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Joanne Jacobs
Feb 28, 20231 min read
'They're here for the Wharton brand, a 4.0 GPA and to party'
Cheating has become the norm for college students, writes Suzy Weiss on Free Press. "Remote learning" during Covid lowered standards and...
1 comment


Joanne Jacobs
Feb 28, 20233 min read
Who gets in? Try dartboard admissions
The college admissions race is a waste of time, argues Rick Hess, education policy director of the American Enterprise Institute. Except...
4 comments


Joanne Jacobs
Feb 27, 20232 min read
Seeking the 'science of math' teaching
Basing early literacy teaching on evidence of what works -- the "science of reading" -- has taken off in the last 10 years. Teachers are...
3 comments


Joanne Jacobs
Feb 26, 20232 min read
Catching ChatGPT cheaters is tough: Is it bursty?
Open AI's program to catch chatbot cheaters is very unreliable, write Armin Alimardani and Emma A. Jane on The Conversation. The company...
7 comments


Joanne Jacobs
Feb 25, 20232 min read
Kill-the-Jews joke? Social justice jargon is not 'restorative'
Days after someone wrote "JEWS NOT WELCOME" on the Walt Whitman High sign, two debate-team members at the Bethesda, Maryland school joked...
2 comments


Joanne Jacobs
Feb 24, 20231 min read
Apprenticeships on the rise
BMW’s Rising Scholars program lets 12th-graders launch a pre-apprenticeship in advanced manufacturing, including paid work and training,...
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Joanne Jacobs
Feb 24, 20232 min read
Beware of 'low-value' colleges, but it's hard to say which programs don't pay
Will a degree in social work from Middling State U lead to higher earnings? What's the payoff for enrolling in fashion design at Fugly...
3 comments


Joanne Jacobs
Feb 23, 20232 min read
Algebra: Gateway or barrier?
“What is so magical about algebra as a math requirement?” asked Eloy Ortiz Oakley, former chancellor of California’s community college...
18 comments


Joanne Jacobs
Feb 23, 20231 min read
Mediocrity for all isn't equity
In Culver City (CA), ninth- and tenth-grade honors classes were eliminated, reports Sara Randazzo in the Wall Street Journal. Officials...
2 comments


Joanne Jacobs
Feb 22, 20231 min read
Gunmen steal students' sneakers in DC
Students were robbed of their shoes outside their Washington D.C. middle school Friday by three men who said they had a gun, reports Hill...
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Joanne Jacobs
Feb 22, 20233 min read
Ukrainian refugee girl flees unsafe San Francisco school
Yana and her mother fled Ukraine and found a new home with an aunt in San Francisco -- until the 13-year-old girl started Marina Middle...
8 comments


Joanne Jacobs
Feb 21, 20232 min read
Rewriting Roald Dahl: Nobody's 'fat' or 'female'
Characters can be "enormous" and "beastly," but not "fat" or "ugly," in the new sensitivity-edited versions of Roald Dahl's children's...
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Joanne Jacobs
Feb 21, 20232 min read
DC 2nd-graders will study gender roles in Rome, Aksum and China
Writing social studies standards is always controversial. Often they're vague and meaningless, but sometimes they're insanely detailed,...
5 comments

Joanne Jacobs
Feb 20, 20232 min read
DeSantis vs. College Board
Florida schools will not stop offering Advanced Placement classes, whatever Gov. Ron DeSantis suggests. With other rigorous options, such...
13 comments


Joanne Jacobs
Feb 20, 20232 min read
AP African American Studies: None dare call it 'systemic'
The new Advanced Placement African American studies course was revised after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called it anti-racist...
6 comments

Joanne Jacobs
Feb 19, 20232 min read
Learning is hard
Learning is hard, Dan Willingham tells Laura McKenna. It takes effort. But motivated students can learn effective learning and study...
11 comments


Joanne Jacobs
Feb 18, 20231 min read
Science says: Masking didn't help stop Covid spread
The value of masking during the pandemic was "approximately zero," according to a Cochrane review of high-quality research, reports John...
4 comments


Joanne Jacobs
Feb 18, 20231 min read
Sad girls: Social isolation predates Covid
Fifty-seven percent of teenage girls felt "persistently sad or hopeless" in 2021, reports the Centers for Disease Control. That's double...
2 comments

Joanne Jacobs
Feb 17, 20232 min read
There's no such thing as accurate school lunch data
School lunch data was an inaccurate measure of student poverty, even before the shift to universal eligibility, write Ishtiaque Fazlul,...
7 comments


Joanne Jacobs
Feb 16, 20231 min read
Emotionally fragile college grads say they're not prepared for work
People who fell apart under pressure were "nervous in the service," my father used, a World War II veteran, used to say. There are a lot...
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