Mandated community service: Risks and potential
This was written by Alfie Kohn, the author of 12 books about education and human behavior, including “The Schools Our Children Deserve,” “The Homework Myth,” and the newly published“Feel-Bad Education . . . And Other Contrarian Essays on Children & Schooling.” He lives (actually) in the Boston area and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn.com. .
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Putting New York’s testing program on trial
This was* written by Fred Smith, a retired New York City Board of Education senior analyst who worked for the city public school system in test research and development. In this post he writes about New York state’s standardized testing program for students. Though his comments are specific to New York, the same types of problems are prevalent in other states as well.* * Read full article >>
Slaves used as part of 3rd grade math questions
What would you do if your elementary school child came home with a worksheet that had questions such as these: * --“Each tree had 56 oranges. If 8 slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”* *--“If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week?”* * Read full article >>
Teen who killed bully to go free under ‘Stand Your Ground’ law
A judge has dropped a second-degree murder charge against a 15-year-old who fatally stabbed another teenager after he was attacked, citing a law in Florida that allows an individual to meet force with force if they fear for his/her life. The “Stand Your Ground” law says that a person has no duty to retreat if attacked and can use even deadly force if they feel their life is in danger . At least 17 states have a version of this law, including Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Washington. If the boy had been ... more »
How art history majors power the U.S. economy
This was written by Virginia Postrel, a Bloomberg View columnist. She is the author of “*The Future and Its Enemies*” and “*The Substance of Style*,” and is writing a book on glamour. This first appeared on Bloomberg.com. By Virginia Postrel Read full article >>
Romney, Santorum, Paul on education issues
One of the winners in the top tier of the Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa doesn’t believe public schools should provide early childhood education, describing it as just an attempt by the government “to indoctrinate” children. One of them has praised some of President Obama’s reform efforts. One of them has said the Department of Education should be eliminated for many reasons, including that it “in some cases, forced medication of our children with psychotropic drugs.” Read full article >>
A decade of No Child Left Behind: Lessons from a policy failure
On Jan. 8, 2002, then president George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law, ushering in an era of standardized test-based school reform. This assessment of the NCLB decade was written by Lisa Guisbond with Monty Neill and Bob Schaeffer, all from the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, known as FairTest, a Boston-based organization that aims to end the misuse of standardized tests. Guisbond is a policy analyst, Neill is executive director and Schaeffer is public education director. Read full article >>
Report: Does money matter in education?
The answer to the often-debated question — Does money matter in providing a quality education? — is yes, according to a new report that reviewed research on the subject. To someone not steeped in school reform debate, the answer might seem obvious: Of course money matters. High-quality teachers, resources and buildings take money. (Tangentially, would anybody listen to Bill Gates on school reform if he weren’t a billionaire?) Read full article >>
New Hampshire’s 2012 anti-evolution legislation (and the shocking thing a sponsor said)
You can’t make up this stuff: The chief sponsor of a new anti-evolution piece of legislation in New Hampshire said that Darwin’s theory is “godless” and that such thinking is linked to Nazi atrocities, the 1999 Columbine shootings and more. That analysis came from Republican Rep. Jerry Bergevin, who introduced one of two new anti-evolution bills (see below for full text of bills) in the Granite State’s legislature. Read full article >>