RiShawn Biddle – Twenty-seven percent of New Jersey's 17-to-20 year old high school grads applying to enter the military flunked the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, the test potential recruits must take for successful enlistment. Essentially, one out of every four Garden State residents — including 34 percent of young black and Latino recruits –

Michael F. Shaughnessy – Information, media and technology skills are major themes identified in the 21st century learning skills and core subjects. PebbleGo features the ability to cite specific articles in both databases.

Richard D. Kahlenberg – In our recent education debate, Jay Mathews and I disagreed on attrition rates at the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP charter schools. Here's Richard Kahlenberg's look at who was right and why.

Michael F. Shaughnessy – I don’t insist on any one definition of “reading”; I know the word means different things in different contexts. Sometimes, simply reading whole words out loud, by memory, suffices (as when we want to encourage a beginner: “you’re reading!”).

Howard Nemerov – Our public education system is failing because government is under no obligation to serve you. When the education system and military fail, what will you do?

Martin Frost – While people are justifiably praising President Obama for his string of victories during the lame-duck session of Congress, there were several items left undone by his administration during its first two years that sorely need addressing during the remainder of his first term. Chief among this is improving the state of public education in this country.

Peter Wood – The more license faculty members take to act like political agents in the classroom, the more society will treat them as just that.

Harvard University Professor Stephan Thernstrom’s recent essay, “Minorities in College — Good News, But…,” in Minding the Campus, a website sponsored by the New York-based Manhattan Institute, commented on the results of the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress test:

Michael F. Shaughnessy – Having taught mathematics (both pure and applied maths) to mathematicians, physicists and engineers over the past 40 years it is perfectly clear that today’s undergraduates enter Higher Education far less mathematically prepared (in both pure and applied maths) than did their predecessors in the 1960’s to 1980’s

Laurie H. Rogers – I've been trying for five weeks to get a clear answer from administrators in Spokane, WA, on whether they will replace the district's K-8 reform math materials. $544,000 worth of administration refuses to answer definitively or on the record. Far from having my back on this, the board president appears to blame me.

Conventional wisdom holds that boys excel in math and girls in reading. Truth be told, boys excel in neither, according to a report released this month by the Center for Education Policy. The report, which analyzes test results from 40 states, reveals that boys lag well behind girls in literacy skills – while only tying them in math.

Janet Poppendieck | Maybe kids will eat vegetables. When President Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act on Monday, he joked that if he hadn't been able to get the bill passed he would have been "sleeping on the couch."

More than a month after shocking the city with news of her appointment as the next schools chancellor, Hearst executive Cathleen Black is still trying to calm people down.

M.J.Maddox, Ph.D. – Student rioting in London over the hike in tuition that will raise the limit from £3,000 per year to £9,000 per year ($4,752.88 to $14,258.64) underscores the urgency of improving the ability of our elementary and secondary schools to deliver a form of adult literacy.

Marcos Breton – As a young person, whenever I was asked about my heritage, I'd flatly declare that I was Mexican.

Susan Ohanian – First I'd like to explain the scarf I'm wearing. I was visiting the Metropolitan Museum in New York and it jumped out at me. The design on the scarf is baed on a 13th century scroll at the Met. Yelu Chucai, a prominent statesman under the Mongol Khans. "Poem of Farewell to Liu Man," 1240, pleads for humanitarian rule and ends with these words: "Despotic officials and shyster underofficials, may they feel ashamed."

Will Fitzhugh – Today, The Boston Globe published the latest in a long series of special “All-Scholastics” 14-page (12×22-inch) supplements on good local high school athletes from a variety of sports. These celebrations are produced three times a year (42 pages) with lots of pictures and little bios and lists of all-stars from the Boston area.

Jack Stripling – Researchers look at common ideas to improve degree completion, and find that popular strategies like cutting class size may not be cost-effective.

Steve Balch – How the federal government threatens the future of the sole voice representing traditional liberal education among accrediting agencies.

Ashley Thorne – A CSU-Chico faculty book club will read a book by an Iowa State professor who advances a pedagogy "that encompasses wholeness, multiculturalism, and contemplative practice, [...] and helps students to become social change agents.”