If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Obama Administration continues to spotlight the President's preschool proposal, stressing that the plan is for the federal government to help support state-funded programs, not create a new federal program.
A child learns as a "whole" person. He constructs intellectual, physical, social, and emotional understandings as he interacts with the world.
When I first heard about the Common Core, I was excited. One article I read made it sound, well, revolutionary. Maybe it will be. What I know right now, though, is that it is asking third graders to approach math in ways that seem terribly unsuited to them.
John Legend, Saving Your Schools? Musician John Legend appeared at USC last night to promote his education reform agenda, according to the Daily Trojan. "If we think demography is destiny, we will allow our school system to confirm that belief," Legend said, echoing basically the entire reform movement. He serves on the board education advocacy group Stand for Children.
The winds of competition can be uncomfortably brisk, but they do a marvelous job of clearing the cobwebs...
This past week, over 1,200 people crowded into the Los Angeles Convention Center to attend the United Way Education Summit. One question from the conference was "how do we take isolated examples of success to scale?"
Months after a court struck down Lousiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's (R) school voucher program, the Republican star is suffering another major judicial blow to his education agenda. On Monday, a Baton Rouge judge threw out Jindal's major education-reform package, reports the Associated Press.
As an organization we are a lot of things for better or worse, but a "Civil Rights Movement" is not one of them. Not yet. If we're serious about becoming one we have to have some honest conversation about what the most successful movements in communities of color are made of.
SNL Takes On Sequester.. On Friday night, President Barack Obama signed an executive order activating the across-the-board spending cuts known as "sequestration" that came as a result of an ongoing political budget standoff. Saturday Night Live explains the sequester, having an Obama impersonator bring up examples of folks affected by these cuts. Start at 1:15 to see a Philadelphia public schools teacher who was supposedly laid off. (Hint: The glee of her reaction to leaving that job is off message for Obama's grim tone. "Good luck reading Beowulf, you monsters," she says.)
If the College Board ever intended to create equity in college admission, its effect has been the opposite. It advantages the already advantaged. The disproportionate weight given to SAT scores in admission further magnifies the many advantages already enjoyed by privileged kids.
The challenge today is not acquiring information, or memorizing it. Rather, it is determining which information is relevant. What do our young people need to know and why, in this new, global, technology-driven world?
Latinos, who have long suffered from an "achievement gap" in educational performance in comparison with white and Asian students, have seen their attendance rates rise and dropout rates fall. What is behind this decrease in dropouts?
Sometimes I think there should be a big sign in front of some schools saying, "Welcome back to the 20th century." But just as online news, music and video helped revolutionize the media industry, we are starting to see significant changes in education.
Here we all are, waiting on pins and needles for the CPS computer to spit out a letter informing us if our kids made it into one of Chicago's selective enrollment high schools -- about as likely as the Cubs winning the World Series.
