$100 million Gates-funded student data project ends in failure
A controversial $100 million student data collection project funded by the Gates Foundation and operated by a specially created nonprofit organization called inBloom is shutting down after failing to achieve its goals. After most of the original state partners with inBloom withdrew their support, the final straw was the recent decision by the New York […]
How Bill Gates and fellow billionaires can actually help public education
Here’s a novel idea for how Bill Gates and his fellow billionaires can use their mountains of money to actually help public education instead of continuing to waste the cash on ineffective and damaging school reforms. If there is one thing that we know for sure about student achievement in U.S. schools, it’s that […]
Actually, online skimming probably hasn’t affected serious reading after all
A popular Washington Post article by my colleague Michael S. Rosenwald said that researchers were finding that the habit of scanning and skinning material online was changing the human brain and hindering people’s” ability to read long, complex and dense material. Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, a professor at the University of Virginia, is highly skeptical. […]
What teachers really want
One of the striking things about modern school reform is that the people who you would think would be a big part of the discussion — teachers — have largely been ignored. So what do teachers want? Francie Alexander, chief academic officer for Scholastic Inc., writes about a nationally representative poll of teachers that answers […]
4-20-14 The Answer Sheet
The Answer Sheet: A defense of public education against ‘the wolves of Wall Street’Sara Stevenson is the librarian at O. Henry Middle School in Austin, Texas, who is sick and tired of assaults on the very notion of public education. Here are her reflections on the value of public education and what is being done to it in the name of ”‘reform.” By Sara Stevenson As a lifelong […]by Valerie Strau