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
Reform Realism
The Fordham Foundation issues an open letter to the incoming administration advocating “reform realism,” a “vigorous but realistic” federal role in education favoring, among other things, common standards and tests, high-quality data and solid research, and a “first do no harm” approach to ed reform.
The New Stupid
Gone are the days when educators dismissed data as having only a limited utility for improving schools and school systems. What’s taken its place, argues Rick Hess, is “The New Stupid” — where data-based decision making and research-based practice “stand in for careful thought, serve as dressed-up rationales for the same old fads, or [are] used to justify incoherent proposals.”
The Spillage of Muddy Language
Core Knowledge teacher Diana Senechal on education reform and the terms “conservative,” “progressive,” “reformer,” and “establishment.” Lo and behold, she writes, they mean everything and nothing.
21st Century Skills: The Newest Edufad
Eduwonk Andy Rotherham sees a “false choice between teaching facts and teaching how to approach them.” Writing in U.S. News, Rotherham foresees the potential “to make the 21st-century skills movement another fad leading to little change in American education.”
Best of the Blogs
Obama’s Amazingly Un-Amazing Education Secretary
Pajamas Media
It really is amazing how totally uninteresting the choice of Duncan for education secretary is, Greg Forster writes waggishly. “In fact, the selection has succeeded in fascinating me by achieving such an unprecedented level of anti-fascinatingness. It repels my interest so strongly that I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Teaching and Curriculum
Most Textbooks Should Just Stay On the Shelf
Washington Post
In the classrooms I visit, writes Jay Mathews, it is often a good sign that the textbooks are stacked on a corner bookshelf or window sill, gathering dust. The best teachers have an ongoing conversation with their class, calling on every student, challenging sloth, praising fresh ideas, moving the group beyond the text, which covers only the state’s or the school’s curricular requirements.
A Race Against the Clock: The Value of Expanded Learning Time for English Language Learners
Center for American Progress
Current efforts to promote the expansion of learning time suggest increasing the school day by two hours or lengthening the year by 360 hours—the equivalent of at least 30 percent more learning time. This additional time can be pivotal in closing both the academic and language gap for ELLs.
Education Policy
Obama Pledge Stirs Hope in Early Childhood Education
The New York Times
The $10 billion Mr. Obama has pledged for early childhood education would amount to the largest new federal initiative for young children since Head Start began in 1965. “People are absolutely ecstatic,” says the head of one advocacy group. “Some people seem to think the Great Society is upon us again.”
Ed Secretary Pick Noted for Hands-On Approach
USA Today
If he’s confirmed, Arne Duncan’s first job as education secretary will be hammering out accords on Obama’s top education priorities: college affordability and expanded preschool. His toughest task may be persuading Congress to reauthorize NCLB. It has been largely forsaken by many congressional Democrats for its heavy reliance on standardized testing — and by many Republicans for its federal intrusion on local education decisions.
No Money, No Child
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Nine school districts sued the federal government in 2005, arguing that enforcement of NCLB was unconstitutional and illegal, since it requires schools to do things without providing the money. The districts lost in U.S. District Court in Detroit, but the ruling was later reversed. It seems certain that the case will be decided ultimately by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Geoffrey Canada and Education’s Future
Washington Post
There are no trumpets and violins at the end of Paul Tough’s book Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America. “Tough makes the vital point,” notes Jay Mathews, “repeated by other urban educators, that if those early years programs can be expanded, there might be less need for the hero teachers working 10-hour days that one often finds in the highest-performing middle and high schools in low-income neighborhoods.”
Happy Birthday, Charter Schools
City Journal
Over the past decade, charter schools have gone from a quaint think-tank idea to a mass movement with broad parental support and bipartisan backing. On the 10th anniversary of New York’s charter law, Thomas W. Carroll notes failures and missteps along the way also suggest a need for state chartering entities and charter advocates to pause for a moment of reflection. How did we get here, he asks, and where are we headed?
Homeschooling and Parenting
In Defense of Teasing
New York Times Magazine
The reason teasing is viewed as inherently damaging is that it is too often confused with bullying. Teasing is a mode of play, no doubt with a sharp edge, in which we provoke to negotiate life’s ambiguities and conflicts. And it is essential to making us fully human.
Nut Bans in Schools May Be Spurring Hysteria
Health Day
Peanut and other food allergies are on the rise, with more and more children being diagnosed with potentially life-threatening allergies, and schools are responding by providing nut-free areas. But at least one expert wonders if schools are going too far, even creating hysteria over potential nut exposures. What’s worse, schools may be perpetuating the problem by limiting exposure to nuts in non-allergic children.
Et Alia
The Wheels on the Bus Go Ka-Ching!
NBC News
Three bills have been introduced by New Jersey legislators that would allow school districts to sell ads on the sides of buses they rent or own. The effort would help schools raise money while keeping New Jersey taxpayers a little richer and a lot happier, because they won’t have to pay higher taxes.
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