November - 2022

Does Gates have 'right answer' for math ed?

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 30, 2022
1 min

Does Gates have 'right answer' for math ed?

The Gates Foundation is going to put more than a billion dollars into math education. Do we know how to teach math? asks Jay Caspian Kang in The New Yorker. Bob Hughes, Gates' director of K-12 education, hopes to help “African American and Latino students and students of all races and backgrounds experiencing poverty.” The initiative will focus on transition years, such as the move from eighth to ninth grade. Goals include "cutting costs in order to expand math tutoring for s

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Math and science are 'every human's birthright'

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 29, 2022
1 min

Math and science are 'every human's birthright'

There's no need to "decolonise" math, writes John Armstrong in The Spectator. He's published an open letter criticizing a proposal urging British math professors to decolonise math curricula. Mathematics isn't European, writes Armstrong, who teaches financial mathematics at King's College London. The Mayan civilisation was doing sophisticated mathematics in the Americas long before Christopher Columbus arrived . . . The digits 0123456789 we use today were first written in In

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Math scores keep falling: It's not 'drill and kill'

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 29, 2022
2 min

Math scores keep falling: It's not 'drill and kill'

I learned my multiplication tables in fourth grade, and they've been mine ever since. I've had my worries over the years, but figuring out 8 x7 isn't one of them. It's 56, every time. In Traditional Math, retired teachers Barry Garelick and J.R. Wilson argue teaching math explicitly is efficient and effective, minimizes confusion and helps "students develop mathematical reasoning, understanding, and confidence." They learn math. The book "breaks through the myth and straw man

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College students don't study, say classes are too hard

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 28, 2022
2 min

College students don't study, say classes are too hard

Most four-year college students don't spend much time studying, yet complain that classes are too hard, according to a recent survey by Intelligent.com. "The vast majority of students (87%) say they have felt at least one of their college classes was too challenging and should have been made easier by the professor," the site reports. Math was the hardest class, followed by science. Most said they responded to adversity by studying more or asking the professor or a classmate

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Future jobs: Compete with robots or design them?

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 27, 2022
2 min

Future jobs: Compete with robots or design them?

Throughout my newspaper career, I asked young people about their career goals. There was a time when the high achievers wanted to be geneticists or forensic scientists. The B, C and D students wanted to be pediatricians. Why? "I want to work with children." Early in the Silicon Valley boom, kids from low-tech homes wanted to "work with computers," but didn't know the difference between keyboarding and coding. More recently, students want to be engineers: That includes kids wh

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Striver parents want toys to 'cram learning into playtime'

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 26, 2022
1 min

Striver parents want toys to 'cram learning into playtime'

For ambitious parents, toys are supposed to "cram learning into playtime," writes Alex Blasdel in The Guardian. "Is it time for a rethink?" American families spend an average of $600 a year on toys, he writes. Most are billed as educational. Parents "want toys to get their children into Harvard," toy-industry consultant, Richard Gottlieb told Blasdel. Parents have misread the science on brain development, writes Blasdel. With the rise of neuroscience in the second half of th

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Joanne Jacobs

Nov 25, 2022
2 min

Back in the day, playgrounds were unsafe -- and fun

The first Saturday of each month is National Play Outside Day, writes Don Mathis. He remembers the exciting -- and dangerous -- playgrounds of the '50s. "The metal slide was blistering hot in the summer," he writes. Mathis is still carrying a splinter from a wooden handrail. "The best slides were 20 feet off the ground." The merry-go-round was the most popular – and the most dangerous. Kids would stay on until they puked with dizziness. Children would try to enter the spinni

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Joanne Jacobs

Nov 25, 2022
1 min

Child's play is learning

Playing -- especially child-directed play outside with friends -- is how kids learn, writes Jackie Mader on the Hechinger Report. Playing games on a screen isn't the same. "Studies of children have also shown play’s benefits, including improved language skills, problem solving skills and math skills," she writes. "Certain types of imaginative play have been found to improve perseverance. Play can even be used to close achievement gaps between young children, some experts argu

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Joanne Jacobs

Nov 24, 2022
1 min

Happy Thanksgiving

I remember making these in school in the 1950's. I don't think much has changed. Bion Bartning of FAIR (Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism) urges choosing gratitude over grievance. Two years ago, his son's second-grade teacher urged families to "reimagine" Thanksgiving, saying that “for many in the Native American community, Thanksgiving is a day of mourning.” Bartning, who has Native American ancestry, was dismayed. "As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving 2022, I am d

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Blamesgiving: Public schools teach that America is 'bad and broken'

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 23, 2022
2 min

Blamesgiving: Public schools teach that America is 'bad and broken'

Public schools have lost touch with their mission and purpose, writes Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "Our schools are supposed to be in the business of attaching our children to their country, their community, and civil society." They're supposed to form citizens. Instead, as he wrote in Commentary, "school culture and curriculum seem nearly to revel in the bad and broken." It "fetishizes America’s failures" and ignores "the virtues th

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Joanne Jacobs

Nov 22, 2022
2 min

Climate ed in PE, art . . . ?

New Jersey teachers are teaching about climate change in all grade levels and subjects, writes Caroline Preston on the Hechinger Report. New learning standards requiring the lessons went into effect this fall. For example, in affluent Pennington, third graders in wellness (PE) class tossed balls of yarn representing carbon-dioxide molecules to classmates representing forests to show that "after the advent of cars, factories and electricity, and massive deforestation," it's b

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Let AI spot disadvantaged students with high potential

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 21, 2022
2 min

Let AI spot disadvantaged students with high potential

Some have proposed an admission lottery for candidates who meet qualifications. Roland G. Fryer Jr., a Harvard economics professor, suggests letting AI pick students based on academics and evidence of "grit." He believes "sophisticated analytics" can predict who's likely to excel, without human prejudices tipping the scales. Fryer grew up poor and angry -- his father was violent, his mother was absent -- and took the SAT only to score the minimum needed for a football schola

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College apps are up again, and crunch season is just starting

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 21, 2022
1 min

College apps are up again, and crunch season is just starting

College applications appear to be up this fall after a pandemic dip, according to the Common Application's report on early applicants. For ambitious 12th-graders aiming at selective colleges, this is stress time. With a large majority of colleges and universities going test optional, and grade inflation turning everyone into an "A" student, there will be even more pressure to craft the most intriguing persona and write the most compelling essay. Can an hour at the food pantry

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'Anti-adoption drumbeat' leaves kids in foster care

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 20, 2022
2 min

'Anti-adoption drumbeat' leaves kids in foster care

Naomi Schaefer Riley hears an "anti-adoption drumbeat" from the media. "In the wake of the Dobbs decision, the Left wants to make sure that no one thinks adoption is preferable to abortion," she writes. In fiscal 2021, 114,000 children in foster care were waiting for adoptive parents, according to federal data. Only 54,200 found a "forever family," a 6 percent drop from the previous year and an 18 percent decline from 2019. White couples adopting non-white children are accuse

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Joanne Jacobs

Nov 19, 2022
2 min

Gone girls and boys

District-run public schools lost nine percent of enrollment between spring 2021 and spring 2022, concludes School Disrupted by Tyton Partners, an education consultancy. Most schools had reopened, but school-switchers said they doubt the academic quality of their local schools and worry about bullying, fighting and the risk of school shootings. Most switched to charter and private schools and homeschooling. They don't seem to be coming back. Many post-pandemic parents now "fee

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Joanne Jacobs

Nov 18, 2022
2 min

Kids stream more, read less

The rise in screen time -- not just school closures -- is a factor in the decline in achievement, suggests Tim Daly, who runs the non-profit Ed Navigator, on Eduwonk. "The longer students spent at-home, the more substantial were their learning setbacks," according to one study after another, he writes. But scores began dropping well before the pandemic. From 2012 to 2020, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for nine-year-olds reading at the 10th percenti

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Joanne Jacobs

Nov 17, 2022
1 min

Unhappy teachers

Teachers feel underappreciated and under attack, concludes a new paper by Brown and University of Albany researchers, reports Caitlynn Peetz in Education Week. "Teachers’ job satisfaction is at its lowest level in 50 years, with 42 percent of educators saying the stress of their job is worth it, compared to 81 percent in the 1970s." Fewer young people are interested in teaching, and the number of newly licensed teachers has dropped sharply since 2006. The public is less likel

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Teachers were more anxious about Covid than health-care workers

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 17, 2022
1 min

Teachers were more anxious about Covid than health-care workers

Teachers were more anxious than health care workers -- or anyone else -- during the first year of the pandemic, according to a newly published study, reports Kevin Mahnken on The 74. “Our thought was that healthcare workers battling this virus on the front lines would clearly have the highest levels of distress,” said Joseph Kush, a James Madison psychology professor who co-authored the paper. “And they were very high, but we found that teachers were actually quite a bit hig

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No tattoos for kids -- sex-change drugs are OK

Joanne Jacobs

Nov 16, 2022
1 min

No tattoos for kids -- sex-change drugs are OK

A New York woman was arrested for letting her 10-year-old son get a tattoo, reports the New York Times. State law bans tattoos for children under 18, with or without parental consent. “It is a permanent mark or a symbol you are putting on your body, and I don’t think kids under 18 have that kind of agency to make a decision,” said Dr. Cora Bruener, a pediatrician and professor at the University of Washington Medical Center’s Seattle Children’s Hospital. If a child under 18 wa

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Joanne Jacobs

Nov 16, 2022
1 min

Most don't want schools to 'say' LGBTQ

Most Americans don't think young children are ready for lessons about sexuality and gender, writes Morgan Polikoff, a USC education professor, on the Hechinger Report. "A substantial majority of Americans have unfavorable views toward LGBTQ issues in the curriculum, especially for young children," according to a new survey he co-directed. Fewer than half think elementary children should have access to books about most LGBT issues, and even fewer think such books should be ass

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