The Education Trust's newsletter, Thinking K-16, is usually worth a look. The Winter 2001 issue is especially fine, being devoted almost entirely to a careful but exceptionally lucid discussion of U.S. high school results during the period since the Nation at Risk report of 1983 and the declaration of national education goals in 1989. How have we fared? ask authors Kati Haycock and Sandra Huang. Their one sentence summary: "In general, the data suggest an object at rest in a world that is rapidly rushing by." Data from an array of sources are here compiled, analyzed and presented in exceptionally concise and clear ways. You'll want this one. Phone (202) 293-2605 or surf to www.edtrust.org.
Thirty percent of students surveyed in grades 6 through 10 have been involved in either bullying or being bullied themselves, according to a study released by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) earlier this month. Widening concern over bullying in schools has its roots in school shootings, many of which were conducted by students who had been the victims of long-term bullying, notes Ben Soskis in this week's New Republic, but the anti-bullying movement may be overreacting. When does behaving childishly (or like a teen-ager) become bullying? The NICHD study itself includes in its definition of bullying all sorts of things that ordinary kids do, such as spreading rumors and shunning other children.
The same inability to distinguish between childish behavior and the homicidal tendencies has fed a growing movement among phys ed teachers to ban dodge ball, based on evidence from a recent symposium about the game that appears in the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, a movement that has been mocked by liberals and conservatives alike in the past week. Banned in Austin (Texas), dodge ball has been relegated to the "physical education hall of shame," joining musical chairs and duck, duck, goose, which fell into disrepute years ago because they may give rise to self-esteem problems, according to Neil Seeman, writing in the National Review Online.
The impulse behind these attempts to protect the young from every form of angst and social pain also lies behind zero tolerance policies aimed at reducing school violence. That's the kind of policy responsible for suspending a 5-year old for carrying a plastic axe as part of his Halloween firefighter costume. In this week's National Review, John Derbyshire argues that such policies are flawed reactions to bleeding-heart judges and softheaded administrators who cannot be trusted to do the right thing, and to the collapse of authority in general.
More at: "Bully Pulpit," by Benjamin Soskis, The New Republic, May 14, 2001; "The Painful Playground," by Marjorie Williams, Washington Post, May 9, 2001; "Dodge This," by Neil Seeman, National Review Online; "The Problem with 'Zero'," by John Derbyshire, National Review, May 28, 2001 (not available online).
Why does our system of teacher certification emphasize training in pedagogy rather than subject-matter knowledge? The answer can be found in this report, which traces the emergence of state control over teacher certification. The focus is on efforts by the teacher education establishment to gain monopoly control over the licensing of teachers.
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President Bush campaigned on a strong education-reform platform, promising the American people that for the first time in a long time, commonsense?not special interest groups?would dictate federal education policy. Just before he entered the Oval Office, we handed him a briefing book on steps he could take to help transform the K-12 education system. In this "Memorandum to the President-Elect and the 107th Congress," we explained how the federal government has wasted billions of dollars on ineffective programs and offered suggestions for making continued federal funding matter.
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More than one-third of the states get low grades for the standards they have developed for teaching evolution, according to this new report. This report is the first comprehensive analysis of how each state handles evolution in its science standards for the public schools.
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How much government aid do parochial schools and their students actually receive? Connell finds that public aid flows to church-affiliated schools through many channels, though amounts vary greatly from state to state. This report is especially timely in light of the Supreme Court's important decision upholding government aid to religious schools.
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According to this new study, Ambassador Annenberg's gift has left only small footprints on the urban school systems it set out to reform. Good intentions and a generous checkbook were not enough to transform troubled urban schools. This report includes case studies of New York (by Raymond Domanico), Chicago (by Alexander Russo) and Philadelphia (by Carol Innerst) and an afterword by Chester E.Finn Jr. and Marci Kanstoroom.
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Science as a search for truth has come under attack from both the left and the right. This report explores four case studies of threats to the integrity of science education.
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Education experts tend to ignore research-based practices like Direct Instruction and instead embrace constructivist methods that are not backed by good research. This report by Douglas Carnine explains why.
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