:01 pm

Here are useful resources with links to other sites: Brief descriptions in Summary of Educational Models include: Accelerated Schools, America’s Choice, Big Picture, Communities in Schools, EdVisions, Job Corps, Youth Build and 17 more. The Alternative High School Initiative (AHSI) is a network of youth development organizations with over 258 sites nationwide for creating educational [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Choices, High schools, Reform, Reports, Research, Students | Comments (0)

Federal Program Supports School Choice

December 6, 2008 – 5:21 pm

The U. S. Department of Education’s Office of Voluntary Public School Choice program supports States and school districts in efforts to establish or expand a public school choice program. It supports efforts to establish or expand intradistrict, interdistrict, and open enrollment public school choice programs to provide parents, particularly parents whose children attend low-performing public [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Choices, Reports, U.S. Dept. of Educ., Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Questions Raised about High Standards/Testing

June 22, 2008 – 12:55 pm

‘Restoring Value’ to the High School Diploma: The Rhetoric and Practice of Higher Standards, a new report raises serious questions about the standards and testing movement as a vehicle for reforming high schools. It starts, “Four themes emerge from the fray: that standards and rigor are too low; that the high school has lost its [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Choices, High schools, Reform, Reports, Research | Comments (0)

Baccalaureate Degree at Community Colleges!

May 15, 2008 – 11:07 am
By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Choices, Reform | Comments (0)