Curriculum Matters
This blog covered news on the common core, literacy, math, STEM, social studies, the arts, and other curriculum and instruction topics. This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: common core, reading & literacy, mathematics, STEM, social studies, and curriculum.
Education
Software to Teach Students Financial Responsibility
Call me cynical, but I chuckled when I read the following statement in a press release pitching software to teach students about personal finances:
School & District Management
Researcher: Let Children Play!
An early-childhood researcher at the University of Illinois is featured in this Science Daily article, which argues that unstructured playtime is a critical part of literacy development. Pushing more traditional kinds of academic work in early childhood at the expense of play, Anne Haas Dyson says, is akin to "banning the imagination."
Education
Fordham Study Adds Fuel to the Fire
If U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has started a fire in proposing that states adopt common academic standards, a report released today by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute is adding kindling to the flames. The report looks at how the academic standards in 28 states are playing out in 36 elementary and middle schools. Basically, it found that it's much easier for schools to make adequate yearly progress goals under the No Child Left Behind Act in some states rather than other states.
Standards & Accountability
The National Standards Naysayers
After posting a series of items on national standards on this blog, like this one, I got an email from Neal McCluskey over at the Cato Institute. There are naysayers when it comes to national standards, for sure. McCluskey, the associate director for the Center for Educational Freedom at the Libertarian institute, is among them. And remember, the nation's initial foray into national standards was contentious and largely ineffectual.
Science
Color Community Colleges Green
In another sign of the growing interest of renewable energy lessons in schools, community colleges—a destination for many high school graduates—are getting into the act.
Education
Cutting Kindergarten? Oh, My!
In Massachusetts, three school districts are rethinking whether to offer full-day kindergarten for free, and the school board of a California district recently discussed cutting kindergarten altogether. The Boston Globe reported this week in "Schools reconsider full-day programs" that one district halted a plan to add full-day classes, another wants to charge fees for parents that opt to enroll their children in full-day kindergarten, and another has already announced fees.
Education
Resource: Book on How to Read Maps
One essential skill I wasn't taught in my kindergarten-through-master's-degree education was how to read a road map. I learned this skill on my own through trial and error after I bought my first car at the age of 25 and worked as a reporter-intern at the Indianapolis Star. I'm spatially challenged, and maps and MapQuest directions are now my lifeline when I visit a new city for Education Week. And even then, sometimes I get lost.
Science
A Forum on "STEM"
Researchers from around the country are coming to the National Science Foundation this week to discuss cutting-edge and otherwise innovative research on science, technology, mathematics, and engineering ("STEM") education topics.
Science
Science Group Boycotts the Big Easy
At a time when cities are starved for revenue, New Orleans will lose a little bit of convention-related cash as a result of the state's new policy on teaching evolution.
Science
Oklahoma Evolution
Just in time for the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, Oklahoma legislators took up a bill that would have allowed students to "analyze, critique, and review" scientific theories, including evolution. Lawmakers, by a narrow margin, weighed and measured the proposal and found it wanting.
Science
Gender Bias and Science
At a time when many educators are looking for ways to encourage more students, and more girls in particular, to take an interest in science, a new study suggests gender bias in male and female views of their high school teachers' abilities could be setting back those efforts.
Standards & Accountability
AFT's Weingarten Pitches National Standards
Now AFT President Randi Weingarten is making a case for national standards. In this Washington Post commentary, Weingarten says it is time to revisit the need for a common set of rigorous standards for all U.S. children if we are to be competitive with high-performing countries that already have such a system in place.
Education
The End of the Big Ed Conference?
Jim Burke, the English teacher, author, mentor, and celebrity or sorts among his peers, is now a blogger. And one of his first blog items makes quite a claim. He's been to more than his share of big education conferences, from the niche English-teacher meetings to the more all-encompassing type events.
Education
Is Little Bill Clinton Failing or is the Test Failing Him?
I mention over at Learning the Language that reporters for the Christian Science Monitor have found a refugee kid named Bill Clinton Hadam in Georgia and are following him for a series "Little Bill Clinton: A school year in the life of a new American."