Charter schools are not a silver bullet for education reform, a new report says, but applying the best practices from some charter schools to low-performing public schools may increase student achievement, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Early data show that the strategy – applied in Houston and Denver pilot programs – yielded “promising” results, according to the report, titled “Learning from the Successes and Failures of Charter Schools” and released Thursday by the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution. The study could help improve cooperation between charter schools and traditional schools, which have often viewed each other as competitors. The debate about whether charter schools or traditional schools are more effective is a false one and misses the central point, said secretary of Education Arne Duncan at the Hamilton Project’s education forum Thursday in Washington…
…Read MorePodcast Series: Innovations in Education
Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.
Panel: STEM education crisis stems from unsupported teachers
According to a panel of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education experts and industry leaders, the United States is still falling short of producing the number of STEM graduates needed to fill 21st-century jobs—and panelists said the problem can be traced to to a lack of support for teachers.
At a Sept. 12 Brookings Institution forum in Washington, D.C., Rebecca Blank, acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, began the discussion by providing the latest data on the STEM workforce to help paint a current picture of STEM education in the United States.
The data, which come from a recent series of STEM reports published by the Economics & Statistics Administration, further confirm what education stakeholders widely know: blacks, Hispanics, and women tend to shy away from STEM careers, while white males and Asians are more likely to enter a STEM field. (For specific numbers and graphs, see the reports.) Blank said it’s not just important to encourage students to enter the STEM fields so that companies can benefit—it’s good for communities as well.…Read More
How school leaders can keep education in the news
A recent study from the Brookings Institution says education isn’t getting its fair share of national news coverage–and isn’t getting the right stories reported when it does.
In 2009, only 1.4 percent of all national news consisted of education-related stories, up slightly from 2008’s paltry 0.7 percent, according to the study.
Education stories that did get reported tended to focus on episodic events, such as last spring’s budget crisis or last fall’s H1N1 outbreak. “Periodic crime sprees” also topped national news reports.…Read More