Two short clips on YouTube of fellow EPB blogger Nick Burbules being interviewed in Argentina about technology and educatio...
A look at Chicago schools under Duncan
also posted elsewhereEvery now and then it is useful to step back from the hype and the spin and see what people on the ground have to say about important issues. In the case of education policy, we should not forget that George Bush gave us Rod Paige and the so-called Texas Miracle (which never was)...
Brown v Board of Education after 55 years
originally posted at Daily KosFifty-five years ago today the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously issued Earl Warren's opinion in Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, in which it stated unequivocally that Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. And yet even after 55 years...
More Evidence: "People Who Get Screwed Have Screwed Up Kids"
We are developing a new narrative about poor kids and about kids whose parents have experienced trauma. (These are not the same groups, but the slippage is pretty easy in the way we think about them.) And this narrative says: Their problems are biological. It's inevitable.Think how problematic this...
Daydreaming is Good for Thinking Big Thoughts
If you think letting your mind wander is unproductive then you may be in for a big surprise. A recent study at the University of British Columbia found that our brains are much more active when we daydream than previously thought. What is surprising is that the study also found that brain areas associated...
50% Poverty Rate for Black Children?
[Economic Policy Institute] President Lawrence Mishel [predicts] that, even using conservative forecasts for future job loss, the poverty rate for children could increase from an already high 18% -- where it stood in 2007 -- to more than 27% by next year. Poverty among African American children, currently...
Getting it wrong again, and again (and again)
So once again two "former governors from different political parties who remain passionate about the quality of education in America" (Chicago Tribune, Perspective, May 3, 2009) have weighed in with a grand proposal about how Arne Duncan should use his "$5 billion to transform education in America"...
Poverty and Brain Development, or, I Worry: If Poor People are Stupid, Why Bother?
I've been meaning to say something about all the research coming out on the effect of poverty on brain development. The basic argument, backed up by empirical data, is that poverty actually degrades brain capacity in a range of ways. Which, of course, opens up questions about what "counts" as "degraded."...