Humanities committee sounds an alarm
The New York Times reports that a new national corps of “master teachers” trained in the humanities and social sciences and increased support for research in “endangered” liberal…
New York Times
Tablets in Dutch schools usher in a new era
Some of Robin Smorenberg’s students were shooting aliens on their iPads, The New York Times reports.
Who’s minding the schools?
In April, some 1.2 million New York students took their first Common Core State Standards tests, which are supposed to assess their knowledge and thinking on topics such…
G.O.P. bill on schools would set fewer rules
Signaling a preference for a much smaller role for the federal government in public schooling, Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, is introducing legislation on Thursday to revise…
Bill to alter Bush-era education law gives states more room
Renewing the effort to revise No Child Left Behind, the signature Bush-era federal education law, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, introduced a new version on June 4…
Protests fail to deter Chicago from shutting 49 schools
The New York Times reports that officials here in the third-largest district in the country voted Wednesday, after an emotional meeting, to close 49 public schools that they…
Schools add to test load, just to assess the questions
English tests? Check. Math tests? Check. Summer vacation? Not so fast. Students in New York State sweated their way through some of the toughest exams in state history…
On education, Thompson tries to set himself apart
The New York Times reports that he would keep mayoral control of the New York City school system, but relinquish control of the board that approves educational policy.
What kind of ‘Little Free Library’ would you create for your community?
They look like trellises and fishtanks, spacesuits and mailboxes, the New York Times reports.
ACT to move toward computer-based testing
The New York Times reports that high school students will take the ACT college admissions exam by computer starting in the spring of 2015 — but at least…
Stories of struggle and creativity as sequestration cuts hit home
The New York Times reports that facing the task of cutting 142 children from the Head Start program in Colorado Springs this fall, the teachers and administrators came…
Figuring out how to give teachers useful feedback
When Texas lawmakers rolled out a framework for evaluating public schoolteachers more than 15 years ago, they intended to identify ways to strengthen the state’s teaching corps, The…
A science star already, tinkering with the idea of growing up
Sylvia Todd’s desk is not tidy. It’s cluttered with small robots (including a solar-powered grasshopper), motors, wires, resistors, a soldering iron and an array of other gadgets and…
Criminalizing children at school
The New York Times Editorial Board writes that the National Rifle Association and President Obama responded to the Newtown, Conn., shootings by recommending that more police officers be…
Brown University creates online course for high school students
The New York Times reports that when Yaser S. Abu-Mostafa, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the California Institute of Technology, began promoting his online…
A Missouri school trains its teachers to carry guns, and most parents approve
At 8:30 on a cloudy, frigid morning late last month in this folksy Ozark town, the superintendent of an area school strolled through the glass doors of the…
New guidelines call for broad changes in science education
The New York Times reports that educators unveiled new guidelines on Tuesday that call for sweeping changes in the way science is taught in the United States —…
‘Hackathons’ to create education apps
The New York Times reports that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Facebook plans to hold two “hackathons” this month, bringing together software developers and educators to…
Could Google someday answer all your questions?
In a front-page article in The New York Times on Thursday, I wrote that web search is at its biggest crossroad since its invention, as users demand more…
Opening up, students transform a vicious circle
There is little down time in Eric Butler’s classroom, The New York Times reports.
More diagnoses of hyperactivity in new C.D.C. data
The New York Times reports that nearly one in five high school age boys in the United States and 11 percent of school-age children over all have received…
Providence is top city in contest of ideas
When Angel Taveras, the mayor of Providence, R.I., got wind of a lucrative contest among mayors over ideas for improving their cities, his mind turned immediately to children,…
Advocacy group to monitor reform efforts in public schools
Diane Ravitch, the historian and former assistant education secretary who has become an outspoken critic of those who favor high-stakes testing, tenure reforms and other controversial measures aimed…
In Alabama, a model for Obama’s push to expand preschool
President Obama’s call in his State of the Union address to “make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America” rallied advocates across the country who have…
Parents’ financial support may not help college grades
Parents saving for college costs, take heed: A new national study has found that the more college money parents provide — whether in absolute terms or as a…
Students rush to web classes, but profits may be much later
In August, four months after Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng started the online education company Coursera, its free college courses had drawn in a million users, a faster…
StudentsFirst gives 12 states failing grades on school policies
In just a few short years, state legislatures and education agencies across the country have sought to transform American public education by passing a series of laws and…
An idea promised the sky, but India is still waiting
The idea was, and still is, captivating: in 2011, the Indian government and two Indian-born tech entrepreneurs unveiled a $50 tablet computer, to be built in India with…
Florida may reduce tuition for select majors
Rick Scott, businessman turned politician, campaigned for governor in 2010 with promises to run Florida like a successful business — more efficiency, lower costs, less hand-wringing and measurable…
The great divide, now in the toy aisle
Earlier this year, at the 109th Annual American International Toy Fair, held at the Javits Convention Center as one of the culture’s most convincing cases for childlessness, a…
For young Latino readers, an image is missing
Like many of his third-grade classmates, Mario Cortez-Pacheco likes reading the “Magic Tree House” series, about a brother and a sister who take adventurous trips back in time.…
Educator aided others at cheating, U.S. charges
Federal prosecutors in Memphis are investigating an educator who they say ran a test cheating ring in three Southern states for teachers and prospective teachers who wanted to…
A class where opening minds, not earning credits, is the point
Tuvan throat singing was never in my repertoire, says Tamar Lewin for the New York Times.
Financial worries pile on long before graduation
Money troubles interfere with the academic performance of about one-third of all college students, and a similar number of students regularly skip buying required academic materials because of…
Swedish school’s big lesson begins with dropping personal pronouns
At an ocher-color preschool along a lane in Stockholm’s Old Town, the teachers avoid the pronouns “him” and “her,” instead calling their 115 toddlers simply “friends,” the New…
Technology changing how students learn, teachers say
There is a widespread belief among teachers that students’ constant use of digital technology is hampering their attention spans and ability to persevere in the face of challenging…
For Asians, school tests are vital steppingstones
Ting Shi said his first two years in the United States were wretched. He slept in a bunk bed in the same room with his grandparents and a…
Seeking aid, school districts change teacher evaluations
In an exercise evoking a corporate motivation seminar, a group of public school teachers and principals clustered around posters scrawled with the titles of Beatles songs. Their assignment:…
Florida officials defend racial and ethnic learning goals
When the Florida Board of Education voted this month to set different goals for student achievement in reading and math by race and ethnicity, among other guidelines, the…
Loopholes seen at schools in Obama get-tough policy
With an agenda that Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, has described as a “quiet revolution,” the Obama administration has pushed rigorous new standards for a majority of…