What We Know
Maryland narrowly edged out Massachusetts in “key indicators of student success” in this year’s Quality Counts report from Education Week, which focuses on ELLs….L.A. schools could lay off 2,300 teachers due to a budget gap of $250 million….A six-year-old boy in Virginia wanted to go to school so badly Monday that when he missed the bus, he drove himself in his mother’s car. Over ten miles, in heavy traffic, at high speeds. He finally crashed but was unhurt, and started walking to school after the cops pulled him out of the car.
What We Want to Find Out
How will Michelle Rhee’s proposal to have more students suspensions served in school be received? She’s scheduled a series of public meetings….A study has demonstrated that people feel better when they watch TV, notes blogger Stephen Broyles. Can the same thing be true of reading?….”Helicopter parents” are to America as WHAT are to Japan?….Remember in third grade when the smart-alecky kid next to you offered you a piece of “ABC gum?” A British company is selling ABC pencils, supposedly as a way to enhance student concentration. They’re joking, right?
What We Learned
Pittsburgh school officials will not walk away from their policy of giving no grade lower than 50 on classwork, homework or grading periods….Kelly Vaughan, web editrix at Gotham School, has decided to return to the classroom. She’s teaching 8th grade earth science at a Harlem, NY charter school….D-Ed Reckoning is back! After nearly two months of radio silence, Ken DeRosa’s blog has good posts on problems with gifted education and “21st Century skills.”…Bridging Diferences is also back from hiatus. Diane Ravitch says colleges are “hooked on remediation.”
How We Can Learn More
This week’s Carnival of Education, a compilation of the best ed blog posts of the past week, is up.
Does anyone have thoughts on the science debate in Louisiana?
Comment by Paul Hoss — January 8, 2009 @ 5:15 pm
I believe what Paul is referring to is this:
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A new law that promotes what its backers call “critical thinking” about evolution and other science topics is about to come up for discussion again in Baton Rouge — this time before state education officials charged with deciding how it should be implemented While the law maintains a requirement that public school science teachers use state approved science textbooks, it also allows local teachers and school boards to introduce “supplemental materials” in science classes on topics including evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.
http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20090108/NEWS01/90108022
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — January 8, 2009 @ 5:25 pm
Is it just me or does anyone else wish these folks would finally enter the twenty-first century? No wonder we stink on TIMMS math and science tests. Some of our kids don’t even get to study science because they’re bogged down learning religion or at best pseudo-science.
National standards anyone? Come on!
Comment by Paul Hoss — January 8, 2009 @ 7:44 pm