How can this be?Charter schools in the city are vastly outperforming public schools in their neighborhoods, according to a bombshell state report obtained by The Post. The just-released study by state Education Department found students in 11 of 16 city charter schools outscored kids in nearby public schools on the state's fourth-grade English and math…

The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey is running a series of articles on pay scales for public employees.  Today's installment: a hair-raising look at tenure.  Daryl DeNitto is one of those teachers.The kind who coaches the debate team and chaperones the prom. The kind who stays after school when he doesn't have to. The…

Back in June, Peggy Noonan mentioned this in passing (hat tip to Hispanic Pundit):I was at a Manhattan Institute lunch this week at which Rudy Giuliani spoke. He impressed the audience of 200 or so, which was not surprising as it was his kind of group, urban-oriented thinkers drawn not to ideology but to what…

The school choice movement has enjoyed a great deal of success so far this year, as witnessed in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and, most recently, Arizona (along with Rhode Island, Utah, Florida and Pennsylvania).  And with so many states introducing school choice, it was only a matter of time before the juggernaut hit Congress: Congressional Republicans…

Reaction to the NCES study has been understandably triumphant from the anti-school-choice side of the aisle, especially from the likes of the AFTies, UFTies and likeminded folks.  But amidst all the discussion--indeed, among most edudebate these days--one party in particular is mysteriously removed from the discussion.  Parents.  More specifically, low-income minority parents.  The school choice…

A good look at starving teachers in the Garden State:Cops and teachers who, a generation ago, were underpaid and overworked are now enjoying compensation and working conditions that are the envy of the private sector. Experienced patrolmen in North Jersey routinely make $100,000 or more, and public-school teachers can top out at more than $90,000…

This comes directly from the study.  First off, from the executive summary, p. v: When interpreting the results from any of these analyses, it should be borne in mind that private schools constitute a heterogeneous category and may differ from one another as much as they differ from public schools. Public schools also constitute a heterogeneous…

Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times jumped on the release of a new study by the National Center for Education Statistics this weekend. The WSJ’s headline was particularly dramatic: “Long-Delayed Education Study Casts Doubt on Value of Vouchers.”No, it doesn’t.And it is a failure on my part, as well as a…

On July 14, the U.S. Department of Education released a study that the teachers’ unions are holding up as evidence that public schools are better than private schools. The study doesn’t actually show this, and is riddled with methodological flaws anyway. If you tell the average American that public schools are better than private schools,…

The edusphere is abuzz over the DOE's release of the NCES study.  We're planning to respond further to the study, but first we'd like to point out a few things.