Education:

Teaching John Ford, May 15, 2005
State Sen. John Ford might want to go back to elementary school and re-learn the meaning of the word "volunteer." Ford is pushing legislation that would require parents with children in kindergarten through grade 4 to "volunteer" at least 12 hours a year, and be involved in the teaching process by tutoring, chaperoning lesson-related field trips or helping students play educational games. The bill is sponsored by two Memphis Democrats, state Rep. Lois DeBerry and...

"Well, we don't do that to all of them.", April 28, 2005
Tennessee's only blogging state legislator, Rep. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, has an update on pre-k legislation and also his proposed "Students Bill of Rights." As to the latter, Campfield reports that at a committee heearing on that legislation today a representative from the state's higher education establishment, an opponent of the bill, inadvertently but effectively confirmed that the bill was, in fact, necessary....

Pre-K Update: Informed Opinion, April 25, 2005
Today's Nashville City Paper editorial urges the Tennessee legislature to pass Gov. Phil Bredesen's pre-k program. The paper has yet to mention the Tennessee Center for Policy Research's excellent study showing that government-funded universal pre-k is a costly failure that does little or nothing to improve acadamic academic performance. Perhaps the City Paper gets its news from The Tennessean, which has intentionally ignored the TCPR study in its cheerleading for the governor's proposal....

Pre-K Update, April 22, 2005
This report in today's Tennessean reveals that Gov. Phil Bredesen wants to increase funding for his pet Pre-K program to $150 million per year by 2010. The story quotes Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a Nashville policy think tank, in opposition to the program but the paper fails to mention or quote from the TCPR's excellent study released Monday showing how government-run pre-k programs are failing to improve academic peformance...

Pre-K Update, April 21, 2005
Ben Cunningham of Tennessee Tax Revolt emailed regarding Gov. Phil Bredesen's Pre-K plan now apparently sailing through the state Senate:The Pre-K bill made it out of the Senate Education Committee this afternoon on an 8-0 vote. It will go next to Finance, Ways, and Means. Senator Bryson tried to amend the bill to cover only at risk kids but it failed by one vote with Sen. Hagood voting against Bryson's amendment. Coincidentally, I just saw...

Policy Analysts Give Low Marks to Bredesen's $25m Pre-K Plan, April 19, 2005
The Tennessee Center for Policy Research is questioning Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen's claim that state-funded universal pre-kindergarten is a good investment. The TCPR has released a study, Hard Lessons Learned: Applying 40 Years of Government Pre-K to Benefit Tennessee's Children Today, which concludes that "empirical evidence suggests more early education will do little to improve children’s long-term education outcomes." The study, by Drew Johnson, president of the TCPR, and Darcy Olsen, president of the Goldwater...

Home-Schoolers Demand - And Should Get - Equal Access, April 04, 2005
The Tennessee Home Education Association is backing legislation that would require public school systems to allow students who are taught at home — and those in small private schools — to play high school sports and participate in such extracurricular activities as art, drama and music at public schools."It's about equal access," said Mike Bell, a THEA lobbyist who teaches his kids at home. "This is about giving all Tennessee children equal access to publicly...

Eight Is Enough, March 28, 2005
Now this is hilarious: No less than eight states claim to be 49th in spending on public schools, according to Vicki Murray, Ph.D., director of the Goldwater Institute's Center for Educational Opportunity. That's right, eight out of 50 claim to be 49th, including Tennessee. The others are Florida, Illinois, Idaho, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Utah and Arizona....

Good for the Goose Gander ..., December 13, 2004
Where is the New York Times, with a daily drumbeat of stories demanding access for the other gender at these 64 discriminatory private institutions?...

Only The First Part of This Post is True, August 13, 2004
President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education reform is showing positive results in Tennessee, where the number of failing schools has dropped from 47 percent to just 19 percent in just two years. Now that Bush's education reform plan is clearly working, the story takes great pains to explain Bush's role in creating the No Child Left Behind act and quotes several parents remarking that they would vote for Bush this November because their child's...

Do You Know The Way to MBA?, May 28, 2004
Jeff Cornwall has some thoughts on why the typical MBA program must change with the times. He's commenting on a different aspect of the same article from The Economist that I wrote about here a few days ago....

A Good Proposal, May 05, 2004
Over the last 40 years or so, the public schools of America have increasingly taught an anti-Christian worldview that leaves no room for God and teaches children that there is no ultimate truth, only equally valid religious cultures and equally valid lifestyle choices. That's why I support a proposed resolution pending before the Southern Baptist Convention that would urge Southern Baptist parents to withdraw their children from government-run schools and would urge all Christians in...

Home-Schooling Under Attack in Tennessee, January 26, 2004
Homeschooling is under attack in Tennessee, via what looks to be a very simple proposed change in the law. But the proposed change is not so simple - it actually would put Tennessee in violation of the federal No Child Left Behind act....