Why strong afterschool programs matter
This was written by Jodi Grant, executive director of the nonprofit Afterschool Alliance, a nonprofit organization that works to ensure that all children have access to affordable, quality afterschool programs.
By Jodi Grant
The National School Boards Association recently released a report comparing the time U.S. students spend in school to the time spent in school in other countries — questioning the trendy notion that our schools would improve if we merely added time to the school day. As executive director of the Afterschool Alliance, I’ve spent the past two years fighting efforts to divert federal support for already underfunded afterschool programs to instead provide a small number of failing schools with money to add an hour or two to their school day. This would not only add to the 15 million children currently unsupervised each afternoon, but could deny more than a million children the engaged learning and building blocks of healthy development provided by afterschool programs. Like many experts, I’m fearful that simply adding more time to our least successful schools is not the right answer.
Read full article >>7 key questions to ask about ed technology, online learning
This was written by Cathy N. Davidson, a Duke professor and author of Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn.
By Cathy N. Davidson
Read full article >>Ravitch: What Scrooge might think of modern school reform
This was written by education historian Diane Ravitch for her Bridging Differences blog, which she co-authors with Deborah Meier on the Education Week website. Ravitch and Meier exchange letters about what matters most in education. Ravitch, a research professor at New York University, is the author of the bestselling “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” an important critique of the flaws in the modern school reform movement that she just updated.
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