Weekly Clips 1.18.08

The relatively light amount of coverage this week included continued discussion of the Quality Counts report, a long article in City Journal by prominent school-choice advocate Sol Stern, and an article discussing the possible mandating of summer school in Albuquerque, with low NAEP scores being used as justification.

While most of the coverage of the Quality Counts report immediately followed the release, several articles were published this week. The Messenger-Inquirer (KY) and the Daily Comet (LA) published news stories of the report, while the Honolulu Star Bulletin used NAEP data in an article comparing the roughly equal achievement in private and public schools. The Orlando Sentinel and the Opelkia-Auburn News (AL) published editorials, the first arguing that Florida needs to adopt excellent science standards as it has done for reading and math, while the second exhorts Alabamans not to accept the low grade their states received on the Quality Counts report.

The Manhattan Institute scholar Sol Stern published a long article in City Journal that repudiates his past beliefs of school choice as a panacea for educational problems in the US. While maintaining his faith in the importance of school choice, Stern writes that he has seen the importance of excellent curriculum and strong standards; the “education miracle” of Massachusetts’ growth on NAEP illustrates this for him. Stern also highlights two TUDA districts:

This may explain why, on the recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests—widely regarded as a gold standard for educational assessment—Gotham students showed no improvement in fourth- and eighth-grade reading from 2003 to 2007, while the city of Atlanta, which hasn’t staked everything on market incentives, has shown significant reading improvement.

Stern’s article generated commentary among the blogs, as well as a great deal of criticism from the Cato Institute bloggers.

The acting superintendent of Albuquerque Public Schools wants to introduce mandatory summer school for underperforming second and third graders, reports the Albuquerque Journal. New Mexico’s low scores on NAEP are cited as evidence of the state’s overall educational problems, and implicitly included as evidence for her proposal.

There were approximately 7.7 million media impressions this week, bringing the total for the year to just under 53 million. There were 29 stories this week, bringing the yearly total to 107.