This Week's Features: Think It Over 
When Teaching the Right Answers Is the Wrong Direction
What Is Critical Thinking?
In the past three years, the government has provided the nation's schools with millions of pounds of beef and chicken that wouldn't meet the quality or safety standards of many fast-food restaurants, from Jack in the Box and other burger places to chicken chains such as KFC, a USA TODAY investigation found. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the meat it buys for the National School Lunch Program "meets or exceeds standards in commercial products."
That isn't always the case. Continue reading here...
Why it is important to get the parent perspective...The survey asked low-income parents and students to rank the main aims of high school, and 42 percent of the parents and 48 percent of the students put college preparation at the top. Only nine percent of teachers did the same.
The study points up a host of other interesting dynamics, some of which are depressingly familiar refrains from other studies. Here is one: seven in 10 students reported strong intentions to attend college, but fewer than three in 10 said they felt prepared to handle the coursework. Only six in 10 teachers expressed confidence that they know what students really need to be prepared for college.
Ontario's government is conducting a sweeping review of curriculum from Grades 1 to 8 to fix what educators charge is an overcrowded jumble of disconnected facts that fail to prepare the province's students for the future.It is the first overhaul designed to weed out some of the staggering 3,400 "expectations" built into the new curriculum designed 10 years ago when Grade 13 was abolished. Read on here...
By Debra ViaderoMany educators and parents would agree that it’s important for parents to spend time in their children’s classrooms, to closely monitor homework, or to read to children at home.
Try telling that, though, to a 13-year-old, argues Harvard University researcher Nancy E. Hill.
One out of four school children in the U.S. has vision problems, and 86% do not get their vision checked before age 12.
Interesting commentary by Ron Steiger, who is the assistant chief budget officer for the Miami-Dade County school system, in Miami.
Lawmakers leave Albany without deal to cut deficit ALBANY — State lawmakers returned Tuesday to Albany, collected their per diems, ate free lunches, huddled with lobbyists and met with each other in private. But they were unable to accomplish the chief task that brought them back to the Capitol: budget repair. If you want to bother reading on...
A report card issued Monday on state-level innovation in education found what a trio of ideologically varied groups sees as deeply disturbing results, with most states earning C’s, D’s, or even F’s in such key areas as technology, high school quality, and removal of ineffective teachers. The report, “Leaders and Laggards,” uses state data and existing and original research to assign letter grades to states, based on seven indicators of innovation: school management, finance, hiring and evaluation of teachers, removal of ineffective teachers, data, “pipeline to postsecondary” (or high school quality), and technology.
Though the report does not give states overall grades, the worst marks are in the category of removing ineffective teachers. But most states got C’s and D’s in the other categories. Continue reading here...
Click on map above to go to interactive map
By John Jensen, Ph.D.Today I watched while a large group of senior high school girls and boys argued loudly about why they didn't get along. Girls blamed the boys and boys blamed the girls. Neither was interested in how the other saw the situation, nor in careful listening to the other side, nor in any understanding of problem-solving. No one suggested that their own behavior might contribute to a problem. The single intent evidently shared by everyone was simply "Who is to blame?"
It dawned on me that this argument played out "the elephant in the living room" of US education, the unspoken presence that everyone knows about and no one addresses. It was the presence of irrationality driven by unmanaged emotion. Allowed to have its way, it demonstrates as does nothing else why education produces poor results so often, and also why the customary aims of education fall short. Continue on...
Visit EDUTOPIA.org video library for lots of short videos on schools, programs, parent involvement, project based learning, lunch programs,....you will find something worth watching HERE
"High expectations" is the mantra of today’s school reformers, who are convinced that the trouble with public education is that students have been allowed to slide by with little effort. Their version of high expectations is requiring college-preparatory courses, advanced subject matter, more-difficult assignments, and a longer school day and year for all students. They believe that research and the records of selected schools show that demanding more of students brings the desired results. But do they understand the research, or know what successful schools really do?
The original research on teacher expectations tells a far different story from what today’s reformers are calling for. More than 40 years ago, an experiment in a California elementary school that produced what was called, the “Pygmalion Effect”: the amazing transformation of an ordinary person into someone special. READ ON...
Teacher Contract Called Potential Model for Nation
Students feel significant levels of stress about schoolwork as early as elementary school reveals a new survey in Highlights, the children's magazine . When asked, “What is your biggest problem right now?,” 23.4 percent of kids ages five and older responded “schoolwork,” according to Highlights’ “State of the Kid” Survey, which was released September 30.
In scheduling 17 furlough days that will shut down Hawaii's public schools, the Department of Education and the Hawaii State Teachers Association agreed not to use any of the six available waiver and professional development days to offset the loss of instructional time or relieve parents of child-care worries.
the Great Schools blog good place to find out the latest education news from all over the place...
It's the mystery of mysteries -- especially to parents -- the unpredictable and sometimes incomprehensible moods and behaviors of the American teenager. Generations of adults have pondered its cause. Hormones? Rock music? Boredom? Drugs? In "Inside the Teenage Brain," FRONTLINE chronicles how scientists are exploring the recesses of the brain and finding some new explanations for why adolescents behave the way they do. These discoveries could change the way we parent, teach, or perhaps even understand our teenagers.
Click on image on image on left to go to interactive site
Building parent involvement is the single most important thing that parent groups do. Often, it's the most difficult, too. And that's too bad because there are many compelling reasons why parents—all parents—should get involved in their children's education. If you're having trouble building involvement, the problem might be that you're not making the right argument. You simply need better ammunition.
According to a recent study by the Education Trust, the United States is now the only industrialized country where youths are less likely than their parents to earn a high school diploma. What’s being referred to nationally as the “silent epidemic” has ramifications for individuals and communities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts few of us can imagine. From February — April 2009, public broadcasters WGBH and WBUR focused a journalistic lens on the dropout crisis in Massachusetts. They invite you to follow student video diaries on our website....Visit Website here to watch student stories.
Excerpt from letter to the Bridging Differences blog at EdWeek...1. Reading the newspapers or non-fiction magazines—or their equivalent. Being able to report to others on stories, engage in a discussion about them, and write a letter to the editor and op-ed column on a few with which they disagree. Maybe on two levels—one at around ages 11-12 and the other at 16-18.
2. Sufficient mathematics to make sense of what they find in the media—statistics, probabilities, forms of graphing, percentages, et al to a high degree of sophistication by the time they are 16. Basic arithmetic computation by 13.
Continue Reading Here
Mark C. Schug, Ph. D., is professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukeeand is former director of the UWM Center for Economic Education.
As students across the country get back to school, I got to thinking: Will our young people learn enough math and science to help keep America productive? It seems unlikely.
International comparisons reveal that American 15-year-olds score near the bottom on standardized tests in math and science. Out of the 30 member nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, American students ranked 25th in math and 21st in science.
Why are our students lagging so far behind? One rarely discussed factor is the dysfunctional labor market for hiring teachers. Continue reading here...
Bridging Differences is a blog to discuss the policies of improving schools and offers insights on what matters most in education.
Moving Beyond the Conventional Wisdom of Whole-District Reform
The British tend to create very graphic Public Service Announcements. This PSA on the dangers of texting while driving is disturbing and rightfully so. And it might be good for adults to take heed as well. It is not just teens texting but adults as well, or trying to, and for those folks who don't realize that trying to dial or read through their phone menu while driving is also "texting" then you to need to watch this PSA.
Click on graphic on left to go to a map of the U.S. then pick a state and view video list of colleges to choose from.
The single most important thing a teacher must do is manage the learning state of his or her students. Twenty minutes is probably the maximum time that most people can stay in a positive learning state without a change of stimulus. Most students may even be aware that they have moved down the spectrum from a positive learning state to a feeling of the brain being out to lunch! An effective teacher is aware of the looks on the faces of students, the squirming, and general disinterest. These teachers are always scanning the class for signs of learning fatigue and know what to do to ameliorate the problem. Read on...
If Junior is coming home with poor grades, it might be worth checking how well he can see. With nearly one in four children having vision problems, experts say many children with academic issues actually could be having trouble because they can't see up close to read or can't see far enough to make out what's on the board. Read on here...
By Daniel PinkIn school, problems almost always are clearly defined, confined to a single discipline, and have one right answer.
But in the workplace, they’re practically the opposite. Problems are usually poorly defined, multi-disciplinary, and have several possible answers, none of them perfect.
Are timed, standardized tests the way to ready youngsters for real-world problem-solving?
Business leaders seem to think otherwise. Look at the chart below, drawn from research done by the AASA and Americans for the Arts, about how employers and school superintendents (who might have the hardest jobs in America –Ed.) define “creativity.” There’s a fair bit of alignment — but employers seem more concerned with how employees can frame problems and whether they’re comfortable with the absence of a “right” answer.
Visit Author Daniel Pink's site here...
A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future charts the rise of right-brain thinking in modern economies and describes the six abilities individuals and organizations must master in an outsourced, automated age.
Topics posed and answered by many such as...
If there was any doubt that the Obama administration was going to be aggressive on the teacher-quality front, it was put to rest by the Race to the Top application guidelines released today. The new federal push is clearly on ways to measure teachers' effectiveness and create systems to help them improve, all as defined by their performance with students.
A new report has found little correlation between increased teacher pay for earning advanced degrees and improved student achievement. The report suggests that the $8 billion states spend annually rewarding teachers for advanced degrees could be spent more effectively on other academic-improvement efforts.
This is an interesting, quick read. It will make you wonder, if not already, if there are aspects of our society (and educational system) that are working more against our kids then for our kids. Here's a review form Publishers Weekly about the book.... 
