Lindsey Burke and Jennifer Marshall make the case against a common national curriculum, arguing that standardization is more likely to result in uniform mediocrity than in academic excellence. According to Burke and Marshall, having common standards not only won’t increase student learning, national standards will tend to lower standards and distract schools and communities from [...]
Ohio legislators are sending an “obesity bill” to the governor’s desk. The aim is to enlist schools in combating childhood obesity and save the state some money. Arkansas tried this a few years ago. It did more harm than good. Sandy Szwarc at Junk Food Science found: …despite including everything popularly believed necessary to eradicate [...]
Heather Horn at The Atlantic Wire notes that there are quite a few folks supporting the proposed $23 million intended to prevent teacher layoffs: Recent worries over the deficit, combined with concerns about education reform, have left commentators wary of further spending on teachers. So the Democratic plan to give $23 billion payout to public [...]
No sensible person thinks that some basic amount of money isn’t need to operate a school, keep good programs and pay good teachers. The tricky thing is figuring out how much money, how it should be spent and where it should come from. What’s contested is whether throwing more and more money at a problem [...]
As we’ve said here before, it makes no sense to insist that states that want a shot at Race to the Top grant money sign on to what is a pig in a poke– a common curriculum that hasn’t been written yet. But at least that’s an optional project that many districts and states for [...]
I’ve never really understood the Race to the Top requirement that states sign on to a set of common academic standards that haven’t even been created yet. It seems to me that we’re putting the cart before the horse. The U.S. Department of Education is pushing common standards before we’re had a good discussion on [...]
Incoming freshman at UC Berkeley will be getting a couple of cotton swabs with their welcome-to-college packet. The swabs are for the voluntary DNA sample the university is collecting. The confidential process is being overseen by Jasper Rine, a campus professor of Genetics and Development Biology, who says the test results will help students make [...]
Here’s the problem. According to Business Week’s Daniel Golden, online universities are –depending on your point of view– seeking out, targeting, or victimizing people who live in homeless shelters or halfway houses. This is a problem for a couple of reasons. In the vast majority of cases, these potential students are poorly prepared for college [...]
The meme in education circles has changed in the last few days. The focus has shifted from Race to the Top to Ed Secretary Arne Duncan and the Obama administration’s Department of Education. Instead of asking just how much the states will have to change and do to have a chance at billions in grant [...]