What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
Helsinki, Finland High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don't start school until age 7. Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries. The Finns won attention with their performances in triennial tests sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group funded by 30 countries that monitors social and economic trends. The academic prowess of Finland's students has lured educators from more than 50 countries in recent years to learn the country's secret, including an official from the U.S. Trailing 15-year-old Fanny Salo at Norssi gives a glimpse of the no-frills curriculum. Mr.
Is It Time We Threw Standardized Testing Out the Door?
Dr. Mark Naison is involved in a movement he hopes will change the American education system. A professor of African-American studies and history at New York’s Fordham University, Naison wants to see less standardized tests in the classroom. “You should organize the school experience around what excites and energizes children—the arts, music, physical activity, hands-on science, collaborative learning—and do project-based assessment by teachers and school administrators, with standardized tests on a state or national level reduced to a minimum,” Naison told TakePart. He isn’t alone. At Seattle’s Garfield High School, for example, teachers took the bold step of voting unanimously in January to boycott a series of district-mandated tests. But it’s not just Seattle where protests are occurring. In Rhode Island, high school students dressed like zombies delivered a letter to Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee that criticized the use of an assessment exam as a requirement for graduation.
The Benefits of Character Education - Jessica Lahey
Jessica Lahey When I signed on to teach English at a core virtues school, I had no idea what I was in for. I nodded and smiled in my interview when the Headmaster explained the virtues curriculum, and I parried back with everything I thought she wanted to hear; how I could infuse my lessons on To Kill a Mockingbird with discussions about empathy and courage. I may have even quoted Atticus' line about walking around in someone else's skin. I figured I could tack on some of that quaint "virtue" stuff before getting to the real meat of the lesson, the academic stuff. And for the first year I taught at Crossroads Academy, that's pretty much what I did. I mean come on. Somewhere along the way, someone must have started dosing me with the character education Kool-Aid, because five years in, I have come to understand what real character education looks like and what it can do for children. American schools used to focus on character education and civic virtue.
Common Core
In copying the response of Hart Research, I inadvertently copied only part of Guy Moyneaux’s comments. Here is his full response: TO:American Federation of Teachers FROM:Guy Molyneux, Hart Research Associates DATE:May 10, 2013 RE:Methodology for Common Core Survey Following are some facts about the methodology for AFT’s recent survey of AFT K-12 teachers on Common Core implementation that may help to answer the criticisms and questions raised by Mercedes Schneider. Schneider’s objections speak to two distinct questions: 1) does the survey reflect the views of AFT K-12 teachers? In fact, it is likely that a survey of all U.S. teachers would report results broadly similar to what we found among AFT members, for reasons explained below. • The survey employed a standard sampling methodology, used in countless surveys by many polling organizations. • A sample size of 800 teachers is appropriate and common. • The survey sample is demographically similar to the population of AFT teachers.
Scrap the MAP! | Solidarity with Seattle teachers boycotting the MAP test
In Testing, a Principal Leans on Her Experience
As principal, it is her job to make sure children learn (94.9 percent of the fourth graders were proficient on the 2012 state math test); hire talented teachers (Antoinette Byam, for one, has been awarded grants to study in Ghana, Peru and Mexico and used the research to develop a fifth-grade curriculum on Mayan culture); create an environment where good teachers thrive (the turnover rate is 4 percent ); and encourage families to be involved (she holds weekly breakfasts with parents.) She also believes it is her job is to shield students, teachers and parents from the state’s ever-expanding standardized testing system and to question its reliability publicly. “At my age, I’ve seen so many education fads come and go,” she says. “It gives me the confidence to trust what we’re doing here.” In a letter to parents in April she criticized the newly developed tests as too hard, too confusing and too long. The P.S. 146 fourth-grade classes where 94.9 percent were proficient in math last year?
PPS Focus on Diversity - Courageous Conversations about Race 3/20/12
Place-based education
Place-based education, sometimes called pedagogy of place, place-based learning, experiential education, community-based education, education for sustainability, environmental education or more rarely, service learning, is an educational philosophy developed initially by The Orion Society, [1] a Massachusetts based nonprofit organization, as well as Professor David Sobel, Project Director at Antioch University New England though educators have used its principles for decades. The term was coined in the early 1990s by Laurie Lane-Zucker of The Orion Society and Dr. John Elder of Middlebury College. Orion's early work in the area of place-based education was funded by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. Place-based education is often hands-on, project-based and always related to something in the real world. Byron Fellowship is a place-based learning experience built around sustainable community development. Place-based education in schools[edit] References[edit] External links[edit]
The Trouble With Common Core - Stan Karp speaks in Portland Oregon
Common Core Standards - Fact and Fiction
When Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Meddle with Education, Students Lose & Billionaires Gain - Schools
Is the Gates Foundation helping or hurting the country's education system? Read how it has affected Boston schools. By John Radosta, a Boston Public School parent The legend of Bill Gates and his rise from college dropout to billionaire is fixed in everyone’s mind. What is it about Bill Gates, along with the bulk of advocates for corporate “Ed Reform” that makes him such an expert on what’s wrong with our public schools? I don’t think it’s his personal experience attending the horrific (or heroic, if you look at what Garfield High teachers have accomplished over the past year) Seattle Public Schools. You would think that, having attended this kind of school, and trusting it to educate his own children, Gates would support similar programs for all students. So just where has the Gates Foundation spent its money? Taking apart Boston’s High Schools Several years ago, perhaps thinking of his own school days, Bill Gates decided that smaller high schools were better than large ones. inBloom
