World News Center
Banging on the PK-16 Pipeline
March 11, 2010 Looking for this week's Class Struggle? You can find it on Jay's new blog at washingtonpost.com/class-struggle.
The Challenge Index: Compare incomes, college-level tests
March 11, 2010On this page, you see the results of the 12th annual Washington Post survey of high school student participation in college-level tests, what I call the Challenge Index. The ranked list of public schools -- both the Washington area version in The Post and the national version in Newsweek each June -- gets lots of attention, but the outrage and acclaim usually swirl around the issue of whether ranking schools is good for us.
Revised AP courses will emphasize concepts, not memorization
March 11, 2010If someone told you the College Board was about to rip apart the SAT and rebuild it, would that excite/surprise/aggravate/frighten you? Me too. It's about to happen, not to the SAT, but to our nation's second-most influential test, Advanced Placement, with large consequences for our high schools and colleges.
Class Struggle: Fix schools with ideas, not money
March 11, 2010President Obama is apparently about to tell the nation he wants to freeze federal spending for three years in several areas, including education. I like the idea. I would also support cutting back entitlement payments for financially secure geezers like me, and find ways for everyone to make some sacrifices for our country.
Five areas where colleges could use some schooling
March 11, 2010 My family has much experience in higher education, not all of it happy. I spent six years as an often-struggling undergraduate and grad student. My journalist wife did 10 years in higher ed, including three of what she considered hard labor as a visiting professor. Our kids add additional 11 years, with the youngest child about to sign up for three more. Please don't ask me what that will cost.
Local education reporting is alive and well
March 11, 2010Those of us who write about schools were supposed to rise in anger and frustration when the Brookings Institution revealed that during the first nine months of 2009 "only 1.4 percent of national news coverage from television, newspapers, news Web sites, and radio dealt with education." A headline on the Brookings Web site said: "Invisible: 1.4 Percent Coverage for Education is Not Enough."
Class Struggle: School boards shouldn't fear competition from charters
March 11, 2010Why are there so few public charter schools in the District's suburbs? It seems obvious. Virginia and Maryland let school boards decide whether somebody, or anybody, is going to get a charter to compete with their schools. It is a conflict of interest as bad as if The Post could overrule any new newspapers in the region.
What are the lessons in nonstandard teaching standards?
March 11, 2010A little-noticed but detailed study of teaching practices, reported by Robert Rothman in the November-December issue of the Harvard Education Letter, delivers a depressing message to keep in mind when reading anything about raising school achievement. I don't care if it's by an education school dean, a governor, the U.S. secretary of education or me. If this new study is true, then none of us knows what we are talking about.
Class Struggle: More freedom, fewer rules for gifted students?
March 11, 2010 My Dec. 10 column about that Washington area troublesome but gifted child, future billionaire Warren Buffett, said our schools are never going to help such kids much. I said the gifted designation was often arbitrary and should be disposed of. Instead, we ought to find ways to let all kids explore their talents.
In D.C. teacher assessments, details make a difference
March 11, 2010I am still receiving e-mails about my Nov. 23 column on Dan Goldfarb, the first teacher to share with me the results of an evaluation under the new D.C. teacher assessment plan, IMPACT.
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
www.thejoyfm.com
www.aspca.com
www.thebreastcancersite.com
www.defeatdiabetes.org
www.americanheart.org
