Universal pre-school is the coming fad. High-cost, high-quality pre-schools help poor children do better in school and in life. But when it comes to subsidized pre-schools for all children, the record of success is murkier, reports the Boston Globe.
For example, a recent study of Oklahoma’s statewide program to provide preschool for 4-year-olds found […]
Archive for May, 2008
Talking is “the anti-drug,” says a new study. But warnings about drugs and alcohol won’t have any effect unless parents have a long history of talking to their children, and listening to their mundane problems.
Teenagers who thought their parent wasn’t listening, or taking his or her concerns seriously, were far more likely to […]
On the New York Times op-ed page, teacher Marlene Heath eloquently defends Chicago’s policy of holding back students who can’t read. Heath, now a reading specialist at an all-poverty school on the South Side, was skeptical when Mayor Richard Daley ended social promotion in 1995. Now she says it’s been a boon to […]
University of North Carolina-Wilmington Professor Mike Adams made a colleague “uncomfortable” by discussing his columns. He was told not to discuss his writing in the office in front of those who might be offended by his opinions.
Now he’s writing a list of all the ways his colleagues have made him uncomfortable over the years.
*My […]
No education qualifications are required to enlist in the British Army. Which is why so many recruits can’t read and write very well. The Telegraph reports:
A confidential study into the educational standards of soldiers has revealed that half of all new infantry recruits only have the reading and writing skills of 11-year-olds.
The study […]
I’ve just added Googlesense ads in the right-hand column. If you click on an ad, I make a very small amount of money. So click away!
Recently, I got a check for $5 from a bank I’d never heard of. I had no idea why they were sending me this money, but I […]
Learning to dance teaches fourth- and fifth-grade children how to learn other things, writes George Will, after a visit to a Los Angeles school.
(Teacher Ethel) Bojorquez, whose experience has immunized her against educational fads, admiringly watches her pupils perform under (dancer Carole) Valleskey’s exacting tutelage and exclaims, “They are learning about reading right now.”
They […]
Douglas Bass, a computer science professor in Minnesota, has started a higher education blog called Academistics, which will focus on academic freedom. Check it out.
Magister Mundi sum!
“I am the Master of the Universe!”
You are full of yourself, but you’re so cool youprobably deserve to be. Rock on.
Which Weird Latin Phrase Are You? brought to you by Quizilla.
Via Uncle Sam’s Cabin (”May barbarians invade your personal space!”).
Alarmed by rising anti-semitism, France’s education minister, Luc Ferry, has issued a guide for “civil education” classes urging teachers to show Holocaust movies such as Schindler’s List, Sophie’s Choice and The Pianist. The Telegraph reports:
The guide also recommends visits to former Nazi concentration camps, books such as The Diary of Anne Frank and […]
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