American policy-makers are turning to high-stakes tests to measure the performance of their schools. But fears that schools aren't measuring up aren't warranted by the data, and testing is actually hurting school curricula.

Charter schools enthusiasts have offered the hope that they would offer immediate and major improvements in education. The actual outcomes have been much more modest. The first of three briefing papers on polics important to the Fall 2000 elections and beyond.

A policy brief from Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) on the impact of California's Proposition 38 school voucher initiative, appearing on the November 2000 California ballot.

The growth of environmental education programs nationwide has been criticized – and in some places, blunted by restrictive state laws – by researchers who accuse such programs of bias against industry and for catastrophic interpretations of environmental threats. While some of the criticism can help the field improve, the leading critics weaken their case by focusing exclusively on texts without regard to what happens in the classroom. Moreover, the critics are frequently funded by sources that appear to have an ideological or commercial motiviation to minimize evidence of industrial damage to the environment.

The second directory of for-profit education management companies published by CERAI and the Education Policy Project identifies 20 companies managing 230 schools in 21 states. This is the most complete directory available of the for-profit education management industry.

The Milwaukee Public Schools, long the target of reform efforts from inside the district and outside, have the image in the local media and among political leaders as a failing school district. But a close comparison of the school district's demographics and test scores with those of similar urban districts around the country suggest that, although it faces difficult challenges, the district is in fact doing a better job than many when the city's poverty rate and below-average adult educational attainment are considered. While there's no question that much needs to be done to improve the performance of the school district and its students–particularly African-Americans who make up more than half of the Milwaukee student body–the data suggest that the district is more successful than might be expected considering the challenges that the district and its students face.

We have good evidence – from voucher programs in Chile and New Zealand – that large-scale voucher programs will not help the vast majority of poor children and instead will reinforce segregation and inequality. Voucher proponents ignore the complexity of what contributes to student achievement and turn their backs on our goal to build a more democratic society.

Published in the Arizona Republic, February 22, 2001 as Vouchers: No Solution to Educating the Poor.

After 40 years of sending students to larger and larger schools, there is growing interest in returning to small schools and mounting research that small schools function better than big ones.

Furnishing schools in poor communities with computers and wiring them for Internet access will be meaningless unless policy makers address the chronic gulf in resources between poorer and wealthier schools.

While voucher advocates claim their research is comparable with research showing the benefits of class-size reduction, the data show otherwise. Voucher data are inconsistent and inconclusive and, despite recent favorable publicity, do not yet make the case for voucher programs. By contrast, a wealth of data using very large samples provide strong evidence that class-size reduction clearly raises student achievement.

The $4,000 voucher offered by California's Proposition 38 won't spur the creation of new private schools, won't lead existing private schools to expand, and won't open new alternatives to poor and working-class parents who want to leave unsatisfactory public schools. Instead it will primarily subsidize the affluent who already use private schools.

In the name of reform, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens has narrowed the evaluation of teachers to how their students perform on standardized tests. This simplistic approach ignores the complex, even cumbersome, nature of good teaching, and will make schools worse while destroying the passion that fuels good teaching, and draws good teachers.

A recently circulated speech by former Education Secretary William Bennett on "The State and Future of American Education" appears founded less on any close examination of the actual state of American schools than on a deep disregard for any form of public education at all.

At the center of almost every proposal circulating today to raise the quality of teaching is more teacher testing. The tests that the vast majority of states now require as a condition for entry into teaching and other public school professions, however, fail to raise standards of teaching and learning, while sharply reducing the numbers of qualified teachers from ethnic minorities.

Educators who oppose vouchers and charter schools as threats to public education need to understand the legitimate desire for smaller, more personal schools that draw many parents to these proposals. Instead of arguing, however, these two groups have an opportunity to become allies in the creation of small, community-based public schools for all.