Blog Business
We had a comment from a reader who had several complaints about the blog, largely around creation of threads and the belief we don't cover enough individual school items/topics.
Our reader acknowledges that we create threads based on demand but apparently that isn't enough (even though readers then take control of the thread and the direction of the discussion). We also have Open Threads twice a week but that isn't enough either.
Charlie and I regularly get guest posts sent to us and about 90% of the time print them verbatim. We have had this policy for years. So if you have a topic you want to write about, please send it to us.
This is a down time for the district; summer is a time it goes very dead.
Much of what we could discuss about various topics in the district is, at this point, speculation. Superintendent Banda has to come in, get the lay of the land, hire the new people for senior positions that are either interim or open (like Special Ed) and then lay out the agenda of what he proposes to do. I do not believe, for almost any
Our reader acknowledges that we create threads based on demand but apparently that isn't enough (even though readers then take control of the thread and the direction of the discussion). We also have Open Threads twice a week but that isn't enough either.
Charlie and I regularly get guest posts sent to us and about 90% of the time print them verbatim. We have had this policy for years. So if you have a topic you want to write about, please send it to us.
This is a down time for the district; summer is a time it goes very dead.
Much of what we could discuss about various topics in the district is, at this point, speculation. Superintendent Banda has to come in, get the lay of the land, hire the new people for senior positions that are either interim or open (like Special Ed) and then lay out the agenda of what he proposes to do. I do not believe, for almost any
News Roundup
From Education Week, coverage of the Int'l Society for Technology in Education convention in San Diego in late June. Here's what Yong Zhao, the associate dean in the College of Education at the University of Oregon had to say about what our public education system is doing.
"Right now, we are lost in terms of what's the purpose of education," said Zhao, addressing a crowd of nearly 5,000 in the packed San Diego Convention Center. "We are in the U.S. pushing for the idea of Race to the Top. But race to the top of what?"
Zhao pointed to results from PISA, an international exam that measures students' skills and knowledge in a variety of countries as a widely recognized yardstick for determining the quality of a country's education. However, many of the countries that rank highest in PISA results—China, South Korea, and Singapore, to name a few—rank lowest on entrepreneurial skills, which correspond to stronger economies, Zhao argued.
"We have to abandon the idea of reducing people's talents into employable skills," and instead foster an education system that "enhances human capacity" and cultivates each students' talents, said Zhao.
"Right now, we are lost in terms of what's the purpose of education," said Zhao, addressing a crowd of nearly 5,000 in the packed San Diego Convention Center. "We are in the U.S. pushing for the idea of Race to the Top. But race to the top of what?"
Zhao pointed to results from PISA, an international exam that measures students' skills and knowledge in a variety of countries as a widely recognized yardstick for determining the quality of a country's education. However, many of the countries that rank highest in PISA results—China, South Korea, and Singapore, to name a few—rank lowest on entrepreneurial skills, which correspond to stronger economies, Zhao argued.
"We have to abandon the idea of reducing people's talents into employable skills," and instead foster an education system that "enhances human capacity" and cultivates each students' talents, said Zhao.