Archive for the ‘News that matters’ Category

Some States Will be Left Behind (SSWLB?)

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

Education Week reports that Hawaii’s teacher furlough might affect the state’s chances of wining part of the federal government’s Race to the top grant money. The article notes that fewer than half of the states are likely to win money. The grant process, just released, will funnel $4 billion to the winning states. Information that has been released about the process has already caused several states to rescind laws that prevent using results of state tests to evaluate teachers. Stay tuned to this blog for news on Race to the Top as it becomes available. Here is the link for the entire Education Week article.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/11/12/313413hiteacherfurloughs_ap.html?tkn=RSTFNJdV1%2Fuwf993yvUL6579oR1kR5GRR3Jx

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The Rise of the New Groupthink – Collaboration May Be Over Rated

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

The Rise Of the New Groupthink by Susan Cain (New York Times, January, 15, 2012, pp. 1, 6 Business Section) explains how there might be an overemphasis on collaboration in business and school settings that is hurting creativity. Working together is fine, but you need to provide for quiet time for people to work alone and avoid too much in the way of get togethers. This has implications for building design and explains why standard brain storming techniques are counter productive. It is rare for me to summarize a newspaper article, but this is a must read. Here is the link to the article.

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What if colleges had to meet NCLB standards

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Its a good thing that many public universities don’t have to worry about graduation rates like high schools do. A recent study of 68 colleges show many have graduation rates below 50%. The best schools have the highest rates and poor student don’t do as well. Freshmen are less expensive to educate than seniors due to class size which gives schools a financial incentive to produce drop outs. Graduates make 54% more than those with some college but too many see no reason to finish in four years.

Click here to download the article in the New York Times from 9/9/2009.

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