Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

It's Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... A VERY BUSY DAY | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

TODAY

Video: Robot Gymnastics

by Larry Ferlazzo / 4h

erik_stein / Pixabay I’m adding this new video to The Best Sites To Learn About Robots :

It’s That Time Of The Year When Students Begin Testing Boundaries – How Do You Handle It?

by Larry Ferlazzo / 4h

aitoff / Pixabay Things were a little rough in school yesterday, and I sent this admittedly ungrammatical tweet out that seemed to hit a nerve: I love teaching. However, late September is always a bit of a downer when some students begin to move away from being on their best behavior start testing boundaries — Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) September 25, 2019 How do I handle it? Well, it’s time

My Latest BAM! Radio Show Is On Student “Agency”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 5h

As a Teacher, Why Should I Make Student Agency a Priority? is the topic of my latest ten minute BAM! Radio Show. I’m joined in the conversation by Keisha Rembert, Sara Ottow, and Laurie Manville, who have also all contributed written commentaries to my Education Week Teacher column. I’m adding this show to All My BAM Radio Shows – Linked With Descriptions . You might also be interested in The Bes

YESTERDAY

‘Students Respect Teachers Who They Feel Respect Them’

by Larry Ferlazzo / 11h

is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. In it, Sheldon L. Eakins, Ph.D., Jenny Edwards, April Croy, Lori Jackson, Shauna Tominey, Megan McClelland, and Keisha Rembert share their ideas on classroom management. Here are some excerpts:

Dinners Around The World With The NY Times

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

kaboompics / Pixabay There have been many features published over the years comparing what families around the world eat. You can see lots of them at The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Different Cultures . Today, The NY Times decided it was time for them to do one. Check out Weeknight Dinner Around the World: We asked 18 families to show us what they have for dinner on a typical weekni

Jewish Teen Girl’s Diary About Life Under Nazis In Poland – Before She Was Murdered – Is Published This Week

21by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

RonPorter / Pixabay The diary of Renia Spiegel, a Jewish girl who lived under Nazi rule in Poland before she was murdered, is being published this week. Her tragic story will be a companion to Anne Frank’s (see The Best Sites To Learn About Anne Frank ). Learn more about it at: Before Anne Frank, there was Renia Spiegel: The ominous message of a long-forgotten World War II diary from The Washingt

New Study Finds Black & Poor Students Punished More Harshly Than Others When Involved In School Fights

by Larry Ferlazzo / 14h

Disparities and Discrimination in Student Discipline by Race and Family Income is a new study that reinforces previous research. You can find posts about all that previous research here .

The Best Videos For Learning About The Impeachment Process

53by Larry Ferlazzo / 15h

heblo / Pixabay A lot of classes will be learning about impeachment in the coming days. Here are my choices for the best videos that explain the process of impeachment and its history (not the specifics of what is going on now):

Classroom Instruction Resources Of The Week

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

Each week, I publish a post or two containing three or four particularly useful resources on classroom instruction, and you can see them all here. You might also be interested in THE BEST RESOURCES ON CLASS INSTRUCTION IN 2019 – PART ONE. Here are this week’s picks: Limiting “Teacher Talk,” Increasing Student Work! is from Achieve The Core. When Middle School Students Think Like Historians appear

A Simple Way I Differentiate TPR (Total Physical Response) Lessons – Do You Have Other Suggestions?

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

harishs / Pixabay Most teachers of English Language Learners are familiar with TPR (Total Physical Response) – see The Best Resources For Learning About Total Physical Response (TPR) . TPR can probably be described most simply 

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

TODAY'S Education Research Report

Education Research Report

TODAY'S Education Research Report

Helping smooth the transition to kindergarten

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 3h

The schools and districts profiled in the four communities in this report have taken different steps to help smooth the transition to kindergarten for children and families, with a particular emphasis on promoting equity by focusing on better serving children from low-income families. Because of the historic divide between early learning and the formal K–12 school system, it will require years of

Using Local, State, and Federal Dollars to Improve Pre-K to K Transitions

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 3h

When early learning experiences are connected from birth through third grade (B–3rd), children and their families can more seamlessly transition between ECE programs and grade levels. Smoothing transitions requires careful planning, effective policies and practices, and funding. The transition between pre-K and kindergarten is a particularly important one. There are a number of federal and state

Community Colleges Apprenticeship Programs

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 3h

Apprenticeship is a proven education and employment model that combines structured on-the-job learning with related technical or classroom instruction to prepare individuals for specific occupations. Apprentices are paid, have access to work-site mentors, and earn progressively higher wages as they advance in their programs. The rising cost of higher education, combined with the increasing skill

YESTERDAY

Effect of Simplifying Financial Aid Offers on College Enrollment and Borrowing

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 19h

. Recent policy and research efforts have focused on simplifying the college-going process, improving transparency around college costs, and helping students make informed decisions. In 2012, the Obama administration released the “shopping sheet,” a standardized financial aid offer that is intended to provide students with simplified information about costs, loan options, and college outcomes. Th

Investigating the Impact of the Pittsburgh Promise

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 19h

Place-based promise scholarships are a relatively recent innovation in the space of college access and success. Although evidence on the impact of some of the earliest place-based scholarships has begun to emerge, the rapid proliferation of promise programs largely has preceded empirical evidence of their impact. This paper analyses the causal effect of the Pittsburgh Promise on students’ immedia

Parental Credit Constraints and Child College Attendance

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 19h

Parents in the United States frequently supplement the student loans available to their children by cosigning on a loan, borrowing against their home equity, or with unsecured debt in their own names. This paper investigates whether some students are constrained from attending and completing college by their parents’ lack of access to credit markets by linking individual parental credit scores to

The Returns to Education at Community Colleges: New Evidence

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 19h

This study uses nationally representative data from the Education Longitudinal Survey (ELS) to update the literature on returns to community college education, comparing the experiences of the ELS cohort that graduated high school in 2004 with those of the National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS) cohort that graduated high school more than a decade earlier, in 1992. The author estimates that

The Wisconsin Scholars Grant (WSG)

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 20h

The WSG is a privately funded program designed to help low-income Wisconsin families pay for college and increase college completion. Student access to the WSG is based on Pell Grant eligibility, Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) information, and college admissions records. The grant provided students with $1,800 per year for each year in which they were enrolled in a Wisconsin two

The Multiple Measures Placement System

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 20h

Research shows that using only test scores to place students in remediation—the typical method—is correlated with over-placement, which can lead to unnecessary time and expense spent on the pursuit of a degree. To combat 

Education Research Report

CURMUDGUCATION: NH: Failing To Learn From Charter History

CURMUDGUCATION: NH: Failing To Learn From Charter History

NH: Failing To Learn From Charter History

I have a soft spot in my heart for New Hampshire. I was born there, and much of my family lived there. My grandmother was a legislator for ages, and many of my relatives are still in the state.

So it's a bummer to see the state fall into reformy mistakes.

Earlier this year, the state announced that they were going to grab some of that free federal money to embark n a five-year mission to seek new charter schools and boldly repeat mistakes where many have gone before. The state intends to double the number of charter schools by adding about 27 new charters to the 28 current one.

Also, this iconic scene no longer exists.

The state is getting $46 million in federal taxpayer money specifically to help with charter start-up costs. It's an interesting stance for a heavily GOP state; consider the website for Live Free And Start "an initiative of the NH Tech Alliance, is working to make New Hampshire an even better place for innovative businesses to start, grow and succeed." They have lots of ideas about how to fund you new business; none of them are "hit the federal government for some bucks." The federal grant program is certainly not the only government grant program for starting a business, but it's an odd thing for free-market sink-or-swim conservatives to support.

What makes it even worse to support is the amount of money in this business tart-up fund that has been flushed away. I'll refer you, once again, to the report from the Network for Public Education that lays out how many many many many millions of taxpayer dollars that have been wasted on charter schools that closed quickly or, in the worst cases, never even opened. I suppose the state can take the  position that the money being wasted on't be theirs. But coverage raises the usual  question of just how much free CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: NH: Failing To Learn From Charter History

“Let the Children Play” is Developmentally Appropriate Education | tultican

“Let the Children Play” is Developmentally Appropriate Education | tultican

“Let the Children Play” is Developmentally Appropriate Education

By T. Ultican 9/25/2019

Two education experts and fathers have issued a clarion call to “Let the Children Play.” Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle co-authored Let the Children Play: How More Play Will Save Our Schools and Help Children Thrive. These two fathers with young children were both shocked by the education system they found when the American scholar Doyle took his family to Finland and Finland’s Education Director General, Sahlberg, brought his family to the United states. Their book is a tour de force about play practices globally and the research supporting the developmental need for children to play.

The authors document the stunning reduction in authentic outdoor self-directed play children in the United States and around the world are experiencing. They share a large amount of scholarly data indicating what a big mistake it is to reduce recess and they identify the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) as the cause for that policy error. Doyle and Sahlberg report on the amazing results both physically and academically being reported from diverse schools worldwide that have reintroduced significant authentic play. The book concludes with statements from 27 education scholars from Asia to Europe about the importance of high-quality play to human development.

The Authors as Depicted on the Book Cover

In 2015 when William Doyle arrived in Finland as a visiting scholar with his wife and seven-year-old son, he found a school system that sent their children outside for 15-minutes every hour to participate in self-directed play. They sent children outside even when the temperature is as low as 5° Fahrenheit below which they stay inside to play. He shares that one day while watching children go to lunch CONTINUE READING: “Let the Children Play” is Developmentally Appropriate Education | tultican

From Stanford’s Sean Reardon: Schools Alone Cannot Overcome Racial Achievement Gaps Caused By Concentrated Poverty | janresseger

From Stanford’s Sean Reardon: Schools Alone Cannot Overcome Racial Achievement Gaps Caused By Concentrated Poverty | janresseger

From Stanford’s Sean Reardon: Schools Alone Cannot Overcome Racial Achievement Gaps Caused By Concentrated Poverty

Here is the succinct conclusion of a complex, technical, and nuanced report released on Monday by Stanford University’s Sean Reardon and a team of researchers, Is Separate Still Unequal? New Evidence on School Segregation and Racial Academic Achievement Gaps: “We use 8 years of data from all public school districts in the U.S.  We find that racial school segregation is strongly associated with the magnitude of achievement gaps in 3rd grade, and with the rate at which gaps grow from third to eighth grade. The association of racial segregation with achievement gaps is completely accounted for by racial differences in school poverty: racial segregation appears to be harmful because it concentrates minority students in high-poverty schools, which are, on average, less effective than lower poverty schools… We find that the effects of school poverty do not appear to be explained by differences in the set of measurable teacher or school characteristics available to us.”

In the report, Reardon defines academic test score gaps: “We examine racial test score gaps because they reflect racial differences in access to educational opportunities. By ‘educational opportunities,’ we mean all experiences in a child’s life, from birth onward, that provide opportunities for her to learn, including experiences in children’s homes, child care settings, neighborhoods, peer groups, and their schools. This implies that test score gaps may result from unequal opportunities either in or out of school; they are not necessarily the result of differences in school quality, resources, or experience. Moreover, in saying that test score gaps reflect differences in opportunities, we also mean that they are not the result of innate group differences in cognitive skills or other genetic endowments… (D)ifferences in average scores should be understood as reflecting opportunity gaps….”

The new report is part of a huge mapping study across the United States of unequal educational opportunity: “There are 403 metropolitan areas, 3,142 counties (and county-equivalents) and roughly 13,200 school districts serving grades 3-8 in the United states. Our analytic sample for the white-black achievement gap models contains 5,755 school districts, 2,067 counties, and 389 metropolitan areas. For the white-Hispanic achievement gap models, CONTINUE READING: From Stanford’s Sean Reardon: Schools Alone Cannot Overcome Racial Achievement Gaps Caused By Concentrated Poverty | janresseger

FAIRTEST: Four Dozen More Colleges Drop SAT-ACT Requirement | Diane Ravitch's blog

FAIRTEST: Four Dozen More Colleges Drop SAT-ACT Requirement | Diane Ravitch's blog

FAIRTEST: Four Dozen More Colleges Drop SAT-ACT Requirement

FairTest                                   
National Center for Fair & Open Testing

for further information, contact:
Bob Schaeffer (239) 395-6773
mobile  (239) 699-0468

for immediate release Wednesday, September 18, 2019
BEST YEAR EVER FOR TEST-OPTIONAL HIGHER ED. ADMISSIONS
AS 47 ADDITIONAL INSTITUTIONS DROP ACT/SAT SCORE REQUIREMENTS;
MORE THAN HALF OF “TOP 100” LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES
ARE AMONG 1,050 SCHOOLS NO LONGER REQUIRING STANDARDIZED EXAMS

This is a record year for colleges and universities deciding that students can apply without submitting ACT or SAT standardized exam scores. Over the past twelve months, 47 schools have announced new test-optional admissions policies, according to the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), which maintains the master database. That brings the total of accredited, bachelor-degree institutions that will make decisions about most applicants without regard to test scores to 1,050.

More than half of the U.S. News “Top 100” liberal arts colleges now have ACT/SAT-optional policies. So do a majority of colleges and universities in the six New England states and several other jurisdictions including Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

All told, U.S. News includes more than 360 test-optional and test-flexible schools in the first tiers of their respective categories. Top-rated test-optional colleges include Bates, Bowdoin, Colorado College, Furman, Holy Cross, Pitzer, Rollins, Sewanee, Smith, Trinity, Wesleyan and Whitman. Among leading national universities, CONTINUE READING: FAIRTEST: Four Dozen More Colleges Drop SAT-ACT Requirement | Diane Ravitch's blog