Our weekly roundup of the week’s most important news, information and blog posts about curriculum, teaching, education policy and other items of interest to the Core Knowledge community.
Core Knowledge
Learning Essentials
By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, Education Week
Core Knowledge prizes content across the disciplines, bucking a trend toward a narrower, skills-based approach to learning.
Best of the Blogs
Revisiting AERA, Bill Ayers, the Weather Underground and Public Education at Matthew K. Tabor
Just what the title says. The definitive post.
Redefining intelligence at Joanne Jacobs
Yale psychologists are trying to develop new tests of intelligence that measure “practical, creative, and analytical skills.” One goal is to identify more black and Hispanic children as “gifted.”
Could a Parrot Pass the New York State ELA Exam? at Eduwonkette
What’s worse, the question students are asked to write about? Or the anchor paper?
Beating My Drum: Education, Economics, and Entitlement at The Gonzo Diner
America is not only experiencing an economic crisis, it is experiencing an education crisis, and there are more connections between the two than many think.
Compromised Competitiveness at The BoBo Files
The replacements for America’s retiring work force are less knowledgeable and less educated, less skilled and demotivated, disinclined to learn and prone to shortcuts, weak in science and math, and possess poor reading proficiency.
Teacher Voice From Washington…And, Is The AFT Going All Sherman Over Michelle Rhee at Eduwonk
What’s happening inside the teacher’s union?
Teaching and Curriculum
No Crisis For Boys In Schools, Study Says
By Valerie Strauss, Washington Post
A new study on gender equity in education concludes that a “boys crisis” in U.S. schools is a myth and that both sexes have stayed the same or improved on standardized tests in the past decade.
Great education debate: Reforming the grade system
By Steve Friess, USA TODAY
A handful of schools nationwide have set off an emotional academic debate by giving minimum scores of 50 to students who fail.
Bill to protect PE, arts classes vetoed
By Matthew Benson, The Arizona Republic
Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoes a measure intended to protect gym classes and the teaching of music and the arts from K-12 budget cuts.
Georgia Throws Out State Test Results
By Laura Diamond, Alan Judd and Heather Vogell, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The state throws out the results of two social studies tests and education advocates question the validity of eighth-graders’ abysmal math scores.
Sent home: The suspension gap
By James Walsh, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Black students are far more likely to be suspended from school than are their white classmates — and Minnesota’s disparity in suspensions is twice the national average. Why? What are the consequences?
Education Policy
States Starting Slowly on NCLB Proficiency Goals to Face Crunch, Report Says
By Christina A. Samuels, Education Week
States that established modest goals for themselves in the early days of the No Child Left Behind Act may need to make nearly impossible improvements in student performance to reach the law’s target of 100 percent proficiency by the 2013-14 school year.
Fixing the Flaw in the ‘Growth Model’ And Helping Schools, States, and NCLB in the Process
By David P. Sokola, Howard M. Weinberg, Robert J. Andrzejewski, & Nancy A. Doorey, Education Week
Why not craft the reauthorized NCLB to foster innovation and improvement in the field of assessment, rather than to prevent it?
Homeschooling and Parenting
Home-schoolers, unite and take over
By Melanie Wilson Daniel, Athens Banner-Herald
Home-schoolers solidarity comes from awareness that they’re rebels, outlaws – and that there are those out there who’d like to make them criminals.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown is urging a state appeals court to reconsider a ruling that parents must hold teaching credentials to homeschool their children.
Et Alia
Education drives democracy
By Diane Cameron, The Albany Times Union
Jefferson and the other founders valued education not so that the United States would someday lead the world’s economy, but to ensure longevity for the form of government they were birthing.
Study probes RFID use in schools
By Dennis Carter, eSchool News
Radio-frequency tracking technology would be ideal for equipment but could violate privacy laws if applied to people, researchers say.
