True or false: Students can pray in public school any time they want
True or false? Students and anybody else in a public school have a right to quietly pray any time they want. It’s true, but you wouldn’t know it if you listen to lawmakers in Virginia who, according to this Post story, are pushing legislation that would ”codify students’ right to pray before, during and after school; […]
Text of U-Md. president’s letter about massive computer security breach
A computer security breach at the University of Maryland has compromised more than 300,000 personal records for faculty, staff and students who have received identification cards. Here’s the letter about the breach from university President Wallace D. Loh released on Wednesday: Dear students, faculty, and staff of the University of Maryland (at College Park and Shady Grove): […]
Mom to officials: Stop forcing severely disabled kids to take high-stakes tests
Earlier this month I wrote about Andrea Rediske, who had fought a long battle with the Florida Department of Education over a requirement that her blind and brain-damaged son, Ethan, who also suffered from cerebral palsy, take state-mandated standardized tests. Rediske managed to win a waiver for her son, but recently, while he lay dying in […]
How children learn to read
How do children really learn to read? Answering that question is Joanne Yatvin, a past president of the National Council of Teachers of English who now supervises student teachers for Portland State University. She also writes books for teachers. By Joanne Yatvin A few months before my fifth birthday my parents enrolled me in kindergarten. […]
The science behind figure skating, the half pipe and other Olympic sports
The National Science Foundation has for years been partnering with NBC Learn, the educational arm of NBC News, to present a series of 10 videos and other materials explaining the science, technology, engineering, design and mathematics behind Olympic winter sports. The stories in the videos are told by athletes as well as engineers and scientists. Below […]
2-18-14 The Answer Sheet
The Answer Sheet: Teacher to 3rd graders: I apologize for having to ‘quantify you with a number’Barnett Berry is the founder and chief executive officer of the Center for Teaching Quality, a national nonprofit organization based in Carrboro, North Carolina aimed at transforming the teaching profession. He wrote to me about a colleague of his, Wendi Pillars, a teacher who wrote an apology to young