Fall 2003
The latest issue of the journal Education Next has arrived, featuring several pieces on alternative school leadership, including excerpts from the recently published Fordham-Broad manifesto Better Leaders for America's Schools (http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=1). Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute calls for lifting state-mandated licensure of principals and superintendents and reveals some hard truths about the lower academic standards of most graduate programs in educational administration. The cover article, by University of Virginia law professor James E. Ryan, discusses the possibility of rolling back so-called "Blaine amendments" in state constitutions that forbid public support of private religious schools. And James B. Murphy takes the heterodox view of civic education that schools should be completely neutral on values, beliefs and attitudes and instead ought confine themselves to imparting civic knowledge. Check it out at www.educationnext.org.