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More Michigan 3rd graders fail reading test
Third graders who are a year behind in reading are supposed to repeat the grade under Michigan’s “read by grade three” law, but few are...

Joanne Jacobs
May 31, 20222 min read


Want to be antiracist? Teach kids to read
Education Week reports that a growing number of school districts are asking would-be teachers: “What have you done personally or...

Joanne Jacobs
May 30, 20222 min read


Remember
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun...

Joanne Jacobs
May 30, 20221 min read


Ukrainians, but not Afghans, get fast track to U.S.
Ukrainian refugees are getting a warmer welcome than Afghans, according to a group of refugee advocates and Democratic senators, writes...

Joanne Jacobs
May 30, 20221 min read


‘Refugee High’ copes with Afghans
Omar, who had little schooling in rural Afghanistan, is learning English at Chicago’s Sullivan High School. Photo: Taylor Glascock/WBEZ...

Joanne Jacobs
May 29, 20222 min read


(Non-mass) murders are way up
The U.S. murder rate spiked in 2020 and 2021, reports German Lopez in the New York Times. Cleaning up vacant lots and creating gardens...

Joanne Jacobs
May 29, 20222 min read


School shootings are horrible — and very rare
Terrifying parents and children is not useful: School massacres are “exceptionally rare” events, writes John Tierney in City Journal....

Joanne Jacobs
May 28, 20222 min read


Excellent lambs
Photo: Jonathan Borba/Pexels In the 1960s, campus protesters rejected adult authority, writes William Deresiewicz. Now the “young...

Joanne Jacobs
May 27, 20222 min read


School shooters don’t just ‘snap’
School shooters don’t just “snap,” journalist Mark Follman, author of Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in...

Joanne Jacobs
May 27, 20222 min read


#1 school for rigor is charter on Mexican border
At IDEA McAllen College Prep, a charter school near the Mexican border, 77 percent of students come from low-income families and nearly...

Joanne Jacobs
May 26, 20222 min read


Young males in trouble
We are failing our young men, argues podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey. That’s the one commonality in the vast majority of mass shootings....

Joanne Jacobs
May 26, 20221 min read


The making of a mass murderer
The shooter in the Uvalde, Texas school massacre was “a lonely 18-year-old who was bullied over a childhood speech impediment, suffered...

Joanne Jacobs
May 25, 20222 min read


‘Incompetence, arrogance, woke rhetoric’
The San Francisco school board’s vote to abolish merit-based admissions at Lowell High School amidst claims merit is “racist” angered...

Joanne Jacobs
May 25, 20222 min read


22 weeks of lost learning
Remote students’ learning losses are worse than educators are willing to acknowledge, writes Thomas Kane, faculty director of Harvard’s...

Joanne Jacobs
May 24, 20222 min read


Don’t know much about teaching math
Are elementary teachers well prepared to teach math? Many elementary teachers aren’t confident about their math skills, and transmit...

Joanne Jacobs
May 24, 20221 min read


Multiple math paths to where?
California’s proposed new math framework offers a “choose-your-own-adventure approach” that is “fundamentally flawed,” argue Jennifer...

Joanne Jacobs
May 24, 20222 min read


Magical thinking on teaching math
We know a lot about how to teach students who have trouble learning math, writes researcher Tom Loveless. Why not use that? Photo:...

Joanne Jacobs
May 23, 20222 min read


Science teachers: Don’t say ‘parent’
Who are these people? Photo: Serrano1004/Pixabay Don’t say “parent,” advises a feature article in the National Science Teaching...

Joanne Jacobs
May 23, 20221 min read


Are reading wars over? ‘Balanced literacy’ is a loser
Teachers were trained to teach students how to guess words they couldn’t read. The reading wars are over, writes Dana Goldstein in the...

Joanne Jacobs
May 22, 20222 min read


If you want to speak up, you’d better be a saint
Princeton’s president wants to fire a tenured classics professor, but claims it’s not because he criticized “anti-racist” proposals,...

Joanne Jacobs
May 22, 20221 min read
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