Opinion
On schools and sports, follow evidence
The relationship between graduate study and teacher effectiveness is one of the most frequently studied issues in education policy.
Opinion
Merit pay boosts student success
Most non-educators believe teacher pay ought to vary according to demonstrable performance. Most public-school teachers dislike this idea.
Opinion
Three school initiatives show promise
The good news is that North Carolina institutions aren’t just producing good ideas about how to improve school leadership. They’re on the ground implementing them.
Opinion
Easy grades make for hard landings
As North Carolina students leave high school for college or the workplace, what matters most is how well they retain and apply what they’ve learned, not how students feel about themselves.
Opinion
Don’t backslide on teacher pay reform
Restoring teacher-pay bumps for graduate degrees would be a triumph of special-interest pressure over sound policy, of image over substance, of hope over experience.
Opinion
Average pay isn’t the point
The real story of the past several years is that North Carolina lawmakers have been restructuring the pay scale for teachers in ways intended to attract and retain high performers.
Opinion
Not a Matter of Degrees
To conclude that teacher pay supplements for graduate degrees are a waste of tax dollars is not to conclude that higher learning is useless.
Opinion
Mastering Facts on Teacher Quality
Who are the strongest lobbyists for giving teachers salary supplements to get master’s degrees? Schools of education at public and private colleges, of course.
Opinion
The Right Choice on Education
Our public schools used to be abysmal. Now they are mediocre. This is progress – but we have a long way to go if we want to lead the nation and compete with other countries in education.
Opinion
School Monopoly’s Last Gasp
Bringing our education policies into the modern era, and closer to the policies of higher-achieving states and nations, would represent a major break with the recent past.
Opinion
A School-Reform Resource
When it comes to conducting, analyzing, and explaining scholarly research on education reform, Herbert Walberg has pretty much done it all.
Opinion
Class Size Conundrum
Do small classes boost student performance? Many parents and teachers think so: polling generally reveals widespread support for class size reduction. Decreasing class size is also popular among legislators, prompting billions of dollars in expenditures to fund ever-shrinking classes in states from California to North Carolina.
