Commonwealth Education Organization

August & September News Articles

The following news articles contain information on educational issues.The views in these articles are not

necessarily those of the Commonwealth Education Organization, but are posted for your information.

September 2009
College by Subscription
“Many students taking remedial courses in college are not doing well in them. A better approach is needed that will benefit not only students, but also taxpayers and the students who are footing the bill for unsuccessful instruction. A subscription-based model in which students can work at their own pace and get help from readily available faculty could improve outcomes and reduce costs.”

9/28/09
Longer school day, year pushed as way to 'level the playing field’
“Obama says American children spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe”.....(but) “Children in the United States spend more hours in school ... than do children in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the United States on math and science tests.”

9/24/09
Common Core Standards Available for Comment
“ ‘We are pleased to release the college- and career-readiness standards today and to begin receiving comments on them,’ said Dane Linn, director of the NGA Center’s Education Division. ‘These standards are vital to ensuring our students are prepared to compete and succeed in a global economy.’ “
>>read more>>

9/22/09
High school graduation exams not funded in Pennsylvania budget
“The budget agreement among legislative leaders and Gov. Ed Rendell does not include about $9 million Rendell sought to establish high school graduation exams.”

9/19/09
Pupils 'praised too much'
Research in Great Britain has revealed that the everyday use of stickers by teachers to reward good behavior may actually backfire. "We surmised that praise will only work as a disciplinary device if children believe that it is sincerely meant and genuinely earned."

9/16/09
Back-to-School Patriotism
“If we are to restore America’s love for its rich and great history, we must begin by telling the truth, not in a prosaic, tiresome fashion, but in a captivating and memorable way. Our story is one of great suffering and great triumph; it is what Abraham Lincoln called ‘the last best hope of earth.’ ”

9/15/09
Critical thinking? You need knowledge
“The latest fad to sweep K-12 education is called “21st-Century Skills.’’ States - including Massachusetts - are adding them to their learning standards, with the expectation that students will master skills such as cooperative learning and critical thinking and therefore be better able to compete for jobs in the global economy. Inevitably, putting a priority on skills pushes other subjects, including history, literature, and the arts, to the margins. But skill-centered, knowledge-free education has never worked.”

9/14/09
Student "Learning Styles" Theory Is Bunk
“The Big Idea behind learning styles is that kids vary in how they learn....There just doesn’t seem to be much evidence that kids learn in fundamentally different ways.”

9/14/09
Universal School Choice Prevails – For Sweden
"The universal school voucher system has worked beautifully in Sweden, providing families with choice and children with educational opportunity. If President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan want to stay true to their promise to do 'what works' in education, Sweden certainly provides an effective template."

August 2009

President Obama in the Classroom

Three items you can read on this topic.

>>read more>>1 >>read more>>2 >>read more>>3

August 2009

What Will They Learn? A Report on General Education Requirements at 100 of the Nation's Leading Colleges and Universities American Council of Trustees and Alumni

"This study reveals that while most colleges continue to endorse the importance of a solid general education program, many have abandoned such programs in favor of a loose set of distribution requirements."

What Will They Learn? A Guide to What College Rankings Don't Tell You

August 31, 2009

Back to School/Do the Math: Difficulty understanding fractions can add up to a whole lot of trouble (one of a series of articles on Math issues)

"According to last year's report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel...difficulty with fractions is impeding America's overall progress in math, which, in turn, raises national security concerns and questions about the country's economic vitality."
>>read more>>

August 30, 2009

Get kids on track: Stop packing quicker, slower students in the same class
"Anyone who has ever taught knows that kids progress at dramatically different speeds in different subjects. When our schools resist tracking even when it's clearly needed, they wind up valuing homogeneous classrooms over effective ones."
>>read more>>

August 30, 2009

Pressure-cooker kindergarten

"Psychologist and early childhood expert David Elkind, author of The Hurried Child and The Power of Play... When children are required to do academics too early, he says, they get the message that they are failures."

August 28, 2009

Smart Child Left Behind

"It is clear that No Child Left Behind is helping low-achieving students. But it is also obvious that high-achieving students — who suffer from benign neglect under the law — have been making smaller gains, much as they did before it was enacted. Alas, this drug is producing no miracles."
>>read more>>

August 23, 2009

Will bigger classes hurt kids?

"(T)here’s a double-edged sword to class-size reduction. Smaller classes raise student achievement and increase test scores in grades K-3...But the study also found class-size reduction led to a dramatic increase in the percentages of inexperienced and uncertified teachers."
>>read more>>

Special Analysis 2009-International Assessments

"This special analysis examines the performance of U.S. students in reading, mathematics, and science compared with the performance of their peers in other countries that participated in PIRLS, PISA, and TIMSS. It identifies which of these countries have outperformed the United States, in terms of students' average scores and the percentage of students reaching internationally benchmarked performance levels, and which countries have done so consistently."
>>read more>>

August 25, 2009

College Board Reports Stagnant SAT Scores

"Scores on the SAT declined or stagnated in the last year, according to results released today by the College Board."

August 18, 2009

Pay teachers what they are worth

An Interview with economist Rick Hanushek of the Hoover Institute. He discusses ways to improve education and how the stimulus money should be spent to have the best effect.

August 14, 2009

What Would PA Gain by Consolidating School Districts?

"Nationally, Pennsylvania does not have the most school districts, nor is it terribly out of line when considering the typical size of a district based on average enrollment—it is in the middle. Plus, there is no widespread trend of other states making large reductions to the number of districts in recent years. So why do it?"

August 12, 2009

New Nationwide Study Confirms Homeschool Academic Achievement

"Despite much resistance from outside the homeschool movement, whether from teachers unions, politicians, school administrators, judges, social service workers, or even family members, over the past few decades homeschoolers have slowly but surely won acceptance as a mainstream education alternative. This has been due in part to the commissioning of research which demonstrates the academic success of the average homeschooler."

August 10, 2009

Should Students Be Paid To Learn?

"Should K-12 students be paid to learn? At least four cities -- New York, Washington, Chicago and Baltimore -- have experimented with pay-for-performance pilot programs in recent years."

August 9, 2009

Reviving the art of putting pencil to paper

"At a time when summer enrichment camps trend toward the high tech...handwriting camp may seem old school. But it is part of recent efforts to refocus attention on what many educators lament may be the dying art of legible printing and graceful cursive."

Read both sides:

August 5, 2009

Fear of Freedom Leaves Only Faith Healing for Our Schools

"Freedom, quite simply, works, and government, typically, does not. Which might be exactly why, after Ravitch has bashed “privatization” and “deregulation,” the only prescription she has left is blind, reality-ignoring hope: 'At some point, we will have to get the kind of leadership that can figure out how to improve our public school system so that we have the education we want for our children.' "

August 4, 2009

Privatization Will Not Help Us Achieve Our Goals: An Interview with Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch, prominent education historian and author of Edspeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords and Jargon (2007), The Language Police (2003) and Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms (2000) is interviewed about current education issues.

August 2, 2009

First, do no harm

"(T)he Keystone Exams proposal oversimplifies the problems and purposes of education. And it does so manipulatively, by appealing to the public's and the media's desire for an easy explanation to our educational crisis. In this paradigm, the schools fail -- not the families, the communities or the governments."

August 2, 2009

Modesto parents' rights in peril

"The PJI (Pacific Justice Institute) attorney...say(s) that a school district that chooses to deliberately hide from parents the fact that their child has had a major medical procedure, or is seeking counseling for serious emotional or substance-abuse problems, is asking for a lawsuit." (This case has potential for the whole nation as School Based Health Clinics are currently in the proposed health care bill-Sec. 2511, Pg. 992)

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