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Teach the children: 'Is the Soviet Union a country?'
Teaching is "oppressive." Teachers should "guide" students to discover things on their own, based on their interests, but shouldn't...
Joanne Jacobs
Mar 16, 20242 min read
2 comments


Core Knowledge students learn more -- a lot more
Students taught a structured, knowledge-rich curriculum starting in kindergarten earned higher reading, math and science scores in third...
Joanne Jacobs
Mar 15, 20241 min read
1 comment


Lots of kids left behind: Why achievement gaps grew
Achievement gaps are large and growing across the country, writes Chad Aldeman on The 74. It's not the pandemic: Scores have been falling...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 28, 20242 min read
15 comments


No extra credit for Kleenex: 'Equitable grading' is honest -- not easy, says advocate
"Equitable grading" isn't a strategy to inflate grades and lower expectations, argues Joe Feldman, author of Grading for Equity and CEO...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 13, 20242 min read
3 comments


A reform too far: Sorry, your kid's only 67% of a 'whole child'
Liam sat through a semester of geometry and got a C for turning in homework, earning a 75 percent average on tests and bringing in...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 12, 20242 min read
8 comments


Students are catching up in math, reading -- but gaps are wider
Reading and math scores are on their way up, reports the Education Recovery Scorecard. On average, students in grades three through eight...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 1, 20242 min read
0 comments


Psych out: Why are we teaching kids to be hopeless and helpless?
"Anti-racists" are demoralizing black students, write Julian Adorney and Jake Mackey on Quillette. Teenage depression and suicide rates...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 30, 20242 min read
2 comments


'For All Mankind' celebrates courage, competence, resilience
I'm a fan of the Apple+ series For All Mankind, which imagines an alternative reality in which the Soviet Union reaches the moon first,...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 29, 20242 min read
1 comment


'No excuses' school guru passes on: Will excellence survive?
Linda Brown, who trained hundreds of charter leaders as leader of (Building Excellent Schools (ES), has died at the age of 81. Many of...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 24, 20242 min read
1 comment


Success Academy charters are #1 in New York in math, #3 in reading
Success Academy charter students are the best in New York state in math, third best in English Language Arts (ELA) among schools with 95+...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 19, 20241 min read
1 comment


Fix 'em, don't nix 'em: Tests show what's working and what's not
The Zeitgeist, it is a changing. First, the New York Times ran David Leonhardt's defense of college admissions tests as a way to...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 19, 20242 min read
5 comments


The Finnish miracle is finished, but why?
Finland! Finland! Finland! Twenty years ago, Finland's top-of-the-world PISA scores made it "the most widely celebrated and imitated...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 18, 20242 min read
7 comments


NY high school becomes storm shelter for migrants
Students at Brooklyn's James Madison High School "were kicked out of the classroom" today "to make room for nearly 2,000 migrants" from a...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 10, 20241 min read
6 comments


Truancy is the 'new normal' -- and a growing business
Tracking down absent students and persuading their parents to get them to school every day is a booming business, writes Alex MacGillis...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 10, 20242 min read
4 comments


SAT/ACT scores predict success, open doors for 'diverse' students
Want equity? Require college applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores, writes David Leonhardt in the New York Times. The progressives' "war...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 8, 20242 min read
8 comments

Graduation exams can be 'ladder of social mobility' -- or useless
For more than a century, New York students have taken Regents exams in multiple subjects to prove they were ready for college-level work,...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 4, 20242 min read
2 comments


LA celebrates 'blackness' while black students fail in reading, math
Black students are "disastrously behind" in math, reading and attendance in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), writes Heather...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 3, 20242 min read
3 comments


Are educated people smarter? Link is weakening, says study in Norway
Cognitive ability no longer is linked strongly to years of education, concludes a Norwegian study published in published in Scientific...
Joanne Jacobs
Dec 31, 20231 min read
3 comments


Missing: 87,000 students
California's public schools have "lost" 87,000 students, according to an analysis by Thomas Dee, a Stanford professor, and AP. An...
Joanne Jacobs
Dec 20, 20232 min read
7 comments


A diploma for you and a diploma for you! States drop exit exams
Grades are up and tests are out. "More states could abandon high school exit exams as a graduation requirement, writes Libby Stanford in...
Joanne Jacobs
Dec 19, 20231 min read
17 comments
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