Class Struggle Archive: Trends
Making students smarter AND better
One of the great failures of high schools, my favorite subject, is the lack of effective training in productive behaviors and attitudes, such as cooperating, being on time, making eye contact, speaking persuasively, offering suggestions and focusing on tasks. Many educators are trying to develop programs that teach these traits. Some call this character education, which has been around for decades. A few schools and school systems have made progress. Most have not.
By
Jay Mathews
| March 14, 2011; 8:30 AM ET |
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Joseph Durlak, character education, new study of social and emotional learning
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Randi Weingarten scolds KIPP
Yesterday afternoon I got a call from Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. She was responding to my request for her union's view of the charge that union rules might force KIPP to close its high-performing schools in Baltimore. Weingarten was not happy. She unloaded the harshest assessment of KIPP, the nation's best-known charter school network, and its dealings with her and her union I have ever heard from her.
By
Jay Mathews
| March 4, 2011; 5:30 AM ET |
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Baltimore Teachers Union, Baltimore schools, KIPP, KIPP Ujima Village, KIPP threatens to close its Baltimore schools, Randi Weingarten
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'Pathway to Prosperity' authors educate me
I week ago I pummeled unmercifully a major report by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, "Pathway To Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century." I headlined that column "Smart people + big report = dreamy nonsense." I said that in calling for new pathways to give students not wanting college a good high school education, the report ignored the realities of limits on employers' capacity to offer internships and school districts' willingness to totally remake their vocational classes. Now the report authors have a chance to respond.
By
Jay Mathews
| February 25, 2011; 5:22 AM ET |
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Pathways To Prosperity,, Robert B. Schwartz, Ronald Ferguson, can vocational education be fixed?
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Smart people + big report = dreamy nonsense
I had high hopes for the latest high-profile plan to save our schools. "Pathways To Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century" has 63 contributors, including some of the smartest people in education. The project that produced the report is based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and led by two of its brightest luminaries, academic dean Robert B. Schwartz and senior lecturer Ronald Ferguson. Those familiar with the sad history of similarly ambitious reports have already detected the signs of impending disappointment. The reference to 2lst century education is troubling. People who use that term tend to start talking gibberish, without intending to.
By
Jay Mathews
| February 18, 2011; 5:00 AM ET |
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Pathways To Prosperity,, places too much confidence in a new social compact, unrealistic view of business's role in education
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The myth of declining U.S. schools: They've long been mediocre
"U.S. students, who once led the world, currently rank 21st in the world in science and 25th in math," Newsweek reported in September. I hear that a lot. Politicians and business leaders often bemoan the decline of American education compared to the rest of the world. We are doomed, they say, unless we [fill in here the latest plan to save the country.] So I was surprised to find, in the latest report by the wonderfully contrarian Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless, that the notion of America on the downward track is a myth.
By
Jay Mathews
| February 11, 2011; 5:30 AM ET |
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American student scores have not declined, China and Indian way behind, Finland not so good, PISA, TIMSS, Tom Loveless
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What Wendy Kopp doesn't say about Rhee
It is rare that a great social movement can be traced to one person, but it is hard for me to see how the excitement, distress and ferment revolving around public school innovation these days could ever have occurred without Wendy Kopp. So I was disappointed that in her new book she never discusses the failure of her most famous protege, former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, to solve the problem of finding and supporting enough talented principals to get our schools on the right track.
By
Jay Mathews
| February 4, 2011; 5:30 AM ET |
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Trends
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DC failed to find enough good principals, Kopp created a social movement, Michelle A. Rhee, Mike Feinberg, Rhee admits to making some bad picks, Richard Barth, Steven Farr, Wendy Kopp
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