Massachusetts, South Carolina and Missouri have set world-class standards in reading and math for their students, concludes a study by Paul Peterson and Frederick Hess, both Education Next editors. The other 47 states ask a lot less, allowing them to label many more students “proficient.” Georgia, Oklahoma and Tennessee expect the least of students.
Twenty-five percent […]
Archive for the 'Education' Category
Five years ago, California required all students to pass algebra to earn a high school diploma. Yet students are flooding remedial math classes in community college, reports the Sacramento Bee. They can’t do algebra. They can’t even do arithmetic.
At Sierra College in Rocklin, for example, of the 199 sections of math being taught […]
Some parents complain that their children are denied special education services because of a new policy called Response To Intervention, which tries to keep children from developing learning disabilities. The goal is to prevent the need for a costly special education diagnosis. From the Washington Post:
Third-grader Tylor Goshorn sometimes writes letters or numbers backward. She […]
America’s education system is “vastly superior to the stunted, impoverished school systems of China and India,” writes Jay Mathews in response to Two Million Minutes, which features American slackers and Asian scholars. Our best students can compete with the world. The real problem is “separate and unequal” schools that waste the time and […]
Reading guru Reid Lyon analyzes the limitations of the Reading First study, which found no improvement in reading scores for high-need students. The sample excluded the neediest schools, which presumably would be most affected. Lyon says:
. . . many non-Reading First schools were implementing the same programs and professional development opportunities as the Reading […]
Cramming for the AP exam ruined his U.S. history course, writes AP drop-out Tom Stanley-Becker in the Los Angeles Times.
The problem with the AP program is that we don’t have time to really learn U.S. history because we’re preparing for the exam. We race through the textbook, cramming in […]
Who are the five greatest teachers in the movies? Ellen Kim makes her choices for Teacher Appreciation Week.
In response to comments here and elsewhere on his school choice argument, Greg Forster returns to the fray on Jay Greene’s blog to argue about Vouchers: evidence and ideology.
Teachers don’t think much of the way they’re evaluated, concludes an Education Sector survey. From AP:
More than half of teachers believe it’s too difficult to weed out ineffective teachers who have tenure, and nearly half say they personally know such a teacher, according to a survey released Tuesday evening by the Education Sector, a nonpartisan […]
Sleepy teens don’t learn much in first-period classes; some don’t wake up till third period. So why not start high school later? From the St. Paul Pioneer Press:
When Naana Mensah opens her eyes, only the occasional house light pierces the darkness of her Maplewood neighborhood.
The Tartan High School senior has strategically placed her […]
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