The Answer Sheet - School Survival Guide for parents (and everyone else). - The Washington Post:
How our love for numbers warps school reform
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 22 hours ago
Americans have a love affair with numbers. Here Alfie Kohn, the author of 12 books about education and human behavior, explains why this has become a problem when it comes to school reform. His books include “The Schools Our Children Deserve,” “The Homework Myth,” and “Feel-Bad Education... And Other Contrarian Essays on Children & Schooling.” He lives (actually) in the Boston area and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn.org. This is a slightly expanded version of an essay that was first published in the September 19 issue of Education Week” Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] ... more »
Tutors for kindergarteners (and younger kids too)
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 1 day ago
How obsessed have schools become in preparing young kids to take tests and achieve in academics? This much: Tutors for kindergarteners — and preschoolers — have become commonplace. You might think this is something that would be popular in New York City or Washington D.C. But go to Clay County, Missouri, and you can find plenty of folks willing to help bring kindergarteners who may already be behind in their studies up to speed — for a price. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
A primer on gap years
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 1 day ago
It’s the season when high school seniors are frantically filling out college applications and trying to figure out where they will be and what they will be doing next fall. There is some evidence that a growing number of U.S. high school graduates are taking a year off before going to college. But there are questions about how gap years work, and who they benefit and what colleges think about them. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Why the ‘rithmetic of school reform doesn’t add up
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 1 day ago
Sometimes things about school reform just don’t add up. Here, Larry Lee, the former director of the Center for Rural Alabama who coordinated the study, Lessons Learned from Rural Schools, tries to do the math. He can be reached at larrylee33@knology.net Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
New research casts doubt on key theory of vocabulary learning
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 1 day ago
There are times when we learn that something we thought was true is actually incorrect. Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham tells us about a new such episode here. Willingham is professor and director of graduate studies in psychology at the University of Virginia and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” His latest book is “When Can You Trust The Experts? How to tell good science from bad in education.” 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]
Schools chief loves Twitter — 29 (plus 3) times a day
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 2 days ago
A growing number of school superintendents around the country spend part of their day on Twitter, and one of the most prolific — if not *the* most — isJoshua P. Starr, superintendent of the high-achieving Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
What teachers say they won in Chicago strike
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 2 days ago
What did the Chicago teachers win — and not win — in their seven-day strike? Here’s a chart put together by the Chicago Teachers Union on what Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the school system’s Board of Education first proposed in the negotiations and what the teachers won during bargaining. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Is The New York Times wrong (again) on teacher evaluation?
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 2 days ago
Last week I wrote about the push by school reformers to use student standardized test scores to evaluate teachers in a post that looked at Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s reforms and a New York Times editorial that called such assessment “sensible.” On Monday, The Times published another editorial about teacher evaluation. Both education historian Diane Ravitch and award-winning New York high school principal Carol Burris were perplexed by the editorial, which appeared to defend Race to the Top evaluations while acknowledging that they were, in fact, problematic. Read the editorial ... more »
Is poverty destiny? Ideology vs. evidence in school reform
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 3 days ago
At the center of the school reform debate is the role that poverty plays in student achievement, as explained well in the following post. It was written by Paul Thomas, an associate professor of education at Furman University in South Carolina. His newest book, “Ignoring Poverty in the U.S. — The Corporate Takeover of Public Education,” was recently published. A version of this post appeared on dailykos.com. This is long but worth the time. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Tennessee punishing Nashville for refusing to open charter school
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 3 days ago
Tennessee officials, led by Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman, are withholding $3.4 million from the Nashville public schools because the state told the system to open a controversial charter school and the local school board refused. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Who won the Chicago teachers strike?
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 3 days ago
The Chicago teachers have called off their strike after seven days as members of the union vote on a proposed contract hammered out in tough negotiations. Who won? Was it Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel or the union? Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
A critical analysis of Common Core math standards
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 3 days ago
The Common Core State Standards, as you can tell from the contrasting pieces I published this week (here and here), are nothing if not controversial. Until now much criticism has been leveled at the English Language Arts Standards, but here’s a somewhat scary, detailed look at the math standards. It was published on the blog CCSSI Mathematics. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
The 9th problem with the Common Core standards
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 3 days ago
A post yesterday, in support of the Common Core State Standards, is a response to an August piece by veteran educator Marion Brady that was highly critical of the standards initiative. Here Brady takes another wack at the standards. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Meet Jack Andraka, 15-year-old cancer researcher
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 3 days ago
*This is one in an occasional series of quick profiles doing unusually interesting things.* Meet Jack Andraka, who was 14 years old (he’s all of 15 now) when he began looking for a simple way to detect early pancreatic cancer, his interest sparked by a relative’s death from the disease. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Why schools alone can’t cure poverty
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 3 days ago
School reformers often say that great teaching can overcome the effects of poverty. Here, Arthur H. Camins, director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., discusses problems with this reform narrative. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Fighting bullies — one school community at a time
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 days ago
We hear a lot about the problem of bullying but less about programs that actually help curb the insidious problem. Here are some that have helped in different communities, written by John Gomperts, president and chief executive officer of America's Promise, a nonprofit network of organizations that helps promote volunteer action for young people. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
On Constitution Day, test your knowledge
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 days ago
Today is the 225th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia, and thus, it is also Constitution Day, the federally mandated day when schools — from kindergarten through college — are supposed to provide some sort of program on the country’s founding document. Because today is also a Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah, the U.S. Department of Education is allowing schools to be flexible about the day they actually observe the day. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
The 9th problem with the Common Core standards
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 days ago
The previous post, in support of the Common Core State Standards, is a response to an August piece by veteran educator Marion Brady that was highly critical of the standards initiative. Here Brady takes another wack at the standards. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
A defense of Common Core State Standards
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 5 days ago
I’ve published a number of posts critical of the Common Core State Standards(here’s one and here’s another), but but below is a piece by an award-winning teacher in support of the initiative. This was written by Sara Brown Wessling, the national 2010 National Teacher of the Year and an English teacher Johnston High School in Johnston, Iowa. She is also the Teacher Laureate for Teaching Channel and hosts “Teaching Channel Presents” on public television stations around the country. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: A... more »
Why schools alone can’t cure poverty
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 5 days ago
School reformers often say that great teaching can overcome the effects of poverty. Here, Arthur H. Camins, director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., discusses problems with this reform narrative. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
How reformers (unfortunately) get captivated by experimental technology
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 5 days ago
Because teacher evaluation is such an important part of school reform and at the center of the Chicago teachers strike, I have published several pieces on the issue in the last week, here and her e and here. Below is a new historical look on the subject. It was written by Jack Schneider and Ethan Hutt. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
What research really says on teacher evaluation
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 5 days ago
The Chicago teachers strike has put the issue of teacher evaluation front and center in the education debate. The popular “value added” method of using student standardized test scores to figure out how effective a teacher is highly controversial; I wrote about it here. Here is a new important look by an education expert, Richard Rothstein. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
What research really says on teacher evaluation
Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 6 days ago
The Chicago teachers strike has put the issue of teacher evaluation front and center in the education debate. The popular “value added” method of using student standardized test scores to figure out how effective a teacher is highly controversial; I wrote about it here. Here is a new important look by an education expert, Richard Rothstein. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]