Facing the Classroom Challenge

Facing the Classroom Challenge, Teacher Quality and Teacher Training in California’s Schools of Education (click here for full article) (click here to download a PDF of this article) By Lance T. Izumi and K. Gwynne Coburn San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 2001.   Briefing Finally, someone has put their finger on the problem: Schools may want to improve but the teaching skills taught to their teachers aren’t up to the job In Facing the Classroom Challenge, … Read More

Direct Instruction and the Teaching of Early Reading

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Direct Instruction and the Teaching of Early Reading, Wisconsin’s Teacher-Led Insurgency (click here for full article) (click here to download a PDF of this article) By Mark C. Schug, Sara G. Tarver, & Richard D. Western Thiensville, WI: Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, 2001.   Briefing Everyone knows reading is the foundation of learning. Students know it. Parents know it. Teachers know it. So why isn’t it taught using only the most carefully tested methods? Direct Instruction (DI) is arguably the most … Read More

Parents and School

The 150-Year Struggle for Control in American Education The following material was excerpted from Chapter 2. Parents and Schools is not available online.   The Peripheral Parent: Making the Most of Marginality In the 1920S, there was widespread support in the United States for the idea that parents and teachers should work together. However, Americans were still uncertain about the nature and extent of this cooperation. It remained unclear to what degree parents should join in the education … Read More

Schoolbook Simplification

Schoolbook Simplification and Its Relation to the Decline in SAT-Verbal Scores (click here for full article) (Click here to download the PDF of this article) By Donald P. Hayes, Loreen T. Wolfer, and Michael F. Wolfe American Educational Research Journal, 33(2), 1996, pp. 489-508.   Briefing Eighth grade reading materials of today are no more difficult than the 5th grade texts of 1945. That is exactly what is reported in one of education’s most widely respected journals. Writing … Read More

Rethinking Special Education

(click here for full article) (Click here to download the PDF of this article) Edited by Chester E. Finn, Jr., Andrew J. Rotherham, and Charles R. Hokanson, Jr Washington,DC: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, 2001.   Briefing Special programs for disabled students partly account for the poor achievement and the high and rising costs of American schools. Of course, programs for blind, deaf, and other children with scientifically evidenced disabilities are clearly justified. But most of the roughly 6.1 … Read More

Home Environments for Learning

Walberg, H.J. & Paik, S.J. 1997. Home environments for learning. In: Walberg, H.J. & Haertel, G.D., eds. Psychology and educational practice, p. 356-68. Berkeley, CA, McCutchan Publishing. This chapter emphasizes the influence of the home environment on learning within and outside school. It summarizes research on the home environment including home-based reinforcement, home instruction, homework, and other educational and psychological activities in the home. This work suggests that alterable features of the home environment may be changed to … Read More

Home Environments for Learning

(click here for full article) (Click here to download the PDF of this article) By Herbert J. Walberg & Susan J. Paik In: Walberg, H.J.& Haertel, G.D., eds. Psychology and educational practice, p. 356-68. Berkeley, CA, McCutchan Publishing, Summer 2001.   Briefing Americans spend more on the schooling of our students than nearly all other affluent countries. Yet, our students make the least gains in reading, mathematics, and science. Although they score about average on tests in the … Read More

The Impact of Funding Adequacy Litigation

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By Richard Phelps, Ph.D. Economist Education Consumers Consultants Network   As one may recall from history class, the U.S. constitution includes no mention of education. Therefore, as one may also recall from history class, that issue remains in the domain of our country’s original founding entities, the states. Most state constitutions do provide some general, vague guarantee for the public provision of education. But, most of these constitutions were written between the late 1700s and late 1800s, when … Read More

Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing Programs

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By Richard Phelps, Ph.D. Economist Education Consumers Consultants Network   Benefit-cost analysis is imbedded in all studies that ask the essential question of an activity, “Is it worth doing?” Benefit-cost analysis is a set of techniques, philosophy, and logic that can impose an order and rigor on the process used to answer the essential question. The logic of benefit-cost analysis is that of the accountant’s spreadsheet. Indeed, one could accurately describe it as economists’ accounting method. The essential … Read More

How Science Informs Reading Instruction

How Psychological Science Informs the Teaching of Reading (click here for full article) (click here to download a PDF of this article) By Keith Rayner, Barbara R. Foorman, Charles A. Perfetti, David Pesetsky, and Mark S. Seidenberg. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Vol. 2, No. 2, November 2001   Briefing The greatest weakness of the public schools is their continuing ineffectiveness in reading instruction. During the course of children’s school careers, very many of their academic and … Read More

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