School apologizes for Black History Month lunch of watermelon, fried chicken
Put this in the you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff category: A Catholic high school for girls in California thought it would be a good idea to mark Black History Month with a special lunch menu of fried chicken, watermelon and cornbread. Many students and parents were not amused. KNTV, the NBC affiliate in the Bay Area that Nancy Libby, principal […]
A master’s degree on The Beatles — really
View Photo Gallery —An 18-year-old Mike Mitchell was at the Beatles’ first U.S. concert, snapping pictures with his 35mm Nikon with no flash. Those photos, which recently sold at auction, show a love of light and shadow that is reflected in his later work. Readers of this blog know that I will find any flimsy […]
A really scary headline about kindergarteners
Rob Saxton is Oregon’s deputy superintendent of public instruction. Jada Rupley is the early learning system director within the state Department of Education. Together they wrote an op-ed in The Oregonian that was published online with this headline: Kindergarten test results a ‘sobering snapshot’ What could possibly be sobering about test results from kindergarteners? What […]
The misguided effort to teach ‘character’
In 2009, Mike Rose, a research professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and an author, published “Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us,” a well-received book that asked big questions about what it means to be educated and the nature of learning. A significantly revised and expanded edition of the […]
@ The Answer Sheet 2-5-14
The Answer Sheet: Obama smacks Bill O’Reilly on school vouchersPresident Obama often says things about school reform that suggest he hasn’t read up on the effects of his policies, but he knew his stuff on vouchers cold during an interview with Bill O’Reilly, effectively smacking down the conservative commentator’s wishful thinking with the facts. The Obama administration has steadfastly opposed vo