Who is This?

Jay Mathews (born April 5, 1945, in Long Beach, California) is an author, education reporter and online columnist with the Washington Post. Mathews attended Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, California, Occidental and Harvard Colleges and is a Vietnam veteran. He started at the Post in 1971, writing news reports and books about China, disability rights, the stock market, and several educational topics. Mathews won the 1999 Benjamin Fine Award for Outstanding Education Reporting for both features and column writing. His column Class Struggles appears weekly on the online version of the Post.

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Shouldn't the evaluating get evaluated?

Dan Goldfarb, a 51-year-old history teacher at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, says his first encounter with an evaluator under the District's new IMPACT system for assessing teachers did not go well. Goldfarb does not claim to be an objective ...

From JAY MATHEWS, The Washington Post,  23 Nov 2009

Class Struggle: Term papers are worth the time and trouble

A typical paper was often little more than what Burton describes as "a regurgitated version of the encyclopedia." She stopped requiring them for her regular history students and assigned them just to seniors heading for college. The social studies and ...

From JAY MATHEWS, The Washington Post,  19 Nov 2009

Related Topics: Bill Clinton,  University of Connecticut

More optimistic label for 'at-risk' kids draws skepticism

"We use the term 'at-promise' in Alexandria City Public Schools to describe children who have the potential to achieve at a higher rate than they are currently achieving," Sherman said in a July 23 op-ed in the Alexandria Gazette Packet. "Really, all ...

From JAY MATHEWS, The Washington Post,  16 Nov 2009

Related Topics: Abigail Thernstrom

Class Struggle: A valuable lesson pays off for Md. students

I don't usually do this with colleges and universities. The available data are not as good, and I haven't spent as much time figuring out how such places work. But occasionally I stumble across a report that illuminates differences in higher education ...

From JAY MATHEWS, The Washington Post,  12 Nov 2009

Related Topics: Columbia University,  U.S. Republican Party,  Martin O'Malley

Evaluations have little role in promoting better teaching

I asked suburban school officials to share the latest results from their teacher evaluations, which are usually done by principals and subject specialists. Here are the percentages of teachers rated satisfactory, in some cases called meeting or ...

From JAY MATHEWS, The Washington Post,  9 Nov 2009

Class Struggle: In math, the readiness is all

Unfortunately, I didn't get the letter. There was a mixup because I use my middle name, a lifelong problem. As vain as a 14-year-old grade grubber could be, I was upset that I wasn't invited to join my peer group. By the time my mother checked and ...

From JAY MATHEWS, The Washington Post,  5 Nov 2009

Related Topics: Brookings Institution

Evaluating D.C. teachers a confusing job

American educators are similarly scrambling to create a teacher evaluation system that will raise the level of instruction and student achievement in the same reliable way modern jetliners take us home for Thanksgiving. They have not been very ...

From JAY MATHEWS, The Washington Post,  2 Nov 2009

Related Topics: Orville Wright,  George Parker

Washington might look to Baltimore for innovative ideas in special education

It shouldn't have been a surprise. Affluent, well-educated parents tend to have high expectations for their children and devote much time and energy to dealing with learning disabilities that get in the way of academic and personal success. The problem ...

From JAY MATHEWS, The Washington Post,  29 Oct 2009

Related Topics: Johns Hopkins University

Jay Mathews: Major changes at 2 troubled D.C. high schools

George Leonard, 57, chief executive officer of the Friends of Bedford group from New York; Chief Financial Officer Bevon Thompson, 35; and Chief Operating Officer Niaka Gaston, 34, sit around a table in the basement of the District's Dunbar High School. ...

From JAY MATHEWS, The Washington Post,  26 Oct 2009

Related Topics: George Leonard,  Columbia University,  Stephen Jackson

Gerald Bracey, fierce critic of education policy; at 69

WASHINGTON - Gerald W. Bracey, one of the most erudite, prolific, and acidic critics of national education policy, died unexpectedly Oct. 20 at his home in Port Townsend, Wash. He was 69. His wife, Iris, said his death could have resulted from a number ...

From JAY MATHEWS, Boston Globe,  23 Oct 2009

Related Topics: Barack Obama,  Stanford University,  George W. Bush,  National Education Association

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