Betsy DeVos’s truly awful week — by the headlines - The Washington Post

Betsy DeVos’s truly awful week — by the headlines - The Washington Post

Betsy DeVos’s truly awful week — by the headlines

By most any measure of an awful week, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos just had one.

To be sure, it’s not the first time DeVos has seen bad-news headlines.

There were the scornful ones that emerged from her January 2017 confirmation hearing, when she majorly fumbled testimony. For example, she expressed ignorance of the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, and in response to a question about whether guns belonged in schools, she referred to a school in Wyoming and said, “I would imagine that there is probably a gun in the schools to protect from potential grizzlies.”

The Guardian’s headline: “Betsy DeVos suggests guns be allowed in schools threatened by grizzly bears.” And The Washington Post offered this: “Actually, Betsy DeVos, guns are a pretty lousy way to ward off grizzlies.” Comic Jimmy Kimmel couldn’t help himself: “Betsy DeVos Has A Very Good Reason To Fear Grizzly Bears.”

As bad as that was, the next month presented new, really bad headlines. That was when DeVos was confirmed by the Senate — but only, for the first time in U.S. history, after a vice president had to vote to break a tie.

More recently, there was the week this past March when she got excoriated for her defense of the Trump administration’s plan to end Special Olympics funding — even though it wasn’t her idea and it actually came from the White House’s budget office — and then saw President Trump reverse himself after she struggled to defend it for three days.

Forbes: “Why Betsy DeVos’ Proposal To Defund Special Olympics Is Problematic On Every Level.” CNBC: “Trump pledges to fund Special Olympics, reversing proposal by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos."

And then there was this week. Here are some of the DeVos headlines: CONTINUE READING: Betsy DeVos’s truly awful week — by the headlines - The Washington Post

Shanker Blog: A Problem Hiding In Plain Sight (Guest Post by Natalie Wexler) | National Education Policy Center

Shanker Blog: A Problem Hiding In Plain Sight (Guest Post by Natalie Wexler) | National Education Policy Center

Shanker Blog: A Problem Hiding In Plain Sight (Guest Post by Natalie Wexler)

Our guest author today is Natalie Wexler, an educational journalist who is a senior contributor to forbes.com and whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and other publications. This article is excerpted, with permission, from THE KNOWLEDGE GAP: The Hidden Cost of America’s Broken Education System—And How To Fix It.

In 1987, two researchers in Wisconsin, Donna Recht and Lauren Leslie, constructed a miniature baseball field and installed it in an empty classroom in a junior high school. They peopled it with four-inch wooden baseball players arranged to simulate the beginning of a game. Then they brought in sixty-four seventh- and eighth-grade students who had been tested both for their general reading ability and their knowledge of baseball.

The goal was to determine to what extent a child’s ability to understand a text depended on her prior knowledge of the topic. Recht and Leslie chose baseball because they figured lots of kids in junior high school who weren’t great readers nevertheless knew a fair amount about the subject. Each student was asked to read a text describing half an inning of a fictional baseball game and move the wooden figures around the board to reenact the action described.

Churniak swings and hits a slow bouncing ball towards the shortstop, the passage began. Haley comes in, fields it, and throws to first, but too late. Churniak is on first with a single, Johnson stayed on third. The next batter is Whitcomb, the Cougars’ left-fielder.

It turned out that prior knowledge of baseball made a huge difference in students’ ability to understand the text—more of a difference than their supposed reading level. The kids who knew little about CONTINUE READING: Shanker Blog: A Problem Hiding In Plain Sight (Guest Post by Natalie Wexler) | National Education Policy Center

THIS WEEK Education Research Report

Education Research Report

THIS WEEK 

Education Research Report

Only half of US children get enough sleep during the week

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 17h

IMAGE: Prevalence of childhood flourishing markers by hours of sleep on average weeknight, and adjusted odds ratio of childhood flourishing markers with sufficient sleep compared to insufficient sleep. view more Credit: Hoi See Tsao, MD, FAAP NEW ORLEANS, La. - Only 48% of school age children in the United States get 9 hours of sleep most weeknights, according to new research being presented at t

OCT 23

Variations in High School Course-Taking by Years-as-EL Subgroup

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 2d

English learners (ELs) lag behind their peers in academic achievement and attainment, partly due to limited exposure to academic content. Prior studies that examine high school course-taking find significant course access gaps between ELs and non-ELs but provide little information on the relation between course-taking and time spent as an EL. This study improves upon previous research by addressi

The Effects of Full-Day Prekindergarten: Impacts on Children’s School Readiness

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 2d

This study is a randomized control trial of full- versus half-day prekindergarten (pre-K) in a school district near Denver, Colorado. Four-year-old children were randomly assigned an offer of half-day (4 days/week) or full-day (5 days/week) pre-K that increased class time by 600 hours. The full-day pre-K offer produced substantial, positive effects on children’s receptive vocabulary skills (0.275

Overall time on social media is not related to teen anxiety and depression E

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 2d

The amount of time teenagers spend on social networking sites has risen 62.5 percent since 2012 and continues to grow. Just last year, the average time teenagers spent on social media was estimated as 2.6 hours per day. Critics have claimed that more screen time is increasing depression and anxiety in teenagers. However, new research led by Sarah Coyne, a professor of family life at Brigham Young

OCT 22

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Preparing elementary school students for active citizenship in an increasingly digital world requires introducing them to the latest technologies, but engaging those same kids in the classroom and involving their parents and caregivers in the process is more than a matter of providing children with access to the latest electronic devices. Tablets and laptops have their educational virtues, accord

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by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 3d

How effective are college programs designed to train the next generation of leaders? A new study from psychologists at Rice University found they teach students about leadership, but additional measures are needed to evaluate how they impact students' real-life leadership skills. "The state of higher education leadership development program evaluation: A meta-analysis, critical review and recomme

Report Fails to Muster Solid Evidence to Support Vouchers

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 3d

A recent Manhattan Institute report argues that the idea of what constitutes a “public” school should be expanded to include private schools that receive public funding. The report also contends that public funding for education should in fact be divided between traditional district public schools, charter schools, and private schools, with funding decisions based on student enrollment. Expansion

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by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 3d

Knowing the importance of addressing students’ mental health needs, state policymakers are making efforts to improve school-based mental health services and supports through a variety of legislative measures. This study reports on 2019 state legislative activity to provide this new Policy Snapshot on Student Mental Health . State examples and links to enacted legislation are included.

OCT 21

Study finds no link between youth contact sports and cognitive, mental health problems

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 4d

Adolescents who play contact sports, including football, are no more likely to experience cognitive impairment, depression or suicidal thoughts in early adulthood than their peers, suggests a new University of Colorado Boulder study of nearly 11,000 youth followed for 14 years. The study, published this month in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine , also found that those who play sports ar

My Brother's Keeper? The Impact of Targeted Educational Supports

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 4d

The My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) Challenge developed by President Obama supports communities that promote civic initiatives designed to improve the educational and economic opportunities specifically for young men of color. In Oakland, California, the MBK educational initiative features the African American Male Achievement (AAMA) program. The AAMA focuses on regularly scheduled classes exclusively

The Effect of Course Shutouts on Community College Students: Evidence from Waitlist Cutoffs

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 4d

One frequently cited yet understudied channel through which money matters for college students is course availability- colleges may respond to budgetary pressure by reducing course offerings. Open admissions policies, binding class size constraints, and heavy reliance on state funding may make this channel especially salient at community colleges, which enroll 47% of U.S. undergraduates in public

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by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 4d

State education agencies have generally felt that the technical assistance provided by federal Comprehensive Centers has helped build their capacity to implement education policy, according to a new report. However, states also pointed to a few areas where Centers can improve, such as communicating how states can best use their services. The National Evaluation of the Comprehensive Centers Progra

State of the Period: The widespread impact of period poverty on US students

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 4d

Complete report Background Period poverty affects menstruating individuals of all ages in communities throughout the United States. Menstrual equity is a question of equity in a broader sense, one that is vital for the health and 

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