A 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
You’re Not Going to Read This Post
Online reading is a kind of literacy, Mark Baurlein writes, but it breaks down in the face of a dense argument, a Modernist poem, a long political tract, and other texts that require steady focus and linear attention. Fast scanning doesn’t foster flexible minds that can adapt to all kinds of texts.
Winning Hearts and Minds
Effective public service campaigns have a long history of changing behavior from littering to smoking, and burning the ideas behind them into the public mind. Why not a campaign on the importance of reading to young children?
Interview: Core Knowlege Reading Program
Matt Davis of the Core Knowledge Foundation talks about the two major strands of the Core Knowledge Reading Program: a unique phonics-based “Skills” strand, and a “Listening and Learning” strand that enables very young children to build up vocabulary and background knowledge.
Core Knowledge School Helps Fulfill a Wish
Cañon City Daily Record
Students at the Mountain View Core Knowledge School help a little boy with leukemia in a local cancer center in his bid to make the Guiness Book of World Records by collecting at least 150,000 business cards.
The Best of the Blogs
Stacking the Deck Against Success at Talking Points Memo
The Education Trust’s Amy Wilkins says high-fliers represent only a fraction of the schools that serve our nation’s low-income students and students of color. As a result, they are often discounted as ‘flukes’ or ‘outliers’ rather than proof of the academic abilities of their students.
When Students Run the Classroom at Pajamas Media
A new policy at one of the largest school districts in the U.S. is the stuff kids’ dreams are made of. And that’s the problem
Parents Need a Union at Kitchen Table Math
Teachers unions seem no longer so closely allied with the Democratic Party, writes Catherine Johnson, “but you could disband the unions tomorrow and parents and taxpayers would have no more influence over public education than we do now.”
Teaching and Curriculum
How One’s “Number Sense” Helps With Mathematics
The Washington Post
Scientists have for the first time established a link between a primitive, intuitive sense of numbers and performance in math classes, a finding that could lead to new ways to help children struggling in school.
Building Blocks Math From Pre-K to Grade 2
The Washington Post
With math skills at a premium in a technology-driven economy, children are expected to learn more math, and sooner. The first years are considered crucial for laying a solid math foundation.
Teaching correct spelling is a waste of time
The Daily Mail
A leading British academic says we should stop worrying that ‘textmessage speak’ is creeping into general usage.
International Baccalaureate education method gains fans
The Houston Chronicle
As education buzz words go, International Baccalaureate is a mouthful. But the 10-syllable program is cropping up at many Houston-area schools, where educators tout its ability to foster curiosity, global citizenship and critical-thinking skills.
It’s Not Discipline, It’s a Teachable Moment
The New York Times
The most effective discipline typically doesn’t involve any punishment at all, but instead focuses on positive reinforcement when children are being good.
Education Policy
The Law That Dares Not Speak Its Name
National Review Online
Neither McCcain or Obama even mentioned NCLB in their convention acceptance speeches, writes the Fordham Foundation’s Checker Finn. “In the education sphere, that’s roughly equivalent to talking about America’s foreign and defense challenges without mentioning Iraq.”
From the Lehman Board to the Board of Ed
National Review Online
The Detroit Public Schools is the AIG of education. It’s big, it’s bad, and it’s broken, writes Mike Petrilli. The state should declare Detroit Public Schools bankrupt take it into receivership and slice through any red tape that would keep Detroit from creating a world-class system,
In Rush to White House, ‘No Child’ Is Left Behind
The Washington Post
In their race for the White House, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama are distancing themselves from what has become a tainted brand.
California falling way behind No Child Left Behind
The San Francisco Chronicle
California schools, required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act to lift more students over a higher academic hurdle this year, instead stumbled and slipped back, as nearly 1,400 fewer schools met test-score targets.
Teacher Residencies Gaining Notice
Education Week
Urban teacher residencies, which focus heavily on classroom-based training and on-the-job support for new teachers, are attracting attention as promising ways to staff city schools.
Homeschooling and Parenting
Parents opt to teach kids at home for growing list of reasons
The Detroit News
Homeschooling has emerged as a growing option for families of children who have special learning needs; are academically or athletically gifted; suffer from health problems; or just don’t fit the mold of traditional public schools,
Half S.F. kindergartners not ready for school
San Francisco Chronicle
Children who were ready for kindergarten more often were girls, attended preschool, were older, had no special needs, and had mothers who went to college, researchers in a San Francisco study found.
Parents Getting Into the Mix On Improving Public Schools
The New York Sun
A new group is urging the presidential candidates to pay attention to another constituency as they craft their education platforms: parents.
Et Alia
Why Are School Age Boys Struggling?
Newsweek
Let’s examine the way our child rearing and our schools have evolved in the last 10 years. Could some of the changes we have embraced in our families, our communities and our schools be driving our sons crazy?
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