"Greenfield," a term that investors, engineers, and builders use to refer to an area where there are unobstructed, wide-open opportunities to invent or build challenge, represents a challenge to create a world more welcoming to dynamic, talented, and hard-working educators.
Breakthrough leadership is possible in schools. This Outlook offers five strategies to help reform-minded educators step boldly out of self-defeating mind-sets into the turbulence of change.
The Obama administration has selected fifty-eight unknown reviewers to handle state applications for Race to the Top funds.
Officials charged with safeguarding school dollars should get wise to the greedheads.
After decades of failed school reform, our education system needs to be reinvented.
Teacher pension systems pose two problems for K-12 schooling: they create the potential for irresponsible fiscal stewardship and they hinder efforts to boost teacher quality.
Today's teaching profession is the product of a mid-twentieth-century labor model; we need to rethink what the teaching profession should look like in the twenty-first century.
Washington spent almost $68 billion more on education in fiscal 2009 than it otherwise would have. What has the economic-stimulus funding actually bought?
How might we reimagine the tapestry of teaching, schooling, and preparation to ensure that the changing labor force reinvigorates teaching and learning?
Center for American Progress, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and AEI
November 9, 2009
Regardless of current academic accomplishment, innovative educational practices are vital to laying the groundwork for continuous and transformational change.
Uncle Sam's ability to directly address teacher distribution warrants skepticism.
We need to pull the plug on the administration's 'Online Skills Laboratory.'
While seeking to make college more affordable and accessible, the Obama administration has launched a worrisome but largely unnoticed assault upon the nation's publishers and the vibrant market in online learning.
Breakthrough leadership is possible in schools if reform-minded educators boldly step out of self-defeating mind-sets into the turbulence of change.
House Education and Labor Committee
September 30, 2009
Frederick M. Hess addresses three topics deserving attention regarding education policy: collective bargaining, the potentially adverse consequences of ill-conceived federal efforts to redistribute those teachers who seem to be effective, and our limited ability to systematically identify "effective" teachers for purposes of federal policy.
Schools under restructuring in Hawaii partner with outside organizations at a much higher level than schools on the mainland; Hawaii has put in place support mechanisms to facilitate partnerships with these external providers.
We deserve accurate statistics on the payoff for attending a college.
What has eluded the would-be reformers of both the Bush and Obama teams is the insight that not every good idea makes for a good federal policy, and that fanning a flickering flame can extinguish it rather than fuel it.
The Obama administration has launched a furtive and worrisome effort that will entail Uncle Sam's becoming a provider of free community college courses.
Instead of fresh thinking or "tough choices," the president seeks to use dollars as a convenient salve.
President Obama announced his intention to graduate "5 million more Americans from community colleges by 2020," but if one sweeps past all the familiar Obama boilerplate, one sees that he is setting the stage for yet another massive government production.
The tension at the heart of pension politics is the incentive to satisfy today's claimants in the here-and-now at the expense of long-term concerns.
While the economy has deflated along with property values, school districts are still living within budgets built for a bubble economy.
When its schools began entering restructuring in 2002, officials at Hawaii's Department of Education brought in outside expertise to restructure failing schools and also adopted a "diverse provider model."
An interview with Frederick M. Hess and Juliet P. Squire on teacher retirement plans.
This report documents the dramatic variation in graduation rates across more than 1,300 of the nation's colleges and universities.
Specialization would lead to better teaching and higher salaries.
The most effective schools have always been unapologetic about setting norms and disciplining misbehavior.
The case for or against mayoral control rests more on practical experience than on hard evidence.
Making children spend more time in school is not necessarily proven to generate better results.
By removing barriers to innovation and reform and providing greater support for entrepreneurship, we can spur the critical and necessary new solutions to many of public education's greatest challenges.
Trying to pursue data-driven reform without essential operational and performance data is a recipe for frustration.
More money. More teachers. More time. The oldest recipe for school improvement is "more."
Many of the most successful charter school providers are embarking on ambitious growth plans; the climate for expansion seems hospitable.
The increased attention and money paid to public schools over the past 30 years have not produced real change or resulted in improved outcomes.
Grade inflation and multiple applications can make schools look deceptively good.
Arne Duncan has become an icon in education-reform circles, but can he deliver?
President Obama has offered an indictment of American schooling clearer than that of any previous Democratic president.
Evidence from turnaround efforts outside education suggests the need to proceed deliberately and with realistic expectations.
Between proposed education spending in the stimulus bill and the Bush legacy on education, conservatives face a daunting challenge when it comes to education reform.
Credentials and seniority have very little to do with how well teachers educate our children.
Partnering with the Left on education reform has imposed costs even as it has paid dividends.
Frederick M. Hess sat down recently with EdNews.org to discuss education reform.
Successful organizations, public and private, monitor their operations--extensively and intensively.
Dynamic new ventures like the KIPP Academies, Edison, or Green Dot Public Schools are increasingly being asked to stand in for failing district schools.
Educators have made great strides in using data, but danger lies ahead for those who misunderstand what data can and cannot achieve.
Obama's stimulus package may retard education reform, but there are still ways to prevent this from occurring.
Judging Bush
January 1, 2009
This chapter will assess the political, strategic, and tactical competence of the Bush administration in the area of education policy and offer some reflections on the president's educational legacy.
On education-reform legislation, compromise trumped conservatism.
The Bush administration's signature No Child Left Behind Act dramatically expanded the federal role in education.
21st Century Education: A Reference Handbook
December 11, 2008
In an era marked by widespread belief that teacher quality may be the key to school improvement, determining how--and how much--to pay teachers is a vital concern.
Educational Leadership
December 1, 2008
Educators have made great strides in using data. But danger lies ahead for those who misunderstand what data can and cannot do.
Center on Reinventing Public Education
December 1, 2008
Although we are far short of fostering a decent supply of dynamic, quality-conscious districtand charter schools, much has been learned along the way.
There is reason to believe that reform-minded administrators could do much more to make use of their existing authority.
The most intriguing reforms in K-12 education today are entrepreneurial ventures.
Turnarounds offer the opportunity to take familiar educational institutions and improve them through coaching, mentoring, capacity building, best practices, and other existing tools.
The future of education cannot be built on familiar assumptions. Instead, we must embrace new opportunities that answer new challenges in unforeseen ways.
The design challenge for school choice is to match supply with demand.
Michelle Rhee is getting tough with teachers-union obstructionism.
Market-based school reforms have not delivered because they were never designed to succeed. The challenge for champions of choice is to understand what happened and what comes next.
The landmark Milwaukee Parental Choice Program has not worked out as intended.
A review of the research suggests that, on balance, mayoral control is sensible for troubled, urban school systems.
An examination of current trends and issues concerning the No Child Left Behind Act.
How can school boards cull through various--and often contradictory--research findings to decide what works best in their districts?
The impact of teacher labor agreements on school and district leadership is less straightforward than many previous accounts suggest.
The time has come to think more creatively about financing college, especially because Congress seems more inclined to pour more money into loans and grants.
What if students could have investors pay their college bills in return for a set percentage of their future income?
Not only do few states set world-class standards, most render the notion of proficiency meaningless.
With a consistent metric, accompanied by national tests, students' performance can be fairly tracked and compared.
Replacing boards of education with mayoral control has been a popular reform strategy in urban districts, butthere is little evidence ofthe strategy'seffectiveness.
School turnaround projects are enormously difficult propositions and must be guided by four basic realities.
A new study seeks to determine just how much today's seventeen-year-olds know about history and literature.
The United States school systemshould beimproving; however, it is remaining stagnant.
Education policy needs to be dicussed and changed, but there are altering opinions on the subject.
A surprisingly high number ofseventeen-year-olds do not know details about significant events in U.S. history.
Phi Delta Kappan
March 3, 2008
As reformers address the challenges posed by efforts to unify P-16 schooling, they should remain open to creative, even radical, solutions and not merely stitch together existing enterprises.
All children deserve a comprehensive, content-rich education in the liberal arts and sciences, with real knowledge about civics, biology, geography, art history, and languages.
Research is an important aspect to the creation of policy, but policy for education can not be made based on the results of research alone.
Education research should ensure that public decision-making is informed by all the facts, insights, and analyses that the tools of science can provide.
School principals are held accountable for raising student achievement without being given the authority to get the job done.
One of America's most influential education foundations has picked a superb new president.
Educational research is growing increasingly important in policy debates, but we know very little about how policymakers use that research.
AEI Online
December 12, 2007
America'seducation systemwould do well to learn a lesson from business.
Entrepreneurial ventures hold great promise for improving American education.
Educational entrepreneurs aredeveloping exciting new reformsthat could change the face ofAmerican schools.
Maria Koklanaris interviews Frederick M. Hess on student educational loans.
It is time to overhaul the No Child Left Behind Act's remedy cascade.
Is the student-loan system in need of reform?
Michelle Rhee and Adrian Fenty are addressing thetroubled school system from the ground up.
The No Child Left Behind Act is driven by education politics.
Recruitment & Retention
September 6, 2007
With the boom in student loans, the future of student lending is bound for change.
When education schools act like a cartel, children are harmed.
What doesthis era of educational entrepreneurshipimply for policy and school improments? Is it a good thing?
How can the No Child Left Behind Act be improved?
No Child Left Behind could have a bright future--if its accountability provisions are meaningful.
Tolerance in higher education has become too much to tolerate.
No Child Left Behind needs some work.
How, exactly, can businesses help fix education?
Public officials are in danger of overlooking a prime opportunity to overhaul the college financing system.
An examination of current trends and issues concerning the No Child Left Behind Act.
Can the American Competitiveness Initiative and the No Child Left Behind Act peacefully coexist while still accomplishing their goals?
Legislators can and should take steps to improveNo Child Left Behind's prospects of success.
This paper examines waysto boost the flow of human capital into educational entrepreneurship.
Dramatic education reformers may get attention, but they often fail to follow through.
Mayoral control over Detroit public schools must meet a number of requirements in order to work.
Brookings Papers on Education Policy: 2006/2007
May 15, 2007
An interview with Frederick M. Hess on education research.
It isgoing to be an uphill struggle for quality education research to have the impact it seeks or deserves.
Competition in American Education
April 10, 2007
It is likely to remain an uphill struggle for quality education research to command the respect or have the impact it deserves.
This is the era of educational entrepreneurship, but entrepreneurial activity remains distressingly sporadic in K-12 schooling.
A year after the Duke University lacrosse scandal emerged, tensions are still running high between faculty and students.
We must move beyond utopian dreams of goading unions into good behavior andrecognize that labor strife may be the birth pains of real school reform.
K-12 education should abound with opportunities for entrepreneurial activity.
The mayor of Washington, D.C., plans totake control of the city’s public schools. But results will depend on concrete actions to fix the schools, not on which bureaucracy has control.
Will a renewal of the No Child Left Behind Act prove as successful as the original passage?
In order to fix urban schools, is mayoral control of the school systems the answer?
Perspectives newsletter
February 1, 2007
Engagement between teaching professionals and the public will help schools--and the country.
AEI Online
January 11, 2007
Race-based hiring practices can only be stopped by determined efforts by alumni and trustees, strong voices within universities, and an engaged public.
AEI Online
January 11, 2007
Abipartisan conventional wisdom has recently emerged that conveniently excuses the shortcomings of the awkwardly assembled No Child Left Behind law.
Mayoral control of school districts is no quick fix or panacea. Butif pursued thoughtfully, it can invigorate school improvement.
The Bush administration's American Competitiveness Initiative not perfect complement to No Child Left Behind's equity focus.
How can we best train those who will lead our schools?
Public opinion and the No Child Left Behind Act.
Race-conscious practices are alive and well in 2006, regenerating in the dark like virulent weeds.
Bipartisan agreement to engage in lazy hosannas and excuse incoherent provisions by blaming the bugbear of “implementation” is not the way to value and protect the No Child Left Behind Act.
While analysts and public officials debate the policy nuances of school reform, there’s little attention paid to entrepreneurship itself,or what a vibrant entrepreneurial sector requires.
While the past five years have been a time of remarkable activity in K-12 schooling, far too little has focused on the supply side of school choice--creating great new schools and providers.
While charter supporters have spent the past few years discussing performancethey may have overlooked the fact that most Americans still don't know what a charter school is or how it operates.
Unique responsibilities, training, and skills equip business officers to help school systems build a culture of competence.
Book of the States
July 21, 2006
Can our kids afford to take summer vacation?
D.C. Council members are basically inviting lawyers to sue them by adopting language that is dangerously vague.
The appropriate way to compare charter schools with district schools is by focusing on how much students improve during the course of the school year.
Should courts have control over our public schools?
NCLB's future hangs less on what is happening in the nation's classrooms than on the Washington Consensus.
Shining a light on the standards that states set is crucial, as it helps remind state officials that there is a right way and a wrong way to ace a test.
Collective bargaining agreements demonstrate the failure of school boards to fight for the interests of students and taxpayers, not to mention the prerogatives of sensible management.
Amidst relentless warnings that America's schools are failing, more than 14,000 of the nation's education researchers gathered for the annual meeting of AERA.
A version of a speech given to staff and and students at theCésar Chávez Public Charter School for Public Policy in Anacostia about education reform.
Overhauling the teachers contract will be a bruising struggle--one that will succeed only if the community commits to seeing it through.
An executive summary of Frederick M. Hess and Martin R. West's report on teacher collective bargaining.
How is technology affecting our schools' ability to efficiently educate children?
Leveling of the financial playing field between wealthy and poor school districts and the creation of a nationally recognized accountability system are just the first steps in education reform.
What should be done about leadership preparation in America's colleges of education?
Would-be reformers have embraced the idea that school districts shouldspend at least 65 percent of their budgets on classroom expenditures.
For those who have been troubled by the tendency of universities to adopt campus speech codes, a worrisome new fad is rearing its head in the nation's schools of education.
While reasonable people can disagree about school vouchers, Florida's Supreme Court has commanded that educators abandon creative problem solving.
Philanthropic efforts are playing a catalytic role in contemporary school reform, but the nature of their influence is little understood.
This article discusses what's hotand what'snot in education.
Most education reform creates a constant whir of activity but makes few changes of substance.
A Guide to Charter Schools
January 1, 2006
How are today's educational innovations really helping our schools?
Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll
September 1, 2005
While the public embraces educational accountability in principle, it always hesitates when faced with the messy reality.
Teachers College Record Commentary
August 31, 2005
American School Board Journal
July 1, 2005
The cost of incompetent management is high, in both the short and the long term.
Pioneer Institute
June 9, 2005
In 1998, the San Diego City Schools launched one of the nation’s most ambitious efforts in school reform.
Education Week, Vol. 24, Issue 37
May 18, 2005
Effective school leaders are the key toreform strategies in our schools today. Yet,today’s preparation programsare not teachingwhat is required for21st-century school leadership.
Journal of Teacher Education, Volume 56, Number 3
May 17, 2005
It is time for a discourse conducted in a fashion more fitting to the task at hand.
Education Next
May 13, 2005
Some states have decided to be a whole lot more generous than others in determining whether students are proficient at math and reading under theNo Child Left Behind standards.
Graduates of principal-preparation programs have been left ill-equipped for the challenges and opportunities posed by an era of accountability.
Assessing many educational practices through scientific principles can be useful, but some reforms do not lend themselves as readily to rigorous scientific evaluation.
Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University
May 3, 2005
Little scholarly attention has been paid to the content of what principals arereading in the course of their studies or whether their texts are preparing them foraccountable management.
Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University
May 2, 2005
An examination ofthe content of instruction at a stratified sample of the nation’s principal preparation programs.
Education Policy Brief, Vol. 3, No. 6
May 1, 2005
The accountability apparatus of No Child Left Behind presents some common sense difficulties.
The Education Gadfly, Volume 5, Number 16
April 28, 2005
The San Diego experience illustratesthat even the boldest attempts to overhaul urban schooling are todayundermined by the same institutionalfailings that they are intended to address.
San Diego Union-Tribune
April 17, 2005
Perhaps the most important lesson from San Diego is how limited the possibilities are for radical improvement short of structural change to personnel systems,accountability, and leadership.
Educational Policy, Vol. 19 No.1, January and March 2005 155-180
March 15, 2005
Education leadership has been a scene of great tumult in the recent past, and little has been done thus far to draw new people inorcultivate new skills in school leaders.
Respect for the nobility of philanthropy and fear of offending philanthropists make hard looks at philanthropist foundations rare.
The Education Gadfly
February 17, 2005
Those who want school reform to track both science and common sense must take care that proper respect for science is accompanied by a similar respect for the limits of science.
An impact or outcome-based evaluation addresses the essential question of whether education and social programs are delivering the desired results in terms of person-referenced outcomes.
Besieged Ch. 10
January 1, 2005
Policy Perspectives
January 1, 2005
The debate over teacher quality and preparation has gained new urgency.
Chapter in Get in the Booth! edited by Larry J. Sabato
January 1, 2005
Chronicle Review
November 3, 2004
As the Bush administration enters its second term, will the higher-education-policy issues that received the most attention in the first term remain front and center?
National Review
October 11, 2004
Rather than brag that they too can spend like drunken sailors, serious reformers should instead insist that educators show them the money--and the results.
Politics of Education Association Bulletin
October 1, 2004
Lost amidst the testimonials to John Kerry's wartime service and George W. Bush's leadership at the 2004 Democratic and Republican National Conventions was attention to education.
AEI event on the No Child Left Behind act
September 14, 2004
The No Child Left Behind act should be pushed towards the tight-loose formulation that gave birth to the education accountability movement and has revolutionized modern management.
The Public Interest
September 1, 2004
The No Child Left Behind Act is the hallmark domestic accomplishment of the George W. Bush administration’s first term, and it is proving to be a spectacularly contentious one.
Philanthropy
September 1, 2004
New education funders with new strategies seek success where others have failed.
Education Next
September 1, 2004
In public education, the tendency has been to sprinkle computers and Internet connections across classrooms in the hope that teachers wil integrate them into their lessons.
Phi Delta Kappan
September 1, 2004
The No Child Left Behind Act's remediesfor students whose schools have been identified as needing improvement may not be working as intended.
American Experiment Quarterly
September 1, 2004
Given the Bush administration’s refusal thus far to provide much detail regarding a second-term agenda, it’s hard to know how much the outcome of this fall's electionwill really matter.
School reform is the province of utopians, apologists, and well-intentioned practitioners who inhabit a cloistered world where conviction long ago displaced competence.
Washington Times
July 14, 2004
Amidst debate over the No Child Left Behind Act's provisions, the question still remains: how do we build systems of schools that foster excellence?
Polity: The Journal of the Northeastern Political Science Association
July 1, 2004
Perspectives on Political Science
June 22, 2004
Review of School Board Battles: The Christian Right in Local Politics by Melissa M. Deckman.
Chapter in Better Leaders for America's Schools
June 9, 2004
The Weekly Standard
May 10, 2004
Transforming school choice into the kind of competition that raises standards requires attaching consequences to behavior.
American School Board Journal
May 1, 2004
Should classroom teaching be the only route to the principal's office?
Most current school-choice programs do not establish serious competition among schools. Therefore, they fail to bring about the systemic changes advocates expect.
Education Week
April 14, 2004
So few of our schools are excellent, so many are mediocre, and yet the adults responsible are content to tinker and theorize.
Our schools can do a lot better for the money we currently spend. This fall, elected officials should remember that--and run on it.
American Experiment Quarterly
April 1, 2004
The public nature of schooling and its centrality to our democratic way of life have fostered the notion that reforms must pass muster with utopian education theorists.
Policy Review
April 1, 2004
It is time for straight talk on teacher compensation and sensible steps to reform the way teachers are paid and managed.
The United States currently spends a good deal more on education per student than most industrialized nations, yet testing shows that achievement has not kept pace with spending.
Phi Delta Kappan
March 2, 2004
Despite the premise that charter schools are to be given flexibility in return for being held accountable for their results, few charter schools have actually been closed because of poor academic performance.
School Administrator
March 1, 2004
Effective superintendents take direction not from some universal playbook but by attending to the political and educational realities of the community they serve.
Phi Delta Kappan
February 1, 2004
Formulating a definition of public schooling that is consistent and protects the sacrosanct core of the mission will yield a sturdier system of public education.
Phi Delta Kappan
February 1, 2004
In an age when social change have made possible new approaches to teaching and learning, pinched renderings of "public schooling" have grown untenable and counterproductive.
Policy Perspectives
February 1, 2004
America's schools are in a state of crisis, though not the one that we usually imagine.
No Child Left Behind was crafted by a bipartisan coalition--can ithold together?
Abell Report
January 1, 2004
The dearth of school leaders is at least partially self-imposed by Maryland's reliance on archaic principal certification requirements.
Cato Institute
January 1, 2004
Politics & Policy
December 1, 2003
AEI Online
December 1, 2003
Accountability needs to be coercive, that is, it must confront failure with real consequences for both educators and students.
Current state accountability systems are often weakened by a series of compromises as policymakers hesitate to accept the painful costs of change.
Trusteeship
October 1, 2003
The School Administrator
September 1, 2003
Scholastic Administrator
September 1, 2003
American education doesn't need a few dozen superintendents gamely swimming against the tide, but tens of thousands of competent superintendents, principals, and administrators working in tandem.
Commentary has overlooked the fact that the Supreme Court has read into constitutional doctrine a new and potentially powerful justification for race-based quotas in educational settings.
American Experiment Quarterly
July 1, 2003
National Charter School Clearinghouse Review
July 1, 2003
Larger changes in accountability and choice may be starting to help address the plight of urban school systems.
Education Gadfly
June 12, 2003
Will states like Nevada, Florida, Massachusetts, and many other places use graduation tests to raise the bar for educational achievement or permit them to become another hollow rite of spring?
American Educational Governance on Trial: Change and Challenges
May 1, 2003
American Experiment Quarterly
May 1, 2003
New York Sun
April 30, 2003
For school choice supporters, seething indignation is not the way to make a real difference for America's children.
New York Sun
April 30, 2003
Contempt for Middle America will not expand educational opportunities.
National Center on Education and Economic Policy
April 9, 2003
American School Board Journal
April 1, 2003
Education Week
January 8, 2003
How hands-on must the government be for us to regard a service as publicly provided?
Progressive Policy Institute
January 1, 2003
This paper analyzes the current licensure system, the shortcomings of current reform strategies,and the New Leadership Agenda and the related challenges and opportunities.
Scholastic Adminstrator
January 1, 2003
Education policy experts Frederick Hess and Thomas Sobol debate the Blue Ribbon Schools award change.
Conference at JFK School of Harvard University
January 1, 2003
Paper presented at the Conference on School Board Politics at the JFK School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from October 16 to 17, 2003.
Education Gadfly
December 19, 2002
Teachers College Record
December 1, 2002
Politics & Policy
December 1, 2002
The widespread success of charter legislation has fostered a perception that charter schooling is apolitical and has clouded our understanding of the politics of the issue.
Journal of Politics
November 1, 2002
Progressive Policy Institute Policy Report
November 1, 2002
21st Century Schools Project Bulletin
September 17, 2002
What is the nature of school boards and what challenges do they face?
Teachers College Record
January 1, 2002
How do district schools respond to competition from charter schools?
America needs more, better-qualified teachers.
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