Gee, I haven't written an education policy post in a while. Instead of writing something original, let me point you to some interesting posts, articles, and studies that I've read this week. 

Megan McArdle points to a study that shows that Gifted and Talented Programs aren't that effective. They are more about the prestige.

In urban areas, G&T schools keep middle class parents in the city. In the burbs, G&T are even more silly. In Jonah's middle school, the G&T class is 40 minutes long, once per week. The projects that they do would benefit all kids, and shouldn't be restricted to a small group of kids. The kids in the G&T class aren't more likely to excel later in high school. 

Brookings published a report that sums up the latest research on class size. Class size matters, but mostly for lower income areas. Adjustments of two or three kids in upper income areas has no impact on learning. 

Gail Collins writes, "Last week, in Ohio, the State House went for the whole hog and approved legislation that would allow for-profit businesses to open up their own taxpayer-financed charter schools." White Hat Management, a for-profit charter school operation, was certainly behind this legislation.

It's not surprising. The owner, a source for my dissertation on school vouchers, is a major Republic fund-raiser and has been pushing for vouchers and private schools for ages now. 

And now just an anecdote. The class size for Ian's class increased this year from ten to twelve. The two, new kids had behavior problems, which spread to all the other students. Formerly sweet calm kids turned to desk-flipping anger monsters. The teachers were stressed out. The parents were stressed out. The kids were stressed out. After telling this story to a teacher in another school yesterday, he reported that all special education classes were having the same problems. Because of budget crunches, special education has been cut to the bone, and it's having a real impact on the students.