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  • Alternative Class for Disrupters?

    Number of comments: 5
    Schools won’t improve, a Florida teacher argues,  unless there are alternative classes or activities ”for those who don’t care to learn or can’t, or won’t, let anyone else learn.” Until these needs are addressed,” writes Junie Rabin in the Sun Sentinel “do not expect changes in drop-out rates or second-class education. [...]
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    Posted: November 30, 2009, 9:26am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Talking Dirty

    Put away the Purell and send your kids outside to play in the dirt.  New research suggests bacteria on the surface of the skin helps fight inflammation when you get cuts and bruises.   Why is it important?  The UC San Diego research is being hailed by some as evidence for the “hygiene [...]
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    Posted: November 30, 2009, 9:25am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Hate Speech, Free Speech and Intolerance

    Number of comments: 1
    The ACLU is suing Florida’s Alachua County School District alleging students’ free speech has been “unlawfully censored.”  The Orlando Sentinal reports several children were suspended or threatened with suspension for “wearing tee shirts promoting their religious beliefs about Christianity and Islam in school and at school events earlier this school [...]
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    Posted: November 28, 2009, 11:46am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Axe Grinding?

    Number of comments: 5
    Parents in one Rhode Island school district are wondering whether “grinding,” a sexually suggestive form of dancing, should be banned at school dances.  It’s gotten to the point where it’s uncomfortable to watch,” said Kate Macinanti, chairwoman of the high school’s dance committee – a subgroup of the South Kingstown High [...]
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    Posted: November 28, 2009, 10:58am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Blather, Rinse, Repeat

    Number of comments: 2
    In a debate on the Education Next website, Joe Williams of Democrats for Education Reform and Pedro Noguera of New York University wrestle with the question, “Should school reformers pay more attention to the non-academic needs of poor children?”  The more pertinent question might be which of the two groups Williams and Noguera [...]
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    Posted: November 24, 2009, 5:20pm EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • America’s Next Great Pundit

    Number of comments: 2
    Many of my fellow ed bloggers have been working overtime to get out the vote for Teach for America honcho Kevin Huffman to win the Washington Post’s America’s Next Great Pundit contest, a wonderfully clever American Idol for the chattering classes.  The efforts have paid off with Huffman narrowly fending off [...]
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    Posted: November 24, 2009, 9:39am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Neuroscientists for the Arts

    Number of comments: 10
    Dan Willingham offers up practical reasons why arts education is not a mere luxury in education.  Writing at the Washington Post’s The Answer Sheet blog, Willingham cites Harvard developmental psychologist Jerry Kagan, who observed recently that while reading and math are typical litmus tests for academic success, the arts allow some [...]
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    Posted: November 24, 2009, 9:17am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Mr. Goldfarb’s Evaluation

    Number of comments: 10
    Run, don’t walk, over to the Washington Post to read Jay Mathews piece on the evaluation given to an AP History teacher under Washington, DC’s new IMPACT system for assessing teacher performance.   Dan Goldfarb, a teacher at the Benjamin Banneker Academic High School has taken an extraordinary risk by giving [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 9:05am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Darkness Falls

    Number of comments: 8
    The United States is in gradual decline, says Checker Finn matter of factly.  “Many people seem oblivious, going about their own affairs without reference to ominous but very gradual trends, rather like the frog that didn’t know it would be boiled because the water in that pot was warming so [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 6:05am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Two Birds, One Stone

    Number of comments: 3
    School budget shortfall?  Student discipline problems?  Solve both by……charging for detention!  A pair of school board members in Nutley, New Jersey are proposing precisely that. Yes, they’re serious.  The board members, Steven Rogers and Walter Sautter, say they are hoping to adopt a policy by next school year that would charge [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 6:05am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • H.S Grad Can’t Read His Diploma

    Number of comments: 1
    How did Wayne Knowland graduate from a Bronx high school last June, the New York Post asks, when he can’t even read his diploma? In fact, the charismatic 18-year-old can’t read street signs, a paragraph in a newspaper or a job application — despite educators at Fannie Lou Hamer HS sending [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 6:04am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • “Infantilizing Our Kids Into Incompetence”

    Number of comments: 10
    A new revolution is under way, according to the cover story of the latest Time Magazine.  It’s aimed at rolling back “the almost comical overprotectiveness and overinvestment of moms and dads.”    Call it slow parenting, simplicity parenting, free-range parenting, the magazine notes, but the message is the same: “Less is more; hovering is [...]
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    Posted: November 20, 2009, 5:57pm EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Required Reading

    Number of comments: 8
    My “Blog About This” list is growing like kudzu, so in the interest of time…. Jay Greene “can’t understand the enthusiasm of education reformers for national standards and testing.”  Jay sees plenty of room for mischief.  I’m inclined to agree.  However, if all we end up with is national testing that allows [...]
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    Posted: November 18, 2009, 10:49am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Oh Say Can You C.E.?

    Number of comments: 6
    A Missouri school district has run afoul of some parents for teaching children to identify when historical events occurred by the designations ”C.E.” (Common Era) and “B.C.E.” (Before Common Era) in addition to the traditional B.C. and A.D.   The numbers don’t change one way or the other.  It’s equally accurate to say Julius Caesar [...]
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    Posted: November 17, 2009, 11:01am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Neologism Watch

    Number of comments: 1
    The New Oxford Dictionary has named “unfriend” as the 2009 Word of the Year.  Unfriend (v.)  The act of “remov[ing] someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.” An unlovely word, unfriend (wouldn’t “defriend” be more accurate?) beat out other tech terms for Word of the Year, including sexting, hashtag, and [...]
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    Posted: November 17, 2009, 8:49am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Core Knowledge Quiz: Springsteen Study Guide Edition

    Number of comments: 4
    When you’re 60-years-old and living on the road it’s easy to get disoriented.  Surely that explains why Bruce Springsteen shouted out “Hello, Ohio!” to the crowd at the Auburn Hills Palace in Michigan last Friday.  He mistakenly referred to the Buckeye State from the stage several times before one of [...]
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    Posted: November 17, 2009, 8:27am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Ed Blogger Named to Common Standards Panel

    Number of comments: 3
    A name familiar in edublog circles will serve on the newly announced “work groups” charged with developing K-12 standards in English Language Arts and math.  Diana Senechal, who contributes to the Core Knowledge Blog and pinch-hits at Joanne Jacobs’ blog has been named to the panel authoring the ELA standards.  Matt Davis, who along with Souzanne [...]
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    Posted: November 16, 2009, 8:10am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Congress to Consider Expanding Troops to Teachers Program

    Under a bill pending in Congress, 98% of U.S. schools would be eligible to hire retiring military personnel who will then be trained as educators under the federal “Troops to Teachers” program, McClatchy Newspapers reports: As currently designed, the program offers troops up to $5,000 to help them pay for their [...]
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    Posted: November 16, 2009, 7:55am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Are You Meeping Kidding Me?

    Number of comments: 1
    The town of Danvers, Massachusetts can now claim prideful ownership of two great overreactions in American history.  The first was the Salem Witch Trials.  The second?  Banning the word “meep” at Danvers High School.  Read it and meep. [...]
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    Posted: November 16, 2009, 7:51am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Winston Churchill, Developing Writer

    Number of comments: 7
    We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. A computerized program aimed at assessing student writing skills for English “A levels” deems passages by Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway and other [...]
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    Posted: November 12, 2009, 10:27am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Give It Away

    Number of comments: 1
    Tout le blogosphere is high dudgeon over a North Carolina middle school fundraiser offering an extra 20 points on two tests for a $20 donation.  All of those schools that have instituted “No Grade Below 50″ policies must be kicking themselves for leaving money on the table. [...]
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    Posted: November 12, 2009, 6:12am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Dan Willingham’s Hall of Shame

    Number of comments: 8
    Dan Willingham has debuted a new feature over the the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet blog aimed at debunking scientific claims made on behalf  of educational products.  The first case on the docket is a computer program called eyeQ, which purports to improve reading speed by teaching kids to use both [...]
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    Posted: November 11, 2009, 6:23am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • If It Sounds Too Bad To Be True…

    Number of comments: 4
    In September, this blog passed on the results of a survey of Oklahoma high school students whose lack of knowledge of basic civics strained credulity.  But not far enough, apparently.  Via Public School Insights comes word that the results of the survey were “likely fabricated.”  The survey by a firm called Strategic Vision [...]
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    Posted: November 10, 2009, 4:57pm EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Give Me Harvard or Give Me Death

    Parental anxiety is ruining playtime, notes the Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss.  It’s not news that lots of preschool parents have become “super-anxious trying to give their kids a leg up on kindergarten,” Strauss writes at The Answer Sheet.  “But I didn’t realize just how nutty things had become until I talked [...]
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    Posted: November 10, 2009, 8:44am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Are You Smarter Than a 1954 8th Grader?

    Number of comments: 6
    Quick.  How many current members of the President’s Cabinet can you name?  OK, how many Cabinet positions can you name, even if you don’t know the person in the office right now?  You know the 1st and 2nd Amendments, right?  How about No. 3 through 23?  Check out the 98 [...]
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    Posted: November 10, 2009, 8:04am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Gerald Bracey’s Last Testament

    You had to know that if any education commenter could make himself heard from beyond the grave, it would be Gerald Bracey.  He was working on his 18th annual Report on the Condition of Public Education when he passed away last month.  It’s out today.  It focuses on three specific reform [...]
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    Posted: November 09, 2009, 4:32pm EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Can Schools Be Sued for Failure to Educate?

    Number of comments: 3
    The ACLU is suing Florida’s governor, Board of Ed and other officials for “failing to ensure that students in Palm Beach County receive a high quality education.”   The state’s constitution requires Florida to provide a uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high quality education.  “Palm Beach County is clearly not upholding its [...]
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    Posted: November 09, 2009, 10:29am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Classroom Management Problems? Hire a Bouncer

    Number of comments: 10
    At Ed Policy Thoughts, Corey Bunje Bower looks at a letter to the editor in the New York Times from a former teacher, who suggests the way to improve public education is to hire a ‘bouncer’ for every classroom to handle disruptive students.  Corey is skeptical about the bouncer idea but points [...]
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    Posted: November 08, 2009, 10:55am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • If Bedtime is Book Time, Why Not “Morning Math?”

    Number of comments: 2
    The best idea I’ve heard in a long time comes courtesy of Lisa Guernsey of Early Ed Watch (where is Sara Mead, anyway?) who points out that every parent gets the idea that bedtime is book time, but what about math?  She’s encouraging parents “to build math moments into the morning routine, [...]
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    Posted: November 07, 2009, 5:26pm EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Core Knowledge Quiz: Ancient Egypt

    Number of comments: 6
    On this day in 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter sent a telegraph to his sponsor announcing he had discovered an undisturbed tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings.  His discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb stunned the world and revolutionized our understanding of Ancient Egypt.  Children encounter Egypt and other ancient civilizations [...]
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    Posted: November 06, 2009, 9:53am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Alter’s Ego

    Number of comments: 3
    A suggestion by Claus Von Zastrow of Public School Insights that pundits like Jonathan Alter who write about education be subject to performance pay attracted the notice of Alter, who has been mixing it up with commenters to the post.  It started when Von Zastrow took issue with Alter’s KIPP cheerleading [...]
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    Posted: November 05, 2009, 3:41pm EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • I Caught California Being Good!

    Number of comments: 3
    It’s the oldest trick in the elementary school classroom management book:  using positive reinforcement to get children to behave in the hope of earning a reward or recognition.  When it’s time to clean up before lunch the teacher says, “Let’s see who’s ready to line up first.  I’m looking to see [...]
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    Posted: November 05, 2009, 11:57am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • “And Thank You for Choosing Harvard University!”

    Number of comments: 4
    In most sectors of our economy, customer focus is paramount, as it should be in education, too. Customer focus could yield a more student-centric system through the development and dissemination of user-friendly “truth-in-education” information that helps students make “best-fit” choices regarding which education provider to select based on customer preferences [...]
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    Posted: November 03, 2009, 10:54am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Great Job! Go Sit on the Bench

    Jay Mathews thinks Arne Duncan shouldn’t be the Secretary of Education.  In fact, he looks at recent Ed Secys Bill Bennett, Rod Paige, Dick Riley, Margaret Spellings and Duncan and asks why do we have the job at all?  Their best work for kids, in my view, happened when they were NOT [...]
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    Posted: November 03, 2009, 9:13am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Einstein on the Fritz

    Interacting with Baby Einstein DVDs may not make your baby smarter. But interacting with Dan Willingham will make you smarter about the claims marketers make on behalf of educational products.  Dan’s take on the Baby Einstein flap is up at the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet blog.  ”Many parents already believe that visual [...]
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    Posted: November 02, 2009, 3:52pm EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • What Teacher Ed Should Look Like

    Number of comments: 10
    Teacher education programs should be selective, rigorous….and free, argues Susan Engel.  In a New York Times op-ed the psychologist and director of the teaching program at Williams College writes that admission to teacher ed programs should include “a stipend for the first three years of teaching in a public school.”  Once we [...]
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    Posted: November 02, 2009, 10:21am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio

  • Common Knowledge Newsletter

    Number of comments: 1
    The Common Knowledge newsletter, which digests the news about curriculum and teaching, education policy and other subjects of interest to the Core Knowedge community, is published each Friday during the school year.  Here’s this week’s newsletter. To subscribe and receive Common Knowledge via email, click here. Core Knowledge E. D. Hirsch’s Curriculum for Democracy City Journal If [...]
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    Posted: November 01, 2009, 10:02am EST
    by Robert Pondiscio
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