NewsTrust - Primary School - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Why Fire Teachers?

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Atlantic Monthly - By Megan McArdle - Mar. 08 (Opinion) - I think there are some jobs that are too important to let any consideration intrude other than the best way to get the job done. Nuclear power plants, firefighters, poison control--I don't want to let other social goals, no matter how laudable, hamper their mission. Teaching is one of those jobs.

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The underworked American

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jun. 11 (Opinion) - American schoolchildren are unlikely to end up working as hard as the French, let alone the South Koreans, any time soon. There are institutional reasons for this. The federal government has only a limited influence over the school system. Powerful interest groups, most notably the teachers’ unions, but also the summer-camp industry, have a vested interest in the status quo. But reformers are also up against powerful cultural forces.

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Should Teachers Ignore Poverty's Impact?

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Jay Mathews - Nov. 28 (Opinion) - Owens described her effort to join the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows program, and her reaction to the prevailing view in that organization that good teachers should be able to raise the achievement of even the poorest kids. That is my belief, and the belief of the educators I most admire. But most Americans, including Owens, think people like me are wrongly discounting the effects of poverty and thus hurting, rather than helping, the national movement to raise the level of instruction in impoverished neighborhoods.

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Gifted Children: How to Bring Out Their Potential

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - Aug. 19 (Opinion) - Highly gifted children solve the most varied thought problems faster and more thoroughly than those with more average aptitudes do. Because these children speed through the regular curriculum for their grade, they need additional intellectual stimulation while they wait for the rest of the kids to learn the basics. Two central approaches are used to satisfy the educational needs of such children: acceleration and enrichment. Acceleration means studying material that is part of the standard curriculum for older students. Enrichment involves learning information that falls outside the usual curriculum--say, investigating a topic in greater depth or finding out about new topics.

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Why would anyone trust WaMu's disgraced CEO on education issues?

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By David Marshak - Apr. 18 (Opinion) - It's only fair for Killinger that we hold him to the same standard that he set for kids. Killinger said, "The 'real world' is unforgiving." Fair enough. Then we should not forgive Killinger for his colossal failures at WaMu. We certainly should no longer pay any more attention to what he says about education. And we should certainly reconsider the standards-and-testing industrial school model that Killinger worked so hard to install in Washington public schools.

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Cookie-cutter schools don't improve student achievement

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By Richard W. Clark - Mar. 24 (Opinion) - None of these explanations of why children learn requires that programs adopted in one school be the same as those in another. Districts spend heavily when they seek uniformity by training teachers in the "one-right-way" and then monitor compliance. They do so ignoring the reality that there is no one way that will work with all students in the varied circumstances of their lives. Because it doesn't work, districts that seek such uniformity invariably run out of resources and community support after a few years and new leaders are installed who pour their own magic potion on the district from their perch at the top.

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The Dumbing Of America

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Susan Jacoby - Feb. 17 (Comment) - "The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself." Ralph Waldo Emerson offered that observation in 1837, but his words echo with painful prescience in today's very different United States. Americans are in serious intellectual trouble -- in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.

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A moment with ... Jonathan Kozol, author

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 12:40:16 -0700

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By John Marshall - Oct. 06 (Interview) - I've received more than 30,000 e-mails and letters from these teachers over the years. They never say they're quitting because of the kids -- these are the young idealists. They never put the blame on parents or community or administration. It's this goddamned testing mania -- it's taking every bit of the joy and spontaneity out of these little children. They also emphasize that the pressure to teach to tests is so absolute that almost all of the rest of the subjects either don't get taught or are taught only on a token basis. On how this trend can be turned around: This cannot be changed without transforming the "No Child Left Behind" Act. Either repeal it or radically revise it.

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Students left behind

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 09:03:55 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - Sep. 30 (Editorial) - In Miller's view, which is widely shared by educators, one of the main shortcomings of NCLB is that it was not accompanied with the promised surge of funding. President Bush shortchanged the program by more than $56 billion since signing it into law in 2002. Here are some of the areas where Miller would alter the law:

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Remodeling homework

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Randye Hoder - Sep. 16 (Opinion) - Harris Cooper, a Duke University psychology professor, is widely considered one of the nation's leading researchers on homework. He has found that there is no positive correlation between heavy homework loads for elementary-age students and academic achievement. "Kids burn out," he said. "Homework for young students should be short" and "lead to success without much struggle."

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Resegregation Now - The Supreme Court ruled 53 years ago ...

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:55:05 -0700

New York Times - Jun. 28 (Editorial) - The Supreme Court ruled 53 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated education is inherently unequal, and it ordered the nation's schools to integrate. Yesterday, the court switched sides and told two cities that they cannot take modest steps to bring public school students of different races together. It was a sad day for the court and for the ideal of racial equality.

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No Retreat on School Reform

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 07:53:18 -0700

Washington Post - By Edward M. Kennedy - Mar. 26 (Opinion) - Five years ago, Congress and President Bush made a bold and historic promise. We pledged in the No Child Left Behind Act that the federal government would do all in its power to guarantee every child in America, regardless of race, economic background, language or disability, the opportunity to get a world-class education.

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