The last paragraph of Coby's latest post,??directly below,??contains this: "But once they're washed downriver by the unyielding tide of technological progress, they'll sound as quaint as Socrates' reminiscences about the days before writing." Progress has both a quantitative and qualitative definition, and one wonders if Coby doesn't concentrate overmuch on the former.
It's true--it's tough to predict the future. Of course, that doesn't mean we should be content to let the progression of technology sweep us up and take us where it may.
Education Week reports today that data collected from the states by the U.S. Department of Education show the percentage of core classes in the nation taught by highly-qualified teachers is around 94 percent for 2006-2007.
Kevin Carey expounds upon the reasons that research doesn't always or even often make it to policymakers and into their policies. His suggested remedies are fine, especially the appeal for better writing.
Washington, D.C.'s Thurgood Marshall Academy charter school is featured in today's Wall Street Journal.
Apparently tired of being called defeatist defenders of the status quo, the Economic Policy Institute (home of Lawrence Mishel and Richard Rothstein) just released a policy statement calling for a "broader, BOLDER approach" to education.
Mike is too gentle with this broader, bolder initiative. First, a chicken and egg problem arises.
Here's another analysis explaining why it's "good politics" for the candidates to bash NCLB--something Senato
I'm not one to beat up on teachers unions just for the sake of it, but this little news story out of Australia illustrates precisely how the interests of unions and students do not always intersect.
Oddly enough, on the same day that the Economic Policy Institute and friends release this manifesto recommending that we "pay more attention to the time students spend out of school" (see
I'm all for building schools dedicated to the arts, especially for students hailing from low-income neighborhoods. I'm just not sure it's worth $230 million while kids in other districts learn in classroom trailers.
Several New York City high school principals are receiving performance bonuses under the terms of an old program even though their schools fared poorly under the district's new grading system.
Sadly, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program seems to be on its last legs. Non-voting D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has lobbied hard to kill the program, said, "We have to protect the children, who are the truly innocent victims here."
As the D.C. voucher program comes under attack, where is Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose initial support for the program was instrumental in its birth?
Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews and Checker Finn debate: "Is AP Good for Everyone?"
The New York Times had a nice piece Saturday on the Garden State's alternative certification program, the first and largest
The New York Times had a nice piece Saturday on the Garden State's alternative certification program, the first and largest
It's unclear exactly what Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents Washington, D.C., in Congress, so dislikes about the Opportunity Scholarship Program that provides some 2,000 low-income students in the District an opportunity to receive their educations from private providers.
Sounds like D.C.'s charter schools are taking fire, too. If you can't beat ???em, sabotage ???em.
It must be kiss-and-tell season, what with Scott McClellan's recent riposte to the Bush White House , and now with former education department official's Susan Neuman's revisionist history as reported by Time :
Oh, brother. "Students [would] have a chance to recover," Martin said. "Getting a bad grade or having a bad day does not mean you are a failure. This is about hope."
With all the talk about Reading First and scientifically-based reading research of late, this unusual reading strategy caught my eye. It claims reading to fido has its advantages:
As you can see, we're not exactly doing cartwheels over here upon hearing what Eleanor Holmes Norton had to say about the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.
Am I referring to a policy scuffle over No Child Left Behind? Alas, no, that would be so boring and predictable.
The Heritage Foundation's Dan Lips does not approve of the "21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act," just passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.
