January 2012
53 posts
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Sex Ed For Teens, Via Text →
Sex education is a thorny subject for most school systems; only 13 states specify that the medical components of the programs must be accurate. Shrinking budgets and competing academic subjects have helped push it down as a curriculum priority. In reaction, some health organizations and school districts are developing Web sites and texting services as cost-effective ways to reach adolescents in...
December 2011
91 posts
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts,...”
– Charles Bukowski (via burnthazel)
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Battling Anew Over the Place of Religion in Public... →
It has been nearly 50 years since the Supreme Court ruled that officially sponsored prayer in public schools violated the separation of church and state. But in some corners of the country, especially in the rural South, open prayer and Christian symbols have never really disappeared from schools, with what legal advocates call brazen violations of the law coming to light many times each year.
I,...
“Surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one...”
– Plato, Socrates in Apology (via distantheartbeats)
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Keeping College Students From the Polls →
Next fall, thousands of students on college campuses will attempt to register to vote and be turned away. Sorry, they will hear, you have an out-of-state driver’s license. Sorry, your college ID is not valid here. Sorry, we found out that you paid out-of-state tuition, so even though you do have a state driver’s license, you still can’t vote.
Political leaders should be encouraging young adults...
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With Flubaroo, You'll Never Have to Grade A Test... →
revolutionizeed:
Flubaroo is a free auto-grading tool that you can use with Google Spreadsheets to instantly assess your students. Students simply complete a fill-in-the-blank or multiple choice quiz or test and their grades are automatically compiled and available for viewing by the teacher, class, parents and whomever else the teacher chooses.
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The Chancellor and the Student, or, Speaking Truth... →
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Race To The Top: Round 3 →
Seven more states will receive $200 million in federal funds in the latest round of the Race to the Top competition, President Barack Obama’s controversial signature educational reform program, administration officials announced Friday.
Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey and Pennsylvania will bring the total of winning states up to 22, forming a critical mass of...
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Study Links Winning Football and Declining Grades →
infoneer-pulse:
When a college football team is successful, students put down their books and pick up some beers.
At least, that is the case made by three University of Oregon economists whose study was released this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
In examining the grade-point averages of the Oregon student body and the performance of the Ducks’ football team, the...
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Michigan: How Your Legislators Voted on Education →
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“The idea that we’re testing kids and we’re tying teachers salaries...”
– Matt Damon March 2011
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“Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.”
– Mark Twain (via schmingdoying)
“Let her be bored. Let her have long afternoons with absolutely nothing to do....”
– Make Your Kid A Writer (via creatingaquietmind)
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State school districts seek waiver to teacher... →
More than 40 percent of Michigan’s school districts are seeking waivers from a new state law requiring them to adopt a uniform teacher evaluation system by 2013.
“In virtually every case, the existing evaluation systems do not meet the requirements of (the law),” Schornack said.
Lawmakers in July approved changes to the state’s teacher tenure system that make it easier to...
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Download 20 Popular High School Books Available as... →
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“Let us teach ourselves and others that politics should be an expression of a...”
– Vaclav Havel (via azspot)
1936~2011
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The 45 Worst Fox News Moments Of 2011 →
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American Jobs Act: Estimated Impact Per District →
The Department of Labor reports that nearly 200,000 educators have lost their jobs in the past 12 months and the Council of Economic Advisers estimates another 280,000 are at risk of being laid off in the coming year. President Obama’s American Jobs Act proposal would invest $30 billion to enable up to 400,000 educators to continue teaching, helping our students learn.
The President’s September...
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Middle Grades Matter →
“You teach middle school? Why?!”
Source: Official DOE Blog 11/17/11
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Live in Michigan? See how many homeless students... →
The number of homeless students in Michigan public schools increased by 37% between the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years.
Local districts report that about 2% of students in Michigan’s public schools last year were either living with family or friends, living in a shelter, hotel/motel, or were unsheltered, sleeping on the streets or in a car.
Search this database to find the number of homeless...
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Should Portfolios Replace Placement Tests? →
infoneer-pulse:
How do we know if a student is ready for high school algebra—or college-level English or math? Most K-12 schools and universities rely on placement tests, high-stakes standardized exams, to decide. And, if you don’t do well on that single test, you’re out of luck.
At the college level, one third of students—even those who earned A’s and B’s in high school—have to take remedial...
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Rules to Stop Pupil and Teacher From Getting Too... →
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If I Were a Middle Class White Guy Writing About... →
A response to Gene Marks’s “If I Were A Poor Black Kid” in Forbes
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Why Are the Rich So Interested in Public-School... →
Thinking structurally about social ills, rejecting excessive individualism for community-based, it-takes-a-village-style responsibility, has been out of favor in America for a long time. In education reform, what’s been in style instead is vilifying teachers and their unions. For some schools, making the grade has meant cooking the books to show results. Let’s hope that the time to reform this...
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“Letting morality get in the way of making money. I might as well go and be a...”
– Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock (via thesumofeverything)
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“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in...”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson (via intervals)
exactly.
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Great Education Hashtags to Follow on Twitter →
kbkonnected:
via @teachersharetp
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“Teaching is not a matter of (as we too often say) ‘making a subject (poetry,...”
– GARY GUTTING from What is College for? (via scarofthoughts)
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Watch“The biggest complaint I hear from teachers, and by teachers I mean my mom… A) Why did you wear that shirt? and B) the teaching to the test. This idea that this Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind, these benchmarks that have been given from Washington have caused schools to focus entirely on whatever benchmark or requirement they need to get funding, and it has removed from education the,...
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Polemicist Who Slashed All, Freely, With Wit →
[Hitchens] was a master of the extended peroration, peppered with literary allusions, and of the bright, off-the-cuff remark…
He also threw himself into the defense of his friend Mr. Rushdie. “It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved,” he wrote in his memoir. “In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship,...
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U-M's Mary Sue Coleman Writes Obama On College... →
The latest news from my alma mater.
Read Coleman’s open letter to Obama: http://www.umich.edu/pres/speech/commentary/111215obama.php
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5 Student-Driven Projects That Engage Higher-Level... →
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Report: half of schools fail federal standards →
infoneer-pulse:
Nearly half of America’s public schools didn’t meet federal achievement standards this year, marking the largest failure rate since the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Law took effect a decade ago, according to a national report released Thursday.
The Center on Education Policy report shows more than 43,000 schools — or 48 percent — did not make “adequate yearly progress”...
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“In a democracy we have always had to worry about the ignorance of the...”
– Thomas Sowell
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