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Apprenticeships fail to launch in the U.S.
Ninety-two percent of Americans like the idea of apprenticeships, according to a recent American Staffing Association survey, and 62...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 31, 20243 min read
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Psych out: Why are we teaching kids to be hopeless and helpless?
"Anti-racists" are demoralizing black students, write Julian Adorney and Jake Mackey on Quillette. Teenage depression and suicide rates...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 30, 20242 min read
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'For All Mankind' celebrates courage, competence, resilience
I'm a fan of the Apple+ series For All Mankind, which imagines an alternative reality in which the Soviet Union reaches the moon first,...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 29, 20242 min read
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More than ever, college applicants are writing about race
Writing about race is more popular than ever for black, Hispanic and indigenous college applicants, writes Bernard Mokam in the New York...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 28, 20242 min read
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Portland's fentanyl crisis is killing children
Children are living and dying in Portland's homeless camps, writes Naomi Schaefer Riley in City Journal. Child-welfare agencies are...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 27, 20243 min read
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The shelves tilt left: School libraries have no McWhorter, but lots of Kendi
For all the talk about school libraries under pressure to "ban books," the real issue is lack of balance, argues James Fishback in The...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 26, 20242 min read
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College students aren't all that smart: IQ average falls to 102
The average college student has average intelligence, concludes a meta-analysis by Canadian researchers, writes Ross Pomeroy on Big...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 25, 20242 min read
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'No excuses' school guru passes on: Will excellence survive?
Linda Brown, who trained hundreds of charter leaders as leader of (Building Excellent Schools (ES), has died at the age of 81. Many of...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 24, 20242 min read
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Teachers are fed up with student misbehavior, classroom chaos
The "new normal" of student behavior -- a toxic mix of disrespect, disruption, violence and apathy -- is driving teachers to despair,...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 24, 20243 min read
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Cash for class: Ohio may pay students to show up at school
Ohio may pay students to show up at school, reports Laura A. Bischoff in the Columbus Dispatch. Under the proposed pilot program,...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 23, 20242 min read
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Black parents want choices, but Chicago plans to limit options
Black parents are the most likely to choose charter, selective enrollment or magnet schools in Chicago, reports Sarah Karp for WBEZ. She...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 22, 20242 min read
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Union-backed group claims choice is 'rooted in racism'
The union-backed Partnership for the Future of Learning has launched an anti-choice campaign charging that "voucher programs" are "deeply...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 22, 20242 min read
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A professor writes: What I really think about DEI
James Hankins, a Harvard history professor, posts an honest diversity statement addressed to "dear members of Harvard's Faceless...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 21, 20242 min read
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Does preschool help kids -- or harm them?
Expanding free preschool is a progressive priority. Early experiments in the 1960s and 1970s -- Perry Preschool programĀ and the...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 20, 20242 min read
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Success Academy charters are #1 in New York in math, #3 in reading
Success Academy charter students are the best in New York state in math, third best in English Language Arts (ELA) among schools with 95+...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 19, 20241 min read
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Fix 'em, don't nix 'em: Tests show what's working and what's not
The Zeitgeist, it is a changing. First, the New York Times ran David Leonhardt's defense of college admissions tests as a way to...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 19, 20242 min read
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The Finnish miracle is finished, but why?
Finland! Finland! Finland! Twenty years ago, Finland's top-of-the-world PISA scores made it "the most widely celebrated and imitated...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 18, 20242 min read
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Beyond decoding: Teaching knowledge, vocabulary builds comprehension
In Portage, Michigan, fourth graders are reading about hurricanes -- including words such as "atmosphere" -- in their English Language...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 17, 20242 min read
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Do teachers learn how to teach reading? 19 states are 'weak' or worse
There will be no reading "miracles" without effective teachers, warns the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) in a new report....

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 16, 20242 min read
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Uncredentialed teachers do as well as normally trained teachers
"Emergency" teachers hired during the pandemic seem to have been just as effective as credentialed teachers with similar experience,...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 16, 20242 min read
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