A rare break from testing madness
This was written by Pamela Grundy, a founding member of Mecklenburg Area Coming Together for Schools (Mecklenburg Acts), a grassroots coalition of parents, citizens and organizations working on behalf of Mecklenburg County’s public schools. This first appeared on the website of Parents Across America, an organization that she also co-founded that connects parents and activists from across the country to improve public education.
Read full article >>Why school should be funnier
This *was written by Mark Phillips, professor emeritus of secondary education at San Francisco State University. This was written for his blog on Edutopia, and he also publishes a monthly column on education for the Marin Independent Journal. * Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Six things you probably don’t know about Dr. Seuss
Did you know that the man who called himself Dr. Seuss once wrote ad campaigns for Standard Oil? Or that he started calling himself “Seuss” — not his last name — after he got in trouble at Dartmouth College? Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Could school prayer bill allow Satanic messages in schools?
The Florida legislature has approved and sent to the governor legislation that would allow students to deliver “inspirational messages” of their own choosing at school events that, according to critics, could include Satanic messages. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Overconfident experts as poor predictors in education
This *was written by Larry Cuban, a former high school social studies teacher (14 years, including seven at Cardozo and Roosevelt high schools in the District), district superintendent (seven years in Arlington, VA) and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, where he has taught for 20 years. His latest book is “As Good As It Gets: What School Reform Brought to Austin.” This appeared on his blog *. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Why it is easier for a kid to get a gun in Ohio than in many other states
It is not clear yet how the teenager accused of staging a deadly assault on students at a Ohio high school obtained the weapon he allegedly used, but the state’s gun laws don’t make it hard for young people to get their hands on a gun. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Santorum ’s flawed remedy for improving education
This *was written by Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and former president of Teachers College, Columbia University.* By Arthur Levine At a recent Ohio campaign stop, Rick Santorum criticized America’s public schools as an artifact of the industrial era and recommended homeschooling as the alternative. He was right about the problem, but wrong about the remedy. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
What Florida is doing to its public schools
This *was written by Jean Clements, president of Florida’s Hillsborough County Classroom Teachers Association, representing more than 9,000 teachers and school personnel. * By Jean Clements Horace Mann called public education the “great equalizer.” Quite simply, he believed that without a strong system of public schools in this country, the elite would get an education while the middle class and poor would not. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
What achievement gap statistics reveal — and what they don’t
This* was written by Matthew Di Carlo, senior fellow at the non-profit Albert Shanker Institute, located in Washington, D.C. This post originally appeared on the institute’s blog. * By Matthew Di Carlo A recent statement by the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) attempts to provide an empirical justification for that state’s focus on the achievement gap — the difference in testing performance between subgroups, usually defined in terms of race or income. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpo... more »
College admissions: When high school courses matter most
This* was written by Martha Allman, dean of admissions at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C*. By Martha Allman College admissions officers around the country are submerged in applications. At this time of year, we are faced with the nearly impossible task of finding the best mix of students for our institutions based on some combination of grade point average (GPA), class rank, written essays, personal interviews, extracurricular activities and, at some schools, test scores. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] ... more »
The one book Warren Buffett praised in latest annual letter
Superstar investor Warren Buffett releases an annual letter to stockholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. — the company he built with stock shares that now cost about $119,000 a share — that explains his financial moves with humor and wisdom. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
NY principal: Teacher scores inaccurate at my school
The information below comes from Elizabeth Phillips, principal of P.S. 321 in Park Slope, N.Y., about how badly the newly released rankings of New York City public school teachers reflect the reality at her school. Phillips wrote that she is “absolutely sick” about the public release of the Teacher Data Reports (TDR) of some 18,000 teachers based entirely on student standardized test scores. And, she said, the amount of data that is wrong is “staggering.” This same information was posted earlier on the New York City Publbic School Parents blog. Read full article >> [image: Add to ... more »
The Answer Sheet - 5 days ago
School psychologists: Shortage amid increased need
This *was written by Mark Phillips, professor emeritus of secondary education at San Francisco State University and author of a monthly column on education for the * *Marin Independent Journal* * . * By Mark Phillips Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Charter school linked to Scientology
A public charter school in the Florida city of Clearwater — the headquarters of the Church of Scientology — is being accused of using Scientology study methods with students. The Tampa Bay Times reported that parents and former teachers had complained about Life Force Arts and Technology Academy, which is being run by a management company whose president, Hanan Islam, was executive director of an organization called the World Literacy Crusade which promotes Scientology study methods. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [imag... more »