BLENDED LEARNING UPDATE
Schools across the country are experimenting with the blended learning model in which classrooms feature a mix of human capital and online tools to deliver lessons. This NPR profile of a Coney Island middle school is a revealing examination of the approach. While the integration of technology can ease the “administrative” duties of teachers, such as tracking student progress, researchers say that there is still no concrete evidence for academic or developmental gains. The key takeaway is that blended learning is not a silver bullet.
UNTRUE GRIT
The New York Times wades into the character-education debate with an overview of different views and voices. While some research (and a host of different schooling models, most notably that of the KIPP schools) emphasizes the value of skills like grit, curiosity, and self-control, other experts argue that obsessive perseverance can be stifling and that overweening focus on character growth will obscure the debate over school quality. No less an eminence than friend-of-Fordham Laurence Steinberg took to Flypaper last year to air his misgivings about the practice.
CHANGING THE CHARTER NARRATIVE
The conventional wisdom on charter schools, Forbes’s Adam Ozimek observes, is that their performance essentially mirrors that of public schools, barring a few outstanding exceptions. After reviewing the most recent studies conducted by CREDO and Mathematica, however, he concludes that charters’ value to poor and minority students and English language learners is actually greater than their district equivalents.
TEN, SEVEN, THREE THOUGHTS ON ESEA
While espousing on ESEA (and creating lists) abounds, here is Gadfly’s ESEA list of the lists of some of his favorite pundits: one, “Secretary Duncan deserves kudos for the respectful tone he struck today;” two, “discount the yammering;” and, three, “optional bad, flexibility good?”
