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
Kids Should Know How Things Work
Barry Marshall, an Australian who won the Nobel Prize for science in 2005, says “I think every kid in primary school should know approximately how all the things in his house work.”
Failure Is An Option
For the first time in seven years, Seattle public high-school students who do poorly can actually receive a failing grade on their report cards.
The Few and the Many
A school in England and an upset father turn a spotlight on student discipline policies.
Eyes on the Prize
Another student incentive controversy, this time at a top university.
In Other Blogs
Historical Change at The Education Gadfly
Barbara Davidson, the President of StandardsWork, Inc. votes “for reinserting history and related subjects back into the curriculum.”
Promoting the unprepared at Joanne Jacobs
Ted Nutting, a calculus teacher in Seattle, blames “reform math” for students’ low achievement.
Will Obama have a mandate on education? at Flypaper
Let’s assume for a moment that Obama wins by a significant margin, maybe even a landslide, writes Fordham’s Mike Petrilli. On a few issues that he put at the center of his campaign he’ll have a mandate for specific legislative action. But what about education?
Data-Driven, Accountability vs. Decision-Making at This Week in Education
Our school must have had miracle workers, raising the Algebra I “pass rate” by 1400%, writes John Thompson. So, why do we have the lowest ACT test scores of any urban school in Oklahoma?
Teaching and Curriculum
Girls and Math: It Doesn’t Add Up
The Los Angeles Times
American students, especially females, may not be encouraged to excel in math, according to a new study, which claims that while many girls do have a knack for mathematics, they could be derailed by a combination of societal pressures, a less than stellar public school system, and a lack of role models.
Singapore Math gains support
Deseret News
While Singapore Math has students in southeast Asia scoring highest in the world, the program could face challenges if implemented into Utah’s curriculum.
3 evolution critics on advisory panel to review standards for science courses in Texas
The Dallas Morning News
Social conservatives on the State Board of Education have appointed three evolution critics to a six-member committee that will review proposed curriculum standards for science courses in Texas schools.
Financial sector’s loss could spell gain for teaching
USA Today
A few observers believe public schools could be the beneficiaries of a brainpower shift from the trading floors of Wall Street and the hedge funds of Greenwich, Conn., to classrooms nationwide.
Texas District Wins Prize for Schools
The New York Times
The Brownsville Independent School District in Texas won the nation’s most important prize for excellence in urban education on the same day that Texas authorities announced that the district had failed to meet achievement targets under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Education Policy
Under ‘No Child’ Law, Even Solid Schools Falter
The New York Times
Across the nation, far more schools failed to meet the federal law’s testing targets than in any previous year. And in California and some other states, the problem traces in part to the fact that officials chose to require only minimal gains in the first years after the law passed and then very rapid annual gains later.
What To Do With No Child Left Behind?
Education Week
Richard Kahlenberg proposes solutions to three central defects in NCLB—underfunding; the flawed implementation of its standards, testing, and accountability provisions; and the failure to provide students in low-performing schools a genuine opportunity to transfer to much better ones.
Where they stand: McCain, Obama split on education
USA Today
The USA’s teetering economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have all but squeezed out education, a topic important to previous elections.
South Texas School District Wins Broad Prize
Houston Chronicle
The winner of the 2008 Broad Prize in Urban Education, Brownsville Independent School District in Texas serves nearly 50,000 students — 98 percent Hispanic and 43 percent learning English. Surrounding Cameron County has the highest poverty rate for a county of its size in the country.
Charter Schools Face Financial Challenges
The Washington Post
The rapid growth of Washington, DC’s charter school movement, which accounts for more than a third of the city’s public school enrollment, is starting to see signs of cooling because of the national financial crisis.
Homeschooling and Parenting
Parent Protests Special Education
The Seattle Times
The father of a Washington special education student has been picketing his son’s high school to protest the practice of having special education students pick up trash or recycle materials. The district says the work is vocational training.
The Anti-Schoolers
The New York Times
A group of parents are opting to enrich rather than formally educate their not-yet-school-age children. They’re not home-schooling or even “unschooling,” but following an ad hoc, day-by-day exploration into what it means to be a stay-at-home parent and child in an accelerated culture like New York.
Et Alia
Putting the nature back in the nurture of our children
Providence Journal
Family physicians don’t see as many broken bones among children as they did in the days when kids were sent “outside to play.” Now they see computer-related repetitive motion injuries. On average, kids spend 44 hours a week plugged into electronic gadgets. Bike sales have dropped by a third in a generation.
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