July 7th, 2008
NYC’s best education reporter, Elizabeth Green of the NY Sun, has a big piece this morning about anonymous blogger Eduwonkette, whose blog has become “a thorn in the side” of the New York City Department of Education.
DOE communications chief David Cantor and Eduwonk Andy Rotherham are among those who take shots at EW, alleging that her anonymity keeps readers from evaluating her bias. Having spent decades in the news business before becoming a teacher, I should be predisposed to agree. So why doesn’t her anonymity bug me? Perhaps it’s the nature of her blog. By focusing on research, EW on her best days functions as a first-rate BS detector, saying in essence “here’s the data. You decide.” The fact that she’s got deep pocketed institutions and major players in the edusphere taking shots at her is a testament to her impact. Indeed, you can probably divide edubloggers into two camps: those who admit they are envious of EW’s impact…and liars.
But that’s her second most significant accomplishment. Her first is that she makes education research entertaining. Her anonymity may be frustrating to her critics, but her blog is indispensible.
Tags: eduwonk, eduwonkette, NYC, Research and Reports
Posted in Opinion | 1 Comment »
July 7th, 2008
Elementary school students will be exposed to the work of Shakespeare starting at five years old under a new government education initiative in the U.K., the BBC reports.
Ian McNeilly from Britain’s National Association for the Teaching of English said: “Some of the language in the plays would be beyond pupils under a certain age, but the earlier children are introduced to Shakespeare the better.”
“It’s all down to the approach,” says McNeilly. “You can bore people of any age with the wrong approach and you can enthuse people of any age with the correct one.”
That’s true of teaching any subject.
Tags: literature
Posted in Literacy | No Comments »
July 7th, 2008
Enhanced school safety? Or just plain creepy? That’s the question school officials and parents in Rhode Island are grappling as they weigh the efficacy of a pilot program that equipped elementary school students’ backpacks with radio frequency locator tags in the name of improved safety for children in transit to and from school on buses.
House and Senate lawmakers, worried about privacy violations, passed legislation prohibiting the use of such tags to track students. But Rhode Island’s governor has vetoed the bill noting that “in certain circumstances, it may be helpful for schools to have the ability to quickly identify where each of their students is located.”
A Middletown school official said the tracking devices were not meant to infringe upon students’ rights. The tags were placed on backpacks of children who rode buses and were used to track them in real time as they boarded and left the vehicles. The Providence Journal says the idea was “to help notify parents when a bus is running late, or has encountered trouble, as was the case during the December snowstorm that saw more than 50 Providence buses stranded for hours, said school facilities director Edward Collins, a program supporter. In more serious circumstances, the chips could alert school officials if a child was lost or abducted.”
Tags: safety
Posted in School News | 1 Comment »
