Photo credit: Woodleywonderworksby Hallie JacksonLONDONDERRY, N.H. — Forget emails and immigration: the topic du jour for half-a-dozen Republican candidates Wednesday involved education.Topping the agenda at a policy forum in the key early-voting state of New Hampshire was Common Core, the school standards program that has become deeply unpopular among conservative voters in the Republican Party.Read the rest of the story at NBC News.
Photo Credit: U.S. Dept. of Agricultureby Ron NixonWASHINGTON — A majority of Americans support providing schoolchildren with healthy meals that consist of more fruits and vegetables and fewer foods high in calories and sodium, according to a national poll released on Tuesday by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Read the rest of the story in The New York Times.
Photo credit: Timlewisnmby Leslie PostalThe study to determine whether Florida’s new standardized test is a valid one is due in Tallahassee on Sept. 1. The study of the Florida Standards Assessments is being run by two outside testing companies that have filed detailed reports on what they’ve done — but provided few clues on what, if anything, they’ve determined so far.Read the rest of the story at the SunSentinel.
On Sept. 15, 2005, two weeks after Katrina and the levee breaches, I drove with my parents into New Orleans. It was my 25th birthday.We used my press pass from The Village Voice to get past a military checkpoint so we could assess the damage to their home near Tulane University. It turned out to be minimal: a few slate tiles off the roof, tree limbs downed, a putrid refrigerator full of rotting food to drag to the curb.Read the rest of the story at NPR.org.
Photo credit: Woodleywonderworksby Ty TagamiThe vote is more than a year away, but debate over Gov. Nathan Deal’s proposed takeover of failing schools has moved from the Capitol into community centers and schools themselves.It pits Georgia’s cherished ideal of local control of schools and tax dollars against the urgency to improve education via an “Opportunity School District.”Read the rest of the story at AJC.com.
Photo credit: Mosborne01by Annette BreauxMaster teachers—those who have figured out how to get students to do and be their best, how to simplify the complex, how to look forward to their jobs each day, and how to create lasting memories in the hearts and minds of students—once struggled as new teachers, too. The following 10 practices not only helped master teachers over the initial hump of inexperience but also sustained their ongoing success.Read the rest of the story from ASCD.
Photo courtesy: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Every school in England should become an academy, PM David Cameron has said, as he set out his “vision for our schooling system”.Read the rest of the story at BBC.com.
Photo Credit: Edgar Zuniga Jr.by Larry Dignan for Between the LinesNews Corp. is putting its Amplify electronic learning platform and curriculum up for sale because the new school year selling season flopped and the rush to digital tools never materialized.Was the demise due to educational institutions’ reluctance to change or fatal flaws with Amplify?Read the rest of the story at ZDNet.
Photo credit: John Morganby Megan McArdleIf you’ve reached that crotchety age I’m at, you may be as mystified as I am by the kids these days — especially by how they’re behaving on campus. I get the naive leftist politics and the wildly irresponsible partying; those things have been staples of student life for hundreds of years. I even understand the drive toward hamfisted censorship of views they don’t like. After all, I did my coming-of-age at the University of Pennsylvania during the “spring from hell,” when copies of the campus newspaper were stolen to protest perceived bias against minorities, and Eden Jacobowitz was famously brought up on racial harassment charges for screaming “shut up, you water buffalo” out the window at a black sorority that was conducting a rather lively promenade down the walk below his dorm window.Read the rest of the story at BloombergView.
