Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Recently, black men lined up in suits to give high-fives and greet kids on the first day of school. These men were asked to wear business attire so that they could combat the stereotype of black men as unprofessional and thugs. Pictures and videos traveled around social media celebrating the greetings. The men were praised for their…
While most of today’s middle-school-aged children are figuring out new ways to spell their favorite obscenities with numbers and Greek symbols on their phones, some people still value proper spelling. That’s why we have spelling bees, and why ESPN has turned the Scripps National Spelling Bee into a glitzy high-pressure sporting event. We sat down…
Yesterday, flagpole-climbing hero Bree Newsome posted a series of frustrated tweets about education in the United States, and specifically how people can have such extremely varying opinions on the U.S. Civil War. Breh. Stop everything. What the world kind of education are folks getting in America? This is terrifying. — Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) July 10,…
The Texas State Board of Education is studying how textbook publishers responded to the state’s ideologically driven guidelines for teaching history. The results, say historians, are dire. Four years ago, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) adopted new standards, known as TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills), for social studies textbooks in the state’s…
Located in a towering late Gothic revival building – apocryphally described by locals as the first million-dollar high school west of the Mississippi River — Topeka High School, situated just four blocks from the Statehouse, is the pride of Kansas’ capital city. The hallowed halls of the 84-year-old building have served as the academic home of…
Only far eastern countries such as Singapore and China outperform the Nordic nation in the influential Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings. Politicians and education experts from around the world – including the UK – have made pilgrimages to Helsinki in the hope of identifying and replicating the secret of its success. Which makes…
I never took an AP course in high school. I’m pretty sure it was because I never qualified for it (I went straight B-minuses throughout my high school career), but it was also because I went to school back when taking AP courses wasn’t the dire necessity that it is for today’s students. According tothis…
We hear about the superior tech savvy of people born after 1980 so often that we tend to assume it must be true. But is it? Researchers at Princeton-based Educational Testing Service (ETS) expected it to be when they administered a test called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). Sponsored by…
I think that all these stats have a point, but I’m also a little uncomfortable with how heavily focused on parents and marital status this is. It’s very easy to look at this coverage and say ‘ah, this is the decline of traditional family values hitting economic opportunity.’ At least that is how this author…
P.S. 116’s principal announced that students will no longer be assigned traditional homework. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Heather Holland KIPS BAY — A public elementary school is abolishing traditional homework assignments and telling kids to play instead — outraging parents who say they may pull their kids out of the school. Teachers at P.S. 116 on East…