The right is always bleating about the need to have pilot programs that test their market-based approaches to educational reform. How’s this for a test?http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/09/27/the-fraud-of-gop-tax-and-school-choice-policy-shown-in-arizona/The state's Private School Tuition Tax...
I’m currently taking a doctoral level course on education and economics. At our first meeting, the professor (whose PhD is in Economics) noted that the past two decades have seen the increasing influence of economic theory on education policy, with a sharply rising curve in the 21st century. I asked...
Human Evolution and The Slow Development of Symbolic Thought
Fascinating FREE article at PLOS arguing that in human evolution symbolic thought evolved much later than the biological substrate that would have allowed it. I have no idea how generally accepted this is, but it's a fascinating idea with maybe some implications for human learning and theories of discourse.Evidently,...
How Fiction Reading Affects Empathy
Through a series of studies, we have discovered that fiction at its best isn't just enjoyable. It measurably enhances our abilities to empathize with other people and connect with something larger than ourselves.h/t Neuroanthropolo...
Think you can't trust the President?? At least trust the kids!
Cross-posted from Social Issues (the blog of the John Dewey Society Commission on Social Issues) http://deweycsi.blogspot.comI was greeted early yesterday morning by a local newspaper article noting that some folks (specifically, "conservatives," but it's hard to know who that refers to)...
Two teachers on using test scores to evaluate teachers
One of the more controversial aspects of the Obama Education Department's approach has been its insistence upon using student test scores as a means of evaluating teachers for merit pay. This is in fact something Sec. Duncan has posed as a non-negotiable requirement for a state to be eligible for...
Lost Decade for Young Workers: The Job Situation for Our Graduating Students
Some of the report’s key findings include: * 31 percent of young workers report being uninsured, up from 24 percent 10 years ago, and 79 percent of the uninsured say they don’t have coverage because they can’t afford it or their employer does not offer it. * Strikingly, one in three young workers...