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President Obama (Kevin Dietsch via Bloomberg)
Obama’s ed reform ignores high-quality Pre-K
My guest is Marci Young, director of Pre-K Now, a project of the non-profit Pew Center on the States that advances high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten for all 3 year olds and 4 year olds.
By Marci Young
The Obama administration’s “blueprint” to Congress for rewriting the law commonly known as No Child Left Behind aims to encourage proven reform strategies and policy-making based on data and research. The problem is that it ignores the most rigorously evaluated and effective education reform of the last half-century: high-quality pre-kindergarten.
More than 50 years of research shows that high-quality pre-K is a proven strategy to improve children’s cognitive, social and emotional skills; increase their educational attainment; close the achievement gap; and enhance the quality and productivity of the nation’s workforce.
Continue reading this post »By Marci Young
The Obama administration’s “blueprint” to Congress for rewriting the law commonly known as No Child Left Behind aims to encourage proven reform strategies and policy-making based on data and research. The problem is that it ignores the most rigorously evaluated and effective education reform of the last half-century: high-quality pre-kindergarten.
More than 50 years of research shows that high-quality pre-K is a proven strategy to improve children’s cognitive, social and emotional skills; increase their educational attainment; close the achievement gap; and enhance the quality and productivity of the nation’s workforce.
Unlike many, Escalante believed in teaching, not sorting
[This is my piece for the Post's Outlook section of April 4, 2010.]
From 1982 to 1987 I stalked Jaime Escalante, his students and his colleagues at Garfield High School, a block from the hamburger-burrito stands, body shops and bars of Atlantic Boulevard in East Los Angeles. I was the Los Angeles bureau chief for The Washington Post, allegedly covering the big political, social and business stories of the Western states, but I found it hard to stay away from that troubled high school.
From 1982 to 1987 I stalked Jaime Escalante, his students and his colleagues at Garfield High School, a block from the hamburger-burrito stands, body shops and bars of Atlantic Boulevard in East Los Angeles. I was the Los Angeles bureau chief for The Washington Post, allegedly covering the big political, social and business stories of the Western states, but I found it hard to stay away from that troubled high school.
I would show up unannounced, watch Jaime teach calculus, chat with Principal Henry Gradillas, check in with other Advanced Placement classes and in the early afternoon call my editor in Washington to say I was chasing down the latest medfly outbreak story, or whatever seemed believable at the time.
Escalante, who died Tuesday from cancer at age 79, did not become nationally famous until 1988, when the feature film about him, "Stand and Deliver," was released, and my much-less-noticed book, "Escalante: The Best Teacher in America," also came out. I had been drawn to him, as filmmakers Ramón Menéndez and Tom Musca were, by the story of a 1982 cheating scandal. Eighteen Escalante students had passed the Advanced Placement Calculus AB exam. Fourteen were accused of cheating by the Educational Testing Service, based on similarities in their answers. Twelve took the test again, this time heavily proctored, and passed again.
Whether they cheated was an intriguing mystery, but not the one that kept me hanging around Garfield. I wanted to know how there could be even one student at that school taking and passing AP Calculus, perhaps the hardest course in American secondary education. Garfield offered the worst possible conditions for learning: 85 percent of the students were low income, most of the parents were grade-school dropouts, faculty morale was bad, expectations were low.
Continue reading this post »Ed Buzz: The Nation
- Could bus ads save school budgets?(Associated Press)
- Loan bill stripped of early ed., other priorities (Education Week)
- Unions slam Obama's education budget (Education Week)
- Obama effigy hung at R.I. school (New York Times)
- Hispanics face barriers to college degree (New York Times)
- Suspensions lead to legal challenge(New York Times)
- Detroit ed chief wants to close 45 schools (Detroit Free Press)
- State, district leaders press transformation (Education Week)
- Hurdles await new education agenda(New York Times)
- Union tries personal tactics on UC regents (San Francisco Chronicle)
Ed Buzz: The Region
- Loudoun looking to slash positions, up fees (WTOP)
- Kids at Md. school get tainted milk (Fox 5)
- McDonnell signs college lab school legislation (Richmond Times Dispatch)
- Schools reduce police presence (The Examiner)
- Montgomery College, schools brace for cuts (The Gazette)
- P.G. County PTA reinstated (The Gazette)
- Md. GOP: Don't raise dropout age (The Gazette)
- Birth-control center finds home at T.C. Williams (Alexandria Gazette Packet)
- Fairfax teacher quits over embezzlement charges (Examiner)
- MoCo teachers say they are overwhelmed (Gazette)
- Alex. considers new school boundaries(Examiner)
- PG parents fear impact of school cuts(WJLA)
- Md. lawmakers favor ed cuts (Baltimore Sun)