Why growing concentrated poverty dooms school reform
Until very recently, policymakers ignored the effect that concentrated poverty has on student achievement. Here’s a look at why more attention must be paid to the problem, written by Greg Kaufmann, who reports on poverty for the Nation, and Elaine Weiss, the national coordinator for the Broader Bolder Approach to Education. This appeared on The Nation’s website.
By Greg Kaufmann and Elaine Weiss
Researchers know a lot about how various factors associated with income level affect a child’s learning: parents’ educational attainment; how parents read to, play with, and respond to their children; the quality of early care and early education; access to consistent physical and mental health services and healthy food. Poor children’s limited access to these fundamentals accounts for a good chunk of the achievement gap, which is why conceiving of it instead as an opportunity gap makes a lot more sense.
But we rarely discuss the impact of concentrated poverty—and of racial and socioeconomic
Jon Stewart tests Michelle Rhee, defends teachers
Jon Stewart invited Michelle Rhee on “The Daily Show” Monday night and, while he didn’t skewer her the way some Rhee critics would have liked, he kept challenging her about whether her brand of school reform unfairly targets teachers. He … Continue reading →
How online class about online learning failed miserably
In the you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff category, here’s an amusing piece about the failure of a MOOC (massive open online course) that was designed to teach more than 40,000 students the fundamentals of how to create an online course. It was written by … Continue reading →
Tennessee lawmaker wants to cut welfare benefits for bad report cards
There seems to be no end to the number of wacky school reform ideas. Now a Tennessee state senator wants to cut welfare payments to families whose kids get really bad report cards and test scores. State Sen. Stacey Campfield … Continue reading →
Why education ‘research wars’ leave no winners
Why education ‘research wars’ leave no winners
There isn’t a day that goes by that someone in the world of education isn’t issuing a report, data point or other form of research to make a point that conflicts with another point that also has a report, data … Continue reading→
