This article presents an interview with Terry Grier, superintendent of the Houston Independent School District (HISD), Texas's largest district. Before taking this post, he had been a principal or superintendent for most of three decades and remains a reformer five years into his leadership. Grier has maintained his passion for improving schools…

The magnitude of variation in the quality of teachers, even within each school, is startling. Teachers who work in a given school, and therefore teach students with similar demographic characteristics, can be responsible for increases in math and reading levels that range from a low of one-half year to a high of one and a half years of learning…

"Human capital" is quickly becoming the new site-based management. While few are sure what it means, everyone craves it, has a model to deliver it, and is quick to tout its restorative powers. It's trendy and impressive sounding, but too often settles for recycling familiar nostrums or half-baked ideas in the guise of new jargon. To…

Argues that human capital formation is the key to economic growth, that U.S. students are falling behind the rest of the World in math and science achievement because of the decline in the quality of their schooling, and that without better schools, other factors such as a quality higher education system may not sustain future U.S. economic…

States that despite spending massive amounts of money to expand their educational systems, poor countries have witnessed a 4-decade decline in their medium economic growth rates from 3 percent in the 1960s to zero percent in the 1990s. Offers several reasons for the decline, such as variations in the quality of education and low labor…

Reviews public education in the United States during the 20th century through an exploration of the "virtues" of mass education, such as public funding, a practical curriculum, and secular control of schools. Argues that many of these virtues were situational and may now be considered vices. (Contains three graphs.) (WFA)