Not only is “blog” the word of the year — the most looked-up word that’s not effect/affect — I’m pleased to see that “defenestration” ranked 10th. I’ve always been fond of defenestration. As a word, not a practice.
Archive for May, 2008
I’ve added Jenny D., formerly known as Dr. Cookie, to the blogroll. She’s a graduate student and mother interested in “why public education fails poor and minority kids so often.”
Check out her series on Robert F. Kennedy’s push to link federal aid to school performance back in 1965. Kennedy was raising issues […]
Children who play with computers and high-tech toys use their imaginations as much as ever, this NY Times story says.
Some psychologists say that young imaginations, even of preschoolers, are surprisingly good at appropriating electronic imagery. Images from games and shows may linger, but they often mingle with dreams, blend with other fantasies the child […]
If you’re excessively cheerful, read this story about a teen-age mother with quadruplets and a new baby on the way. The father of all five is married. He rarely visits and pays no child support.
The Gantelope’s Andrew Coulson endorses South Carolina’s Put Parents in Charge proposal, which uses tax credits (and scholarships for low-income families) to make it financially feasible for parents to choose public, private or home schooling.
Here’s Coulson’s response to a proposal to allow parents to use tax credits only at schools that use South Carolina’s […]
Students who fail an Advanced Placement exam are far more likely to succeed in college than students who never tackle AP coursework. That’s especially true for minority and low-income students. Jay Mathews cites data from the National Center for Educational Accountability in his Washington Post column: 57 percent of AP passers in Texas earn a […]
Twenty-five years ago, a class of 13- and 14-year-olds sang back-up for Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall,” despite anti-school lyrics: “We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control, no dark sarcasm in the classroom - teachers leave them kids alone,” Now the former pupils, who weren’t paid for singing, […]
Children learn to cope with the world through outdoor activities, writes a British educator. But adult fears are restricting children’s ability to explore the world. And they’re not any safer as a result.
No environment will ever be completely safe and risk-free, and even well-supervised children manage to hurt themselves. But by speculating […]
Boston University has been managing a nearby school district in Chelsea for 15 years now. After years of controversy, it seems to be working, reports Education Week:
Fifteen years ago, the school system in this small city across the Mystic River from Boston was a case study in failure. Test scores languished, school buildings were […]
Maureen Dowd reveals that she comes from a politically and religiously conservative family that loves W and hates the New York Times editorial page. Most of the column consists of an e-mail from one of her brothers.
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