by Howard BlumeA prominent local education foundation is discussing a major expansion of charter schools in Los Angeles aimed at boosting academic achievement for students at the lowest performing campuses.Read the rest of the story at The Los Angeles Times.

by Claudio Sanchez”If a kid is in first period when they should still be asleep, how much are they really learning?”Anne Wheaton is an epidemiologist and the lead author of a new study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study surveyed the start times of 8000 middle and high schools across the country. Last year the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. The goal is to accommodate the “natural sleep rhythms” of teenagers.Read and listen to the story at NPREd.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush again defended his support of the Common Core education standards, which are deeply unpopular within the Republican Party.Read the rest of the story at CBS News.

Ann Cunningham-Morris, ASCD Director of Professional Learning, talks about educational leadership and to redefine traditional PD as “Professional Learning.”Cunningham-Morris is presently a director of professional development for ASCD and a member of the ASCD Faculty.She has been a district-level instructional administrator; director of staff development; high school, middle school, and elementary principal; classroom teacher; special education resource leader, and job development specialist in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Illinois, California, and Virginia. During her 30-year career, she has also been an adjunct professor for several universities.Cunningham-Morris has also served as an educational consultant to many school systems throughout the world in the areas of curriculum development, effective professional development program design, instructional leadership, assessment literacy, instructional best practices, and supporting high academic achievement for diverse student populations.

Photo Credit: Caleb Roenigkby Suzanne WrightMy mother, now in her 70s, has beautiful handwriting. As a young girl, I admired and emulated her expressive script, ultimately winning a couple of penmanship awards for my efforts. My mom was proud and so was I.But with cursive writing instruction in decline since the 1970s in many elementary schools, widespread pride in the almost artistic form of penmanship seems to be waning.Read the rest of the story at USA Today.

Photo credit: P. MorganThe Chinese education system – with its long school days and tough discipline – tops global league tables. But how did British pupils cope when five Chinese teachers took over part of their Hampshire school?Read the rest of the story at BBC News.

Margaret Searle, ASCD author and educator, spent time with Dr. Berger to discuss the field of education and the value the profession of teaching can bring to those young people looking for their career path to emerge.Searle specializes in consulting with districts and schools in the areas of curriculum alignment, differentiated instruction, inclusive education, leadership team development, and training teams to implement Response to Intervention (RTI). She is also as an adjunct professor for Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio.Her teaching experience covers every grade from preschool through 8th in both a general and special education capacity. Her administrative experience has been as a K–12 supervisor in Dayton City Schools as well as a middle school principal in Springfield, Ohio, and an elementary school principal in Toledo, Ohio. She served as an adviser to President George H. W. Bush on elementary and secondary education issues.Searle has also contributed her expertise as an author …

by John K. WatersNew “micro” online certification programs are changing the educational pathways to success in certain industries.Read the rest of the story on Campus Technology.

Photo credit: Jon Limby Barbara KurshanThe topic of women in technology has been much discussed over the last few years; more precisely, the problem of not enough women in technology has been much debated. Some cite the pipeline as the issue; others argue culture (particularly “brogrammer” culture) is the major barrier to more women entering and sticking with tech as a profession. Unfriendly maternity policies — both those put in place by “brogrammers” as well as those sanctioned by the US’s generally family-unfriendly culture — also make a huge contribution (many agree) to women leaving technology careers. Be that as it may, this debate is pretty stale at this point — probably the safest conclusion is that it’s a little bit of everything hampering the rise of female rank-and-file technologists as well as female CIOs.Read the rest of the story at Forbes.

by Nicole Gorman, Education World ContributorA recent report looking at research into Head Start programs—or federally funded early education programs for low-income families—has revealed that research is not conclusive enough to determine the effectiveness despite 50 years of operation and 30 million children served, said The Hechinger Report. Read the rest of the story at Education World.

Photo Credit: NASA-JHUAPL-SwRIby Jacob BellWith recent pictures from NASA’s New Horizons space probe thrusting Pluto to center stage, some educators may be wondering how to better incorporate the icy, 1,473-miles-in-diameter sphere into their classroom teaching.Read the rest of the story at Education Week.

By Mitsuro ObeTOKYO—Japan is retooling its public universities, sacrificing liberal-arts programs in collaboration with a business community eager for better-skilled graduates.Read the rest of the story at The Wall Street Journal.

Photo Credit: The Gold Guys Blogby Kyle VanhemertIF YOU WANT to teach your kid about ecology, sustainability, or the future of interactive education, take them to the New York Hall of Science and head for the giant virtual waterfall. Read the rest of the story at Wired.

ASCD Faculty member Eric Carbaugh talks about Flipped Learning and provides an updated definition of what it is and is not. Carbaugh started his work in higher education as a teaching assistant for Carol Tomlinson at the University of Virginia. Currently, he serves as an assistant professor of middle, secondary, and math education at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Photo Credit: Artemas LiuHundreds of students in Taiwan have stormed the education ministry, protesting against proposed changes to the curriculum.At least 200 students scaled the building’s fences overnight and camped in the compound in the capital, Taipei.Read the rest of the story at BBC News.