The scourge of education malpractice
What if you were told that elementary schools in the United States are teaching children to be poor readers?
What if you were told that elementary schools in the United States are teaching children to be poor readers?
Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of posts looking at how two school networks—Rocketship Public Schools and Wildflower Schools—enable their students to master standards at their own pace. See the first post here.
Bellwether Education Partners, long interested in the improvement of school transportation systems, released no less than three papers on the topic this summer.
Almost a decade ago, I wrote that “the greatest challenge facing America’s schools today [is] the enormous variation in the academic level of students coming into any given classroom.” Unlike plenty of what I’ve said over the years, this one has stood the test of time.
A recent report by Eugene Judson, Nicole Bowers, and Kristi Glassmeyer investigates what classroom mechanisms compel students to enroll in Advanced Placement (AP) science and math courses and to complete their associated exams—and how that differs between low- and high-income schools.
Teaching students to engage with history and civics is important in a democratic society. The critical thinking and communication skills taught in social studies classes are all the more essential to students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD) because they equip them to overcome difficulties interacting with and relating to peers.
Summer ’19 is showing its age: My daughter recently returned to school, bright yellow buses are canvassing my neighborhood again, and Pumpkin Spice Latte is back.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are ubiquitous, playing a role in everything from Netflix and Instagram algorithms to transportation and healthcare delivery. But it’s also increasingly being used to improve educational pedagogy and delivery through a process called educational data mining (EDM).
A few weeks back, New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza said that principals would not be required to attend district meetings this coming September.
A new report by William Johnston and Christopher Young from the RAND Corporation examines the perspectives of teachers and principals about their pre-service training programs, with an emphasis on their preparation for work with non-white and low-income students.
For more than half a century now, back-to-school time has brought another Phi Delta Kappan survey of “the public’s attitudes toward the public schools.” They invariably recycle some familiar questions (e.g., the grades you would give your child’s schools and the nation’s schools). Other topics, however, come and go.
I have been there; every teacher has. The clock is ticking, you've got just fifteen minutes left to wrap up the lesson, and the time is being chipped away by a student who is disrupting the classroom. How you respond to that situation involves the balance of dozens of different factors. It's complicated, and some of that complexity is captured in a new report out this week.
The education solar system is endlessly distorted by the extraordinary presence within it of two separate suns with gravitational fields that tug the policy planets in different directions.
In the last decade, states have experimented with many new assessment systems in math and reading. A new Bellwether brief by Bonnie O’Keefe and Brandon Lewis examines recent innovations used or proposed by states that could serve educators well.
When President Trump rescinded an Obama-era directive pressuring schools to adopt lenient discipline policies, almost every major education advocacy organization united in outrage.
As we wrap up Teacher Appreciation Week, I’ve done some reflecting about my own years as a student. There are teachers who have a lasting impact on our lives and on April 2, I lost one of mine. Mr. Murphy wasn’t just special because of how much knowledge of history and politics was crammed into his brain and shared with all of us, but he pushed us in ways that every student deserves to be pushed. He challenged us to think and come to our own conclusions. He may not have agreed with where we all landed but he sure did love to wave his hands in the air and debate us when he didn’t.
To our knowledge, no study has empirically examined the degree to which CTE course-taking in high school aligns with the kinds of work available in local labor markets, as our newest report does. It shows that the country needs local business, industrial, and secondary and postsecondary education sectors to join hands. At the top of their to-do list should be better integration of what is taught in local high school CTE programs with the skills, knowledge, and positions needed in area labor markets, both now and in the future.
Last week, I explained why career and technical education will make agile learners America's future, and that maximizing their potential requires CTE that works well for students, employers, and school systems.
Seventeen-year-old Sandra can’t wait for school to start each day. Perhaps that’s because her school day looks nothing like what most of us envision a classic high school schedule to be.
By Jeremy Noonan