Factually Speaking: 8/28/12
A recent Blackboard Project Tomorrow survey finds that 52% of district administrators support the idea of online classes, up from 33% in 2007. A recent CDW survey found that 71% of students and 77% of teachers say they use laptops or netbooks, smartphones, student...
Educational Quotes: 8/27/12
"NCLB concentrated on achievement gaps and increased accountability for high-need students, but it also encouraged states to lower standards and narrow their curricula, focusing on absolute test scores instead of student growth and gains. The problem was that a school...
Back-to-School Shopping
It's back-to-school marathon shopping time again, with about half of all parents heading to stores right about now. Indeed, the National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates that the average family will spend approximately $688.62 this season and, all told, 2012 K-12...
Educational Quotes: 8/24/12
Kids are not test scores." ~ Stephanie Simon, Reuters "There are numerous characters in education: students, teachers, administrators, school boards, parents, and communities, as well as a Greek chorus of educational experts, consultants, and bureaucrats. Teachers are...
Education News Update: 8/23/12
33 states and D.C. have now received NCLB waivers, freeing them from its looming 2014 100% reading and math proficiency mandate. In return are promises to develop and implement reform plans and promote and evaluate teacher effectiveness. The Obama administration is...
Kid-Friendly Websites: 8/22/12
www.littlewritebrain.com ~ Here, children can write and publish their own stories; indeed, the site calls itself "the #1 online storybook creation service." www.nationalgeographic.com ~ This National Geographic site offers a "classroom magazine for kindergarten and...
Factually Speaking: 8/21/12
The top performer on the 2009 PISA was Shanghai, China with a score of 556, while America's 500 was largely unchanged from previous years. However, Asian-Americans came in second with a 541, and white Americans came in sixth with a score of 525. African-American's...
Education Quotes: 8/20/12
"The lines between home and school are continuing to blur with more expections for schools to exercise authority in areas perivously reserved for parents." ~ Max Riley, Superintendent, New Jersey's Randolph School District "We've failed to acknowledge how difficult...
One-third of our children/adolescents either overweight or obese–and consume 30% to 50% of their calories at school. The federal government is set to change all that.
The kindergarten controversy is not about to go away any time soon, as, more and more, school districts across the country turn “the children’s garden” into a full-day affair, complete with reading, writing, arithmetic, and testing. In other words, the new first grade.
Violent Video Games, California Law, and the Supreme Court
Video games: absorbing, interactive, potentially addictive, and, on many occasion, violent—and therein lies much of the problem. That's because many experts believe the brutality our children are exposed to desensitizes them and contributes to aggressive and very...
Info 101: Cyberbullying Goes to Court
Cyberbullies circulate their maliciousness 24/7, and there’s no escaping it. Indefensible, for sure, yet some parents consider spreading hurtfulness a protected right and are going to court to make their case.
Homework Helpers
Parents are stepping aside, relegating what once was seen as a mom and/or dad imperative to a relative stranger known as a homework helper. Really--and not to be confused with a tutor. A tutor comes to the task with a specific expertise or two. For instance, many...
National Anti-Bullying Month: Facts, Figures, and Steps to Take
Bullying certainly made headlines after Columbine in April,1999, but it’s taken on added urgency now in light of a recent spate of children who have taken their own lives--quite literally hounded to death. Even President Obama has made it a priority. As he has...
Parenting 101: Cyberbullying Alert
Child’s play has gone viral, as even five- and six-year-olds are getting on the cyberbullying bandwagon, sending out hurtful messages without so much as a second thought and causing some of our children to view suicide as their only way out of the pain inflicted on...
The School Trend of Bypassing Failure
Many of us believe that failure is highly underrated, that inherent in a dismal showing are lessons to be learned. But in a number of districts across the country, failure’s reach is limited by boosting grades.
Dr. Andrew Adesman & What Your Pediatrician Might Not Know
Parenting: doing it right is uppermost in everyone’s mind and don't authors and booksellers know it! So do all our well-meaning friends and relatives who shower us with free advice, complete with oft-told old wives’ tales. Never sure whether or not to subscribe to all...
Info 101: Common Core Standards and the Race to the Top Competition Making schools better with national standardsAfter taking more than a year to develop and built on a foundation of previously established college and career-readiness standards, the Common Core State...
Valedictorians by the Number
In the good old days, the top grade earner in any given senior class, in any given year, was always #1--a singular distinction that came with the title valedictorian. Come in second and be named salutatorian. But these are new days and the old rules apparently don't...
Writing
It’s worrying just about everybody. The writing skills of today’s students, that is. Blame it on the death of letter writing and thank you notes; blame it on emailing and instant messaging; blame it on lack of practice and caring. Whatever you come up with, we’ve got...
