The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that public school officials in that city have a policy “that sets 50 percent as the minimum score a student can receive for assignments, tests and other work.” The policy has been around for a while; it’s drawn recent attention only because of efforts to reduce it to writing and make…
School District
Free Markets, School District
Microsoft Uses Apple
by JOHN ADAMS •
Last week, I posted on a failing Microsoft ad campaign, and Microsoft’s abandonment of Jerry Seinfeld as a pitchman. Microsoft decided to respond directly to Apple’s “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” campaign with an “I’m a PC” reply ad. Ready? When Microsoft created their reply ad, they used Apple hardware and Adobe software to…
City, School District
Microsoft’s Mediocre Ads for Its Mediocre Products
by JOHN ADAMS •
I saw this morning that Microsoft is abandoning the use of Jerry Seinfeld in a multimillion-dollar campaign to boost the Microsoft brand. Wired reports that Microsoft is describing the departure of Seinfeld as a planned ‘phase two’ of the campaign. That’s only true if ‘phase two’ is code for scrapping a bad campaign that consumers…
School District
Schools Run as Markets
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at Cato.org, Andrew Coulson has a podcast from August 7th on Education Markets Versus Monopolies. Coulson shows how even a small direct parental contribution in education, say 10-15% by cost, produces a significant increase in schools’ performance. (The irony is that parents and non-parents both pay a significant amount to public schools now, but…
Free Markets, School District
Bureaucratic Objections to School Choice: Yes, Prime Minister
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s a video clip from the British television series, Yes, Prime Minister. The comedy series is from the 1980s, and offers how civil servants try to manage and guide policy in Britain. In this clip, the British Prime Minister, James Hacker, suggests private school choice, and his status-quo-defending, don’t-make-changes cabinet secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, argues…
Free Markets, School District
Public Schools as Old, Expensive Chevy Impalas, Part 2
by JOHN ADAMS •
Yesterday, I posted on the observation of Andrew Coulson at Cato who contends that public schools were like old, expensive Chevy Impalas. Here’s why he makes that analogy: U.S. student achievement at the end of high school has stagnated (reading and math) or declined (science) since nationally-representative NAEP tests were first administered around 1970. Meanwhile,…
School District
Public Schools as Old, Expensive Chevy Impalas?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Andrew Coulson of Cato contends that if the auto industry were run like public schools, then you’d have to purchase an old model car at a high price: What would the U.S. automobile industry look like if it were run the same way, and had suffered the same productivity collapse, as public schooling? To the…
School District
More Choice: The School Board Meeting for May 27th
by JOHN ADAMS •
At our most recent school board meeting, a parent mentioned concerns with nutrition and (as a possible aspect of health and wellness) presentation of movies rated PG-13, for example, to younger children. In the case of nutrition, on some occasions, students may receive candy as reward when parents would not, themselves, reward their own children…
School District
School Board Meeting for March 17th
by JOHN ADAMS •
Our most recent school board meeting was on March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day. School Board meetings are no easy thing: much of the work of a board involves legally required procedures or budgetary matters. They cannot be avoided, but they are no more unique to education than a balance sheet is to a private business.…
Inbox Reader Mail, School District
Inbox: Reader Mail (Multiple School Delays)
by JOHN ADAMS •
A reader wrote me with a concern about a proposed change to delay the time that school might start on some days, to accommodate meetings of school staff. Her email appears below, with my reply in blue thereafter: Reader: I feel the public should know what the school board is tiring to pass basically under…
School District
School Board Meeting for January 28th
by JOHN ADAMS •
Like most school board meetings, in districts across Wisconsin, budgets, finances, headcounts, and enrollment (all related, of course) occupied most of the meeting. Two topics, though, stood out. The first was our 4-K program. Whitewater did not originate the program, but few cities in Wisconsin need it more than we do. We are, for so…
School District
School Board Meeting for December 17th
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ll focus on one part of the December 17th Whitewater Unified School Board meeting — the discussion of changes to the English language curriculum. (That’s Language Arts, for specialists.) The revisions may overcome some prior course fragmentation, but I cannot be alone in thinking that competitive, talented students would benefit with something more than AP…
School District
Choice in Education
by JOHN ADAMS •
What does it mean when someone says that education should be ‘run like a business?’ It might mean one of two things, one easily caricatured and mistaken, but one easily misunderstood yet profound. In the first case, to run a school district like a business is merely to run it with some sense of accounting,…