Chester Finn

For nearly 30 years—at least since Bill Bennett’s tenure as secretary of education and Lamar Alexander’s as governor of Tennessee—education-minded conservatives at both national and state levels have embraced a two-part school reform strategy, focused equally on rigorous standards and parental…

As the Republican party searches its soul and its ranks for policies, strategies, and leaders that can restore it to fighting strength at the national level, few expect education reform to loom large among the issues needing close attention. Yet it’s hard to get very far on such central challenges…

The Republican presidential field is beginning to take shape, and candidates and maybe-candidates are figuring out where they stand and what to say. Sooner or later, they will need to say something about education. May we suggest a few talking points?

As the GOP debates whether John McCain is sufficiently Reaganesque, here's a point in the senator's favor: Like the Gipper, he doesn't consider education a top presidential priority. Indeed, McCain has said very little about the subject on the campaign trail, and his website barely touches it.

WHEN CONGRESS resumes in January, it should right a long-standing wrong in our immigration law: the punishment of hapless children whose parents brought them to America illegally, but who have never known any other land. One way is to pass the "DREAM" Act, which cleared the Senate Judiciary…

THE SALMON-AND-RASPBERRIES world of private foundations is rattling its Pellegrino bottles over a tax bill that would alter a 30-year-old practice whereby most of the foundations' operating expenses--lunch included--are classified as "charitable activity." A bipartisan cast in the House of…

WHILE THE SUPREME COURT may have recently affirmed the constitutionality of school choice, states and districts across the country are doing their level best to undermine what few options are presently available to children in failing schools. Despite a new congressional mandate that youngsters…

IN HIS SHOWCASE political event of the week, President George W. Bush will finally get to sign the "No Child Left Behind Act," his cherished education bill, which cleared Congress in December. It is already being described as a revolution in federal education policy, a triumph of bipartisanship and…

THIS TIME OF YEAR always brightens education with the optimism of fresh starts. Classrooms are clean, teachers rested, children eager. There are new textbooks on the shelves, new hardware in the computer labs, perhaps a new menu in the cafeteria. Some of this year’s innovations are even more…

THE BUSH TEAM made a strong start in education, sending forth its ambitious school-reform plan early and with much hoopla, cozying up to key members of Congress, including ranking education-committee Democrats Ted Kennedy and George Miller, recruiting every Republican in sight to cheer for the…

PRESIDENT BUSH has pledged to send his first education bill to Capitol Hill within hours of his inauguration, a symbol of the priority he assigns to the issue that garnered so much campaign attention and looms so large in his Texas record of accomplishment.

Where is the charter school movement headed? Although these independent public schools of choice were once seen as release valves for disgruntled families or safe havens for kids with problems, in urban America, they're looking like a possible alternative to the system itself, foreshadowing a far…

THE NEW YORK TIMES'S lead education reporter seemed surprised by his own discovery: Hiring more teachers for U.S. schools is harder than it sounds. In New York City this year, seven-eighths of those teachers hired with Washington's help have been doubled up in classrooms with other teachers. There…

Before George W. Bush delivered his first big education address, his team briefed conservative education policy experts on what the speech would contain. At these briefings and throughout the following couple of weeks, three things have stood out about Bush's strategy.

As BILL CLINTON ROARS INTO ACTION, demagoguing the education issue, he proves he's still a master manipulator of the domestic agenda and that when it comes to schools, he remains more surefooted and silver-tongued than anyone on Capitol Hill.

AL GORE IS NO FOOL. He knows that education is on voters' minds and has been a political winner for Bill Clinton. He knows he has no track record as an education reformer. So on May 16, he seized an opportunity -- a college commencement address in a tiny Iowa town -- to stake out a forceful…

CONGRESS HAS BEEN ATWITTER over a minor measure it just passed known as "ed-flex," which snips red tape in some federal education programs. Since 1994, a dozen states have been permitted to modify these regulations; ed-flex would allow all the states to do so.

THE 106TH CONGRESS, ONCE IT GETS PAST THE impeachment drama, will have a rare chance to tackle another set of Washington-style crimes and misdemeanors: 34 years of federal education policy and programs so misguided that today they undermine the prospects of reforming the nation's woeful schools.

ANY DAY NOW, OUR "EDUCATION PRESIDENT" will strangle another newborn education program in its crib.

THE PRESIDENT HAS PROPOSED to shrink class sizes in the early grades by hiring 100,000 more teachers at federal expense. This is quintessential Clintonism -- a warm Labrador puppy of a policy notion, petted by teachers and parents alike, but destined to bite when it grows up.

Whatever the 105th Congress accomplished in other fields, in education it muddied everything it touched. The session ended with a debacle on national testing, confusion on charter schools, and utter failure on school choice. The prospects for reforming American education would be brighter if House…

That the education issue was weakening GOP electoral prospects became clear the day a New York Times-CBS poll reported it was top priority among undecided voters -- and that twice as many Americans trusted the Democrats with it. And it's been no solace to learn from exit polls that Bill Clinton's…