Latest News and Comment from Education

Saturday, June 16, 2012

This Week's Answer Sheet 6-16-12 - School Survival Guide for parents (and everyone else). - The Washington Post

The Answer Sheet - School Survival Guide for parents (and everyone else). - The Washington Post:
Answer Sheet


Has Title IX, now 40 years old, harmed male athletics?

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 1 day ago
A new report on Title IX, the landmark civil rights law passed 40 years ago that barred gender discrimination in education for all students, says that a great deal of progress in improving educational opportunities for girls has been made, but more work needs to be done. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

To Morning Joe: About that charter school segment

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 1 day ago
This is just a quick note to Morning Joe and his crew to tell them something they may not have realized when talking this week to Deborah Kenny, the founder of the charter schools called the Harlem Village Academies. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

How to improve college student aid disclosure

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 1 day ago
This* was written by Robert Massa, vice president for communications at Lafayette College in Easton, PA. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the college.* Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

10 ways to oppose high-stakes standardized tests

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 2 days ago
I’ve written several times in recent months about a growing movement by parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, students and others to protest the use of standardized tests for high-stakes purposes. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

How to integrate literacy with STEM

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 2 days ago
This *was written by Chris Roe and Ralph Smith. Roe is chief executive officer of the California STEM Learning Network; Smith is managing director of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading*. By Chris Roe and Ralph Smith Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Text of letter protesting UVA president ouster

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 2 days ago
Here is the full text of the open letter that 33 department chairs and program directors at the University of Virginia signed and released to protest the forced resignation of the popular President Teresa Sullivan. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Fairfax asleep on high school start time

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 3 days ago
This just can’t be so hard. Eight times in the last 24 years, the Fairfax County School Board has studied whether to let high school students start school later than 7:20 a.m. because teens are biologically programmed for a late-to-bed and late-to-rise schedule. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

The biggest problem with traditional schooling

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 3 days ago
This *was written by Marion Brady, veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author.* By Marion Brady Fairtest, Parents Across America, Save Our Schools, United Opt-Out National, and regional groups such as Fund Education Now, are fighting to stop the corporate takeover of public education. It’s a David-Goliath match. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Gates changes Galvanic bracelet grant description

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 3 days ago
*Update: Foundation provides info on how website error occurred* Yesterday, I wrote about $1.1 million in grants that Bill Gates’s foundation made to develop bracelets that could measure how engaged students were in class. Today, the foundation said that one of the descriptions of the grants that I included in my post was actually wrong on its Web site and that it is fixing it. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

U-Va. board: Tell us why you pushed out president

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 days ago
The University of Virginia’s governing board seems to have gone out of its way to avoid explaining directly to the public why it pushed out the popular President Teresa Sullivan after only two years. It’s time it says exactly what happened. Now. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Is the power of intuition overrated? — Willingham

The Answer Sheet - 4 days ago
This *was written by cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” His next book, “When Can You Trust The Experts? How to tell good science from bad in education,” will be published in July. This appeared on his Science and Education blog.* Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Will Congress compound its error on ‘highly qualified’ teachers?

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 days ago
Back in late 2010, Congress approved legislation that defined “highly qualified teachers” as including students still in teacher training programs. Now, instead of admitting that the definition doesn’t make much sense, Congress is on the road to passing new legislation to keep that definition on the books (even though a federal appellate court has ruled that it violates the No Child Left Behind law). Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

$1.1 million-plus Gates grants: ‘Galvanic’ bracelets that measure student engagement

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 5 days ago
*Please see update to this post by clicking here* . In the ‘you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff’ category, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is spending about $1.1 million to develop a way to physiologically measure how engaged students are by their teachers’ lessons. This involves “galvanic skin response” bracelets that kids would wear so their engagement levels could be measured. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Challenging Eli Broad’s school memories

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 5 days ago
This *was written by Carol Corbett Burris, principal of South Side High School in New York. She was named the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State.* Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Michael Lewis tells Princeton grads: You are the ‘lucky few’ — and don’t let it go to your heads

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 5 days ago
Here’s the commencement speech that best-selling author Michael Lewis delivered at the recent Princeton University commencement ceremonies. This (full text below) was published on the school’s website, provided courtesy of Princeton University Office of Communications. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

The Answer Sheet - 5 days ago

Amid a flurry of misspellings, test yourself

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 6 days ago
In the past 10 days or so, we’ve seen some pretty embarrassing misspellings. Mitt Romney’s team was behind the now famous misspelling of the word “America” on an iPhone app (though it is hard not to wonder how many people at Apple missed “Amercia” during the app approval process). Then we learned that diplomas distributed at a Maryland high school featured a misspelling of the word “program” and had to be reprinted. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]