Teachers College President
Dr. Susan Fuhrman is the President of Teachers College, Columbia University, and Chair of the Management Committee of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE). She previously served as Dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, as well as the school's George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education. Dr. Fuhrman received bachelor's and master's degrees in history from Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, and a Ph.D. in political science and education from Columbia University, New York. She has written widely on education policy and finance; among her edited books are The Public Schools (The Institutions of American Democracy Series, with Marvin Lazerson, 2005); Redesigning Accountability Systems for Education (with Richard Elmore, 2004); From the Capitol to the Classroom: Standards-Based Reform in the States (2001); and Rewards and Reform: Creating Educational Incentives that Work (with Jennifer O'Day, 1996). Her many professional involvements include membership on the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the National Coalition on Asia and International Studies in the Schools. She is also a former Vice President of the American Educational Research Association, and a non-executive Director of Pearson plc, the international education and publishing company. Her research interests include state policy design, accountability in education, deregulation, intergovernmental relationships, and standards-based reform. She has also conducted research on state education reform, state-local relationships, state differential treatment of districts, federalism in education, incentives and systemic reform, and legislatures and education policy.
California Parents Eager for Ruling on Home Schooling
Parents of an estimated 166,000 children in California are awaiting a state appellate court ruling on whether they have a constitutional right to home-school their children without a teaching credential. Professor Luis Huerta comments.
Published: 4/20/2008
Education Week Spotlight's Levin's Cost-Benefit Analysis Center
In the early 1970s, Henry Levin -- now Professor of Economics and Education at TC -- did a major report for a Senate sub-committee on the costs to the U.S. of inadequate education. Over the past 30 years, he's elevated that kind of work to an art form, most recently founding the Center for Benefit Cost Studies of Education. See the story in the current issue of Education Week.
Published: 4/9/2008
Program Teaches Power of the Pen
Published: 3/27/2008
Adopts New Emergency Notification Procedure
In response to violent acts on college campuses over the past few years, Columbia's Teachers College has introduced a new alert system meant to notify students in case of a security crisis.
Published: 3/26/2008
Levees: A Classroom Narrative
Dan Nichols, a teacher at the Heritage School in New York City, organized a media project to challenge his students to be engaged citizens.
Published: 3/11/2008
Tackling Racial Segregation One Policy at a Time: Why School Desegregation Only Went So Far
The 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education caused many in the United States to contemplate the value of public policies that flowed from that decision, especially the desegregation of public schools. Over the last half century, we have received mixed messages about whether such efforts were worth the trouble. TC professor Amy Stuart Wells and her colleagues explore the issue in this TC Record article.
Published: 3/11/2008