Are private schools better than public schools? New book says ‘no’
It is often assumed that private schools do a better job educating children than public schools, but a new book, “The Public School Advantage,” which is being published this week, shows this isn’t the case. Here’s a piece the authors, Christopher Lubienski, a professor in the Department of Educational Organization and Leadership at the College of Education at University of Illinois, and Sarah Theule Lubienski, professor of mathematics education in the College of Education at the University of Illinois. The Lubienskis looked at two huge datasets of student mathematics performance and found that public school students outperform private school ones, when adjusted for demographics.
By Christopher and Sarah Lubienski
Greater school choice for families and greater autonomy for schools leads to greater academic outcomes, right? Maybe not. Using two nationally representative datasets, we recently conducted one of the most comprehensive studies ever performed of school type and achievement in mathematics—a subject widely held to be the best measure of in-school learning. We analyzed instruction and performance for over 300,000
The school data problem: what we have vs. what we need
It’s the backbone of the modern school reform: data. And a lot of it, it turns out, isn’t any good. Here’s a post about about the problem of the data we have vs. the data we need, by Jack Schneider, an assistant professor of education at the College of the Holy Cross, who confronted the […]
School forbids kindergarteners from touching at recess
Granted the month is still young, but this sounds like it will be high on the list for the month’s dumbest ideas hatched at a school: An elementary school in Canada has decided to forbid kindergarten students from touching each other at recess as a way to prevent injuries from, well, playing. Say goodbye to […]
11-4-13 The Answer Sheet Why is Arne Duncan visiting Haiti?
Why is Arne Duncan visiting Haiti?: Why is Arne Duncan visiting Haiti?BY VALERIE STRAUSSNovember 4 at 1:13 pmArne Duncan (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)Education Secretary Arne Duncan travels a lot around the country as the Obama administration’s school reform chief, visiting classrooms and talking up federal education policies. There’s nothing unusual about that — but a trip he began on Monday is.Dunca