Author Archives: Doug Mesecar and Don Soifer
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A Golden Chance for States to Fuel Educational Opportunity
July 8, 2016- Doug Mesecar and Don Soifer Pensacola (FL) News Journal States and school districts have a once-in-a-decade opportunity to pursue student-centered, results-oriented policy and funding for their educational systems in order to provide greater opportunity and equality for students. This is a pivotal time for our [Read More...] -
Charter Schools Would Benefit Virginia’s Military Families (From the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)
May 15, 2016- Doug Mesecar and Don Soifer Virginia’s Senate Democrats and a small number of Republicans earlier this spring defeated legislation making it easier to build more quality charter schools. This may prove most costly for Virginia’s military families, who will have to wait longer for quality [Read More...] -
How Performance-Based Funding Can Improve Education (from Brookings)
February 24, 2016- Doug Mesecar and Don Soifer Is the annual expenditure on U.S. public elementary and secondary education appropriate and sustainable? Reasonable people can disagree whether the current $600+ billion—5.4 percent of the nation’s GDP—is too much or not enough, especially when considering the different federal, [Read More...] -
Scaling the Mountain of Education Funding Reform
September 17, 2015- Doug Mesecar and Don Soifer With the most serious efforts to date underway in Congress to revamp the No Child Left Behind Act, federal and state lawmakers should consider new approaches to crafting education policy that better encourage and systemically reward innovation and results. Most [Read More...] -
Try Performance Based Funding to Narrow Education Achievement Gaps
May 4, 2015- Doug Mesecar and Don Soifer From NJ Spotlight How can New Jersey schools address troubling achievement gaps, improve graduation rates and college- and career-readiness, while the state decreases the number of chronically poorly-performing schools AND increases the number of high-performing schools? Today, New Jersey taxpayers [Read More...] -
Performance Based Funding In New Jersey: Leveraging Education Spending To Close Stark Achievement Gaps
April 24, 2015- Doug Mesecar and Don Soifer Click here to download the full study as PDF. Executive Summary New Jersey has among the highest levels of elementary and secondary education spending in the nation, accounting for at least 6.3 percent of the state’s GDP. But the [Read More...] -
An Education Reform No One is Talking About – But Should Be
December 17, 2014- Doug Mesecar and Don Soifer Real Clear Education An improving economy is showing promise for America, but new thinking about how to improve education – the economy’s core – is sorely needed as policymakers gear up for legislative warfare over existing policies. Most education reform [Read More...] -
Funding What Works
July 1, 2014- Doug Mesecar and Don Soifer East Valley Tribune (AZ) The 2015 budget signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer last month contains one important provision some school reformers believe represents a true gamer in the struggle to improve the educational outcomes for all students. With [Read More...] -
Consider Performance-Based Funding for Education
February 11, 2014- Doug Mesecar and Don Soifer Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch The newly minted governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, has a short window in which to impact the Old Dominion’s education landscape. As his team moves to advance his schools agenda, including boosting funding for the Standards of [Read More...]
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