ISIL Freedom Network: United States > Introductions and FAQs > Education

Getting education reform right
Source: Lost Horizons
Author: Pete Hendrickson
Country: United States

"The key to a successful reform is the elimination of state involvement -- be it direct or through tax policies spurring parents toward certain favored choices -- in education decision-making."

Government Children's Programs Fail to Produce Results
Source: Alabama Family Alliance
Author: Gary Palmer
Country: United States

Stable two-parent families are the real key to improving child welfare -- not government programs. (5/98)

Replacement, Not Reform
Source: Mackinac Center
Author: Gerard A. Pound and Sandra L. Nadig
Country: United States

Is mere reform sufficient to improve our school systems? (11/8/99)

The real question is, 'why'?
Source: Liberty Round Table
Author: Emily Sugrue
Country: United States

"Public high schools are a training ground for the mindless drones they spit out to be the population of the 'land of the free'. The real question, why? , can be answered by asking what has been the effect?" 2nd place in LRT essay contest for 2002, age 14-16. (05/02)

Edison Project Lights Way to Innovation
Source: Michigan Chamber of Commerce
Author: Deborah McGriff
Country: United States

The Edison Project, a privately sponsored nationwide effort to create innovative schools, is working to surmount challenges facing public schools. Adobe PDF. (10/96)

Congress, not the president, has the better plan to facilitate public school construction
Source: Heritage Foundation
Author: Ronald D. Utt, PHD
Country: United States

Utt compares the President's plan on federally subsidizing schools with a less-costly congressional plan. (2/14/00)

The Reformer's Guide to Fixing Our School System
Source: Goldwater Institute
Author: Stephen B Coleman
Country: United States

A look at four simple yet powerful reforms that if implemented will tremendously improve the public school system. (8/99)

Public Schools Exchange Monopoly Power for Marketing Prowess
Source: Mackinac Center
Country: United States

"Government schools are learning what private ones have always known: When parents have choices about their children's schools, marketing is essential." (8/99)

Separation of School and State Alliance Frequently Asked Questions
Source: Separation of School and State Alliance
Country: United States

An historical and political overview of the issue of separating school and state.

Public Education: How Free?
Source: Separation of School & State Alliance
Author: Rolf McEwen
Country: United States

After more than a century of compulsory public education in America, it is time for a completely new approach. Parents should be free to choose whatever school -- including no school -- they wish. Adobe PDF. (11/95)

The Education Precedent
Source: Reason Foundation
Author: Thomas W. Hazlett
Country: United States

The recent history of education "reform" does not inspire confidence in the latest education proposals from the White House. Upon close examination the proposal to hire 100000 new teachers becomes even less attractive. Adobe PDF. (4/99)

Special Education: Expenditures and Obligations
Source: Reason Foundation
Author: Janet R. Beales
Country: United States

California's Master Plan for Special Education of 1980 ushered in a new era of education rights for children with disabilities. But the plan lacks a cost-control provision. Adobe PDF. (1993)

Community Driven Performance Compensation for Teachers
Source: Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy
Author: Fred Bramante
Country: United States

No part of the current educational system is more entrenched than the method by which pay increases are awarded for longevity of service and credentials earned. Adobe PDF. (1998)

Cashing in on the values of American education
Source: The Free Radical
Author: James J. Campbell
Country: United States

The problem with American schools, says James Campbell, is not that we lack values in education, it's that we are teaching certain destructive values. (3/00)

Meritorious Idea: Reforming Teacher Compensation
Source: John Locke Foundation Carolina Journal
Author: Michael L. Walden
Country: United States

Applying standards of merit when determining teacher compensation would reward those teachers who are getting the most out of their students and encourage teachers who are performing poorly. Adobe PDF. (Aug.-Sept. 96)

The Movable School
Source: Issues & Views Open Forum Foundation
Author: Elizabeth Wright
Country: United States

For 23 years, Thomas Campbell traveled through the South as a representative of the Tuskegee "Movable School," improving agricultural education. Adobe PDF. (Summer 95)

Union Sponsored Member Benefit Programs
Source: ProActive Publications
Author: Myron Lieberman et al.
Country: United States

Teachers union members receive generous fringe benefits contributing to the size of unions. Adobe PDF. (1994)

The Goals 2000 Backgrounders
Source: Capitol Resource Institute
Country: United States

Critiques of the federally approved "Goals 2000" plan for education. Explains the danger to private schools and homeschoolers. (8/98)

Summary of Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act
Source: ProActive Publications
Author: Myron Lieberman et al.
Country: United States

Outlines the major provisions of the 1959 Act that granted certain rights to union members and which protects their interests by promoting democratic procedures within labor organizations. Adobe PDF. (1994)

A Decade of Federal Education Legislation
Source: Nevada Policy Research Institute
Country: United States

Federal legislation from over the last 10 years. Adobe PDF. (6/98)

America's Teachers: Profile of a Profession 1993-94
Source: National Center for Education Statistics
Country: United States

National data on teachers and teaching that addresses such issues as teacher education and qualifications compensation. Adobe PDF. (7/97)

The Politics of School Reform
Source: American Enterprise Institute
Author: Denis P. Doyle
Country: United States

Political obstacles to reforming America's schools. Adobe PDF. (Sept.-Oct. 1996)

Auburn School Board Resolution on Tenure
Source: Auburn Board of Education
Country: United States

Frustrated by the lack of accountability in the teacher tenure system a local school board has issued a call for reforms. Adobe PDF. (10/96)

Toward a New Common School for Baltimore
Source: Calvert Institute for Policy Research
Author: Denis P. Doyle et al.
City: Baltimore, State: MD, Country: United States

Policy prescriptions aimed at halting urban decline will do no good unless city schools are saved. See also 21194d.pdf, 21194e.pdf, 21194f.pdf. Adobe PDF. (8/97)

New Kids on the Block: The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship
Source: Capital Research Center
Country: United States

The nonprofit National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship teaches entrepreneurship to teenagers. It achieves success by teaching them self-reliance, independence, and hard work. Adobe PDF. (1995)

The War against Testing
Source: Commentary
Author: David W. Murray
Country: United States

SAT tests may someday be a thing of the past. Why? For starters "filling in little bubbles with a No. 2 pencil conceals a process that is 'racially culturally and sexually biased,'" according to a group calling itself FairTest. Discusses the claims of this and other critics. Adobe PDF. (9/98)

License to Teach
Source: Congressional Quarterly Inc.
Author: Kierstan Gordon
Country: United States

Driven by severe teacher shortages, especially in math and science, states are offering alternative certification for professionals without education degrees -- over the objections of teacher unions. Adobe PDF. (5/98)

School to Work and Goals 2000
Source: Eagle Trust Fund / The Phyllis Schlafly Report
Country: United States

The federal government's Goals 2000 programs established eight national educational goals: but reading is not among them. Adobe PDF. (4/97)

Where's the Money Gone?
Source: Economic Policy Institute
Author: Richard Rothstein with Karen Hawley Miles
Country: United States

Critics of increased public school spending ignore the fact that not all spending increases are aimed at improving academic achievement for regular students. Adobe PDF. (1996)

Teacher Pay Questions
Source: Evergreen Freedom Foundation
Author: Lynn Harsh
Country: United States

Are teachers paid too much or too little? The answer is yes to both questions. Adobe PDF. (4/19/99)

Teachers Unions: Are the Schools Run for Them?
Source: Foundation for Economic Education / The Freeman
Author: James Bovard
Country: United States

Teachers unions are one of the most powerful obstacles to real school reform. Adobe PDF. (5/96)

The Name's Bond...General Obligation Bond
Source: Goldwater Institute
Author: Jeffry Flake and Lewis Solmon
Country: United States

Bond financing of schools is under attack because poor districts have less access to capital. Paradoxically, bond financing gives richer districts too much access to capital. Adobe PDF. (1/98)

Private K-12 Education: Society's Best Investment
Source: Independent Institute
Author: Alex Tabarrok
Country: United States

According to Taborrok, "charities and philanthropists interested in American society will find few causes with as much power to improve a child's life today and an adult's life tomorrow than scholarships for K-12 education." (4/20/00)

The rise of the American empire
Source: Separation of School and State Alliance
Author: Cathy Cuthbert
Country: United States

American entanglement in foreign conflicts didn't come from nowhere. Cuthbert traces the role of public education in creating a populace ready to queue up for service and slaughter.

Marva Collins on teaching children, and herself
Source: Full Context
Country: United States

"I hope each day that I'm better in the classroom today than I was yesterday. We have third-graders doing Latin this year." Her students are excited about learning, and their scholarly attainment defies the excuse-making industry which declares that some children -- inner city children, in particular -- cannot learn to become scholars and citizens of the world. (6/97)

ATR on Bush's early childhood initiative issues
Source: ATR
City: Washington, State: DC, Country: United States

Americans for Tax Reform issues a "Talking Points" memo on the Bush administration's Early Childhood initiative. (04/04/02)

New tax law boosts school construction with public-private partnership
Source: Heritage Foundation
Author: Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D.
Country: United States

A little-known provision in the major tax bill signed into law in June will give cities throughout the country the opportunity to build public school facilities faster, better, and at lower cost by forming public-private partnerships with qualified real estate investors and developers. (09/01/01)

Merit pay can't provide the incentives for improvement
Source: Education Policy Institute
Author: Myron Lieberman
Country: United States

Even if the National Education Association should aprove merit pay plans, it is argued here that there would not be any significant change in teacher attitudes or willingness to accept because they don't want them. Nor do most school administrators, albeit for different reasons, some of which are given here. (07/17/00)

Compulsory government education: origins and solutions
Source: Strike the Root
Author: Rick Gee
Country: United States

"Modern compulsory schooling began in Prussia in 1819, the first time in human history that education was foisted upon a nation by force. The goals were simple: obedient soldiers to the army, subservient workers to the mines, submissive civil servants to the government, compliant clerks to industry and citizens who thought alike about major issues." (01/21/02)

American's knowledge of the Constitution
Source: Columbia Law School
Author: survey
Country: United States

This report presents the findings of a telephone survey conducted among a national probability sample of 1012 adults comprising 503 men and 509 women 18 years of age and older, living in private households in the continental United States during the period May 16-19, 2002.

Bold New Vision of the Same Old Thing
Source: Separation of School and State Alliance
Country: United States

"We don't expect an "effective federal role" in churching, why should we in schooling? Isn't it possible that we made a big mistake 160 years ago, allowing government at any level to get involved in education?"

Unschooling America
Source: Fabula Magazine
Author: Stephanie Groll
Country: United States

"[T]here's an important distinction between education and schooling. Education is the active development of knowledge and lasts a lifetime. Schooling is merely the act of going to school. Attending formal classes is no guarantee that you're learning, just as dropping out doesn’t keep you from getting an education."

No Child Left Behind Act
Source: United States Department of Education
Country: United States

On December 11, 2001 the House-Senate conference committee agreed to a final version of President Bush's education reform bill. The U.S. Department of Education has released a fact sheet describing major provisions of the report and a statement by Secretary Paige.

To recommend changes in this directory, e-mail isil@isil.org.

	Search WWW Search ISIL