April 21, 2001 - Education chief forms team to uncover lost funds
WASHINGTON - Education Secretary Rod Paige said he will appoint an eight-person "strike team" to address waste, fraud and errors in the Education Department, promising to deliver "a clean audit" in 18 months.
From the Plain Dealer

April 28, 2001 - Lesson learned at Education
The U.S. Department of Education finally is taking finances seriously. For years, reports of mismanagement and fraud were met with silence or dismissed as politically motivated. But new Education Secretary Rod Paige has responded to the latest findings with a promise of action. In light of the most recent disturbing news, Paige's moves could not be more welcome.
From the Plain Dealer

April 18, 2001 - Court put Ohio in budget mess
Though there are rivals for the honor, the functionally Democratic Ohio Supreme Court, speaking through its chief, offered last week's greatest irony.
From the Plain Dealer

April 11, 2001- Wrestling School Myths
Strange as it sounds, George W. Bush could learn a thing or two about education and government spending from Minnesota’s professional wrestler turned Governor, Jesse “The Governing Body” Ventura. After two years of pulling his punches, Mr. Ventura’s second two-year budget calls for a hefty $1 billion tax cut and holds spending to a 5% increase. He has also body-slammed the biggest myth of state spending: that more money equals better education.
From the Wall Street Journal

February 2, 2001 - Legislative Alert -- HB 1 and SB 1
The legislative session is starting off with companion legislation in each
chamber to implement the recommendations from the Governor's Commission on Student Success. 
Submitted by Melanie Elsey, President of the Ohio Eagle Forum

Sunday, January 21, 2001 - Harvard study says big schools have largest dropout problem
The nation’s dropout problem is most severe in a few hundred big-city schools that graduate less than half of their freshman classes, according to a Harvard University study.
Fom the Plain Dealer

Sunday, January 07, 2001 - Ohio students show startling success rate in writing skills
Johnny can’t always read, but he sure can write. The latest state report cards for Ohio’s more than 600 public school districts reveal a startling success rate in writing, especially for high school students. In fact, only a handful of districts in the state failed to meet the report card’s ninth-grade writing standards. At the 12th-grade level, only nine districts fell short of the mark.
from the Plain Dealer

December 18, 2000 - See No Christmas, Hear No Christmas, Speak No Christmas.
Linda Clark, principal of Durham Middle School in Cobb County, Georgia, sent a memo to teachers and staff advising them not to use the word “Christmas” when referencing the “holiday season.” New
Superintendent Joseph Redden applauded her sensitivity, but said she may have gone a little too far.
from the Education Intelligence Agency

December 2000 - Ohio teacher overcomes union's intolerance
Anti-Christian discrimination. Forced unionism. Religious inquisitions. Do these sound like the tactics of a tolerant, diversity-loving group? They certainly didn't to Dennis Robey, an Ohio public school teacher, when he attempted to refuse paying a compulsory "fair share" fee to the state teachers union.
-from Citizen Magazine

September 21, 2000 - Legislators may erase 4th-grade reading test
Columbus- A proposal to eliminate the fourth-grade reading requirement from the Ohio Proficiency tests is being put together by the new speaker of the Ohio House. State Rep. Larry Householder, and Athens-area Republican scheduled to take over as speaker in January, said the current law would force too many children to flunk fourth-grade. Starting in the 2001-02 school year, fourth graders who flunk the reading test could be kept from advancing to fifth grade.
-from the Cleveland Plain Dealer

August, 2000 - Some NEA Resolutions Passed at 2000 Convention in Chicago
-from the Education Reporter

May 29, 2000 - Few want schools in White's hands
A majority of Clevelanders want control of the city schools returned to a popularly elected board of education, according to a Plain Dealer poll. That apparent uneasiness with Mayor Michael R. White’s 20-month reign over the district is tempered by the belief of many residents that the schools have improved under the stewardship of an appointed board and Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the mayor’s hand-picked schools chief, the poll shows.
-From the Cleveland Plain Dealer

February 21, 2000 - Grade inflation makes all kids above average, college officials find
Remember how you used to scrape for grades in high school? When getting an A or maintaining a 4.0 average was something that set you apart from most of the class? Nowadays, A students have a lot of company. And a 4.0 pales in comparison to the 4.4s, even 4.8s. some students earn. Does that mean today's kids are higher achievers? Not likely. Scores on college entrance exams have stayed the same over the last three decades. Yet grades keep getting better.
- from the Cleveland Plain Dealer 

September 20, 1999 - "Situation Ethics" standard led to morally sick nation
Television commentator Ted Koppel, on a recent Nightline segment, noted President Clinton's high job approval ratings, and then said: "But ask about his honesty, moral and ethical standards or the president as a role model for young people and Mr. Clinton's approval ratings are down around 20 percent."
- from Eagle Forum

August 23, 1999 - Religion and the Schools
The first major trial in which the ACLU participated was the Scopes "Monkey Trial." On 21 March 1925, Austin Peay, the governor of Tennessee, signed into law the Butler Act, which made it illegal for any teacher in a state-supported school to teach that humans are descended from a lower order of animals.
- from the book The Politics of the American Civil Liberties Union by William A. Donohue

August 18, 1999 - Beware Of The Phonics Conspiracy
When Hillary Rodham Clinton charged that Bill Clinton's impeachment was caused by a "vast right-wing conspiracy," she displayed the typical paranoia of liberals. It's not just Watergate and Iran-Contra that nurture their faith in plots; liberals think conspiracies against them are lurking behind every bend in the road.
- from the Phyllis Schlafly Report

August 9, 1999 - Groups Fighting Whole Math
Interest groups ranging from professional mathematicians to parents are organizing to oppose the introduction of so-called whole math in classrooms throughout the nation. They charge that whole math teaching techniques "dumb-down" or "water down" math education and are simply "junk."
- from the NCPA

July 20, 1999 - Study blasts state education department
The Ohio Department of Education lacks reliable data, ignores many requests for information and is not driving education policy in the state, according to a study it commissioned.
- from the Cleveland Plain Dealer

April 6, 1999 - Teaching More About Less
This one could qualify for “Ripley’s Believe It or Not”: A state legislative committee has recommended cutting back on the subjects students are supposed to know.
-from the Cleveland Plain Dealer

February 9, 1999 - The Central Plans of Goals 2000
Goals 2000 is a federal program supposedly aimed at improving America's education system. But critics say that despite hefty spending, student performance isn't improving under the direction of Washington bureaucrats
-from Investors Business Daily