s a day, nine months a year doesn't makes sense." he said.Duncan also told state education officials that much of the "stimulus" money that will go to education will be competitive and those schools that are most aggressively engaged in the "Race to the Top" will get the extra money. He suggested that Colorado should propose innovation in four areas: data systems that track individual student performance, improving teacher quality by paying teacher who produce better results more money, developing more effective assessment programs that are benchmarked to international standards and turning around low performing schools.
To read the Denver Post report of his visit click here
Last week, while visiting some school in the District of Columbia he came down strongly in favor of vouchers that allow public school students who were assigned to failing school to transfer to private or parochial schools. Duncan said the results show the plan is an effective way to not only help individual students who might otherwise be trapped in low performing schools but that it also stimulates the low performing schools themselves because the must compete to hold students.
As we have pointed out, vouchers are strongly opposed by the teachers' unions and entrenched education bureaucrats. The complain about vouchers taking resources away from struggling public schools. But as has been pointed out, when students use vouchers to enroll in other schools the costs of operating the poorer schools goes down because most school funding is based on enrollment. The fewer students the less money a school receives but it does not have to pay for as many teachers, one of the highest variable costs of operating a school.The problem, of course, is that education is, for the most part, controlled by state government. What Duncan proposes is to use the Federal stimulus money to reward states and school system that adopt his ideas of reform. All of these ideas have been proposed before and not much has changed. But never has there been so much money at stake. So it remains to be seen how effective Duncan will be in reforming our schools.
Source : www.beaufortobserver.net/Articles-c-2009-04-08-233538.112112_US_Secretary_of_Education_pushes_school_reform.html
To read the Denver Post report of his visit click here
Last week, while visiting some school in the District of Columbia he came down strongly in favor of vouchers that allow public school students who were assigned to failing school to transfer to private or parochial schools. Duncan said the results show the plan is an effective way to not only help individual students who might otherwise be trapped in low performing schools but that it also stimulates the low performing schools themselves because the must compete to hold students.
As we have pointed out, vouchers are strongly opposed by the teachers' unions and entrenched education bureaucrats. The complain about vouchers taking resources away from struggling public schools. But as has been pointed out, when students use vouchers to enroll in other schools the costs of operating the poorer schools goes down because most school funding is based on enrollment. The fewer students the less money a school receives but it does not have to pay for as many teachers, one of the highest variable costs of operating a school.The problem, of course, is that education is, for the most part, controlled by state government. What Duncan proposes is to use the Federal stimulus money to reward states and school system that adopt his ideas of reform. All of these ideas have been proposed before and not much has changed. But never has there been so much money at stake. So it remains to be seen how effective Duncan will be in reforming our schools.
Source : www.beaufortobserver.net/Articles-c-2009-04-08-233538.112112_US_Secretary_of_Education_pushes_school_reform.html
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