EducationNews Commentaries and Reports

In Defense of Testing Series: Censorship & Braggadocio File
In Defense of Testing Series - ThirdEducationGroup.org
Third Education Group is assembling a Censorship & Braggadocio File that includes examples of education researchers making erroneous claims of "first-ever" studies or declaring an extant research literature nonexistent.

Is Poverty is the Problem for the Lack of Academic Achievement?
The Forum for Education and Democracy
The Forum’s work is that of a ‘reality based’ policy think tank concerned with educational policy that will support strong public schools. We have many friends in that work, and one of them is Mike Rose. In case you haven’t met him, we thought we would introduce you to his work in this week’s newsletter.

Children’s Summer Learning Can Be Even Better Than School
By Dorothy Rich
Columnist EducationNews.org
Mostly, schools still run on a agricultural schedule as if there were plenty of cows for kids to milk and fields to be harvested. In a way, for families it was easier then, even when the work was backbreaking. Kids were kept busy, and the family was around to keep an eye on them. And, everyone in the family felt important and needed to keep life going.

When Diversity Becomes Divisive
by Terry Lawler
Columnist EducationNews.org
The other day I Googled the word “diversity.” As I expected, I was regaled with pages of Internet sites, many touting diversity programs and strategies designed to improve interaction between students . The way to make this improvement, say the experts, is to educate one segment of the student population as to the ways in which another segment differs from them.

Bloom off the Rose
American Spectator
By RiShawn Biddle
NEW YORK -- Michael Bloomberg isn't getting a lot of help these days in securing his legacy as mayor of New York City. The state's otherwise dysfunctional legislature and new Gov. David Paterson dealt a blow to Bloomberg's school reform agenda last month when they essentially banned the use of test scores and other student data in evaluating the performance of new teachers.
NY LEFT BACK IN TOP-SCHOOL RANKING

Stopping Adult Illiteracy at the Source
Tom Sticht
Columnist EducationNews.org
In 2003, the National Assessment of Adult Literacy from the U. S. Department of Education indicated that as many as 5 percent of adults over the age of 16 were non-literate in English (that's 11 million adults), 14 percent (30 million)were below basic in literacy, and another 29 percent (63 million) possessed only basic literacy skills.

Psychiatric Help 5¢
Will Fitzhugh
Columnist EducationNews.org
In Peanuts, when we see Lucy offering Psychiatric Help for a nickel, we know it is a joke: ("The Psychiatrist is IN"), but when English teachers in the schools insist that students write about the most intimate details of their private lives for school assignments, that is not a joke, it is an unwarranted intrusion.

Public School Questions
David W. Kirkpatrick
Columnist EducationNews.org
WHY is certification required for those who teach in the public schools but not for the education professors who teach others to teach in the public schools?WHY does schooling require more certification credentials than any other profession -- to teach at the elementary level, to teach at the secondary level, to be an elementary school principal, to be a secondary school principal, to be a superintendent, ad infinitum?

Read A Book, Get Charged With Racial Harassment
NewsWithViews
by Selwyn Duke
The affirmative-action officer – who draws a salary of $106, 000 a year to perform her crucial role and is obviously a woman of inestimable intellect – neither examined the book nor spoke with Sampson. He wasn't guilty before proven innocent. He was just guilty.

An Interview with Margie Gillis : The Haskins Literacy Initiative
Michael F. Shaughnessy
Senior Columnist EducationNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University
First of all, what exactly is this Haskins Literacy Initiative? Haskins Literacy Initiative promotes the science of teaching reading in three main ways. First, we provide comprehensive professional development, coaching and classroom support to make teachers masters of effective literacy practices. Teachers, not programs, teach children to read.

2008 Fordham Scholars Announced
Three recipients each receive $25,000 to pursue research on the courts and K-12 education
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Washington’s premier education think tank, is pleased to announce the inaugural winners of its new research grant program for promising young scholars, to be known as Fordham Scholars. This program funds doctoral candidates and junior faculty studying key issues in education.

The promise and perils of federal leadership
Looking Beyond the Reading First Controversy
EducationNex
By Shepard Barbash
“Reading First is the most effective federal program in history.” So reads the opening line of a report that Alabama superintendent of education Joseph Morton sent to his congressional delegation last June, in which he recounts how the program has raised reading achievement for poor students in his charge.
Interview with Reid Lyon: Reading First is the largest concerted reading intervention program in the history of the civilized world

An Interview with Robert Mancusi : Voice for Non-Majors
Michael F. Shaughnessy
Senior Columnist EducationNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University
I understand that you have just published a textbook called Voice for Non Majors. What led you to write such a book? When I first began teaching Class Voice (essentially voice training in a classroom setting), I looked at a number of textbooks. There are many fine books out there. However, I noticed that they seemed to be designed for the students who were just starting and wanted to pursue singing as a career.

Peerless Educator: The Life and Work of Isaac Leon Kandel
EducationNext
Isaac Kandel was an eminent professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University, during its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1940s, when an American commission, made up mainly of university presidents, was asked to reconstitute the education system of a defeated Japan, Isaac Kandel was one of two Teachers College professors selected to serve.

An Interview with Kevin Donnelly: The Atlanta Experience
Michael F. Shaughnessy
Senior Columnist EducationNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University
Kevin, I understand that you have just returned from a conference in Atlanta. What was the main theme of the conference? The main themes of the conference in Atlanta, Georgia I recently attended (24th -27 April) related to promoting a conservative, free-market view of society and promoting the work of think-tanks around the world and in the US.

In Defense of Testing Series: Censorship & Braggadocio File
In Defense of Testing Series - ThirdEducationGroup.org
Third Education Group is assembling a Censorship & Braggadocio File that includes examples of education researchers making erroneous claims of "first-ever" studies or declaring an extant research literature nonexistent.

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