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College students who are “morning people” may have a higher chance of graduating near the top of their class according to a new study (Hat Tip: NYC Educator). Researchers at North Texas University found early birds had an average grade point average (GPA) that was a full point higher than night owls: 3.5 vs. 2.5.
Richard Whitmire must have been valedictorian. The USA Today scribe has an interesting new edublog. Check out what time that man has been posting.
School’s out! Long, languorous summer days playing in the street with your friends, with no adults in sight? “No so much,” writes Eve Pearlman in the San Jose Mercury News. “Most kids are kept on much tighter reins than they were in days of yore.
“The difference we’ve imposed on ourselves compared to how we ourselves were raised is really quite striking,” says Peter Stearns, a George Mason University professor who studies fear in our society. Media coverage of accidents and crimes has created an outsize sense of the risks children actually face. Plus, says Stearns, more and more parents have developed a phobia about taking any risk at all.
Kids used to break their arms and we’d say, ‘Oh well’ and sign the cast. But now when they do, we assume as a society that if things had just been properly organized this bad thing wouldn’t have happened….Most of our middle class kids are quite safe. We just need to think about the consequences of fussing over them quite as much as we do. Really, it’s just a matter of moderating our worries and becoming a little more tolerant.
This spring, Rhode Island’s high school graduating class became the first in the nation to face performance-based assessments as a state-mandated requirement for earning a diploma.
“To be sure, no one is saying that Rhode Island’s trailblazing move means it’s time to start writing the obituary for machine-scored standardized exams,” notes a report in Education Week. “After all, even Rhode Island still uses them, and most experts agree that multiple choice is here to stay.” The piece offers a strong recap of the history of performance-based assessment over the last several decades, noting that “subjectivity of grading student portfolios and dissertation-defense-style presentations” has derailed previous attempts to work around standardized testing. Given the widespread disenchantment with NCLB and testing in general, it stands to reason, however that we’ll be reading lots more of this in the near future. Indeed, EdWeek reports eight other states have “expressed an interest” in Rhode Island’s initiative.
One of them is probably Ohio, where education officials have won a $1.3 million grant to explore alternative assessments, such as portfolios, senior projects, journals, small-group collaborations or teacher observation, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
