Joanne Jacobs
Urban charters boost scores, degrees in Massachusetts
Urban charter school students in Massachusetts earn higher test scores and are more likely to enroll in college and earn a degree,...
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Joanne Jacobs
Jul 252 min
Most challenging schools are charters educating low-income students
Urban charters in high-poverty areas have become the most challenging high schools in the country, as measured by students taking...
Joanne Jacobs
Jul 103 min
Up, up and away: 'Recalibration' is raising AP exam scores
Advanced Placement scores were released this week, and they're higher than ever. But not necessarily because students are learning more....
Joanne Jacobs
May 22 min
Smart kids left alone: What schools are doing -- and not doing -- for 'advanced learners'
"Highly capable" students will lose advanced learning opportunities in Seattle Public Schools. To address "historical inequity," all...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 142 min
'Tis better to have tried AP and earned a low grade than never to have tried at all
Taking an Advanced Placement class, struggling with college-level material and earning a low grade on the exam is a learning experience,...
Joanne Jacobs
Dec 18, 20232 min
Choice, selective schools perpetuate 'inequity,' says Chicago mayor, school board
"Equality in misery" is the new plan for Chicago Public Schools, writes Paul Vallas, who lost the race for mayor to Brandon Johnson, a...
Joanne Jacobs
Dec 2, 20232 min
'White flight' from overachieving Asians?
A "B" grade is an "Asian F" and a "white A," they used to say in Silicon Valley high schools. Maybe they still do, if they have enough...
Joanne Jacobs
Nov 21, 20233 min
AP tests are tough: Is the bar too high for disadvantaged students?
"The basic philosophy of the Advanced Placement Program is simply that all students are not created equal," said the program's director,...
Joanne Jacobs
Nov 14, 20231 min
Advanced math puts all achievers on path to equity, excellence
All high achievers should be placed in challenging math classes that prepare them to take algebra in eighth grade, write Brenda Berg and...
Joanne Jacobs
Oct 26, 20232 min
America needs strivers
Rewarding mediocrity is a losing strategy for America, writes Doug Lemov, author of Teach Like a Champion 3.0, on Education Next. U.S....
Joanne Jacobs
Oct 5, 20231 min
Texas tracks for equity: 'I didn't know honors existed'
California progressives are eliminating advanced math in middle school in the name of equity. In Texas, equity means expanding access to...
Joanne Jacobs
Aug 30, 20232 min
Low-SES Asians are top students: Can 'excellence gap' be closed?
A middle school in a working-class, mostly Hispanic neighborhood in San Jose started teaching algebra after a wave of Vietnamese refugee...
Joanne Jacobs
Aug 17, 20232 min
Detracking in Shaker Heights: 'Honors' for all, lower expectations
All Shaker Heights students take honors classes -- or classes with an "honors" label. The "enriched" and "advanced" tracks are gone,...
Joanne Jacobs
Jul 21, 20232 min
You want equity? Teach more -- not less
The foolish idea that teaching kids less math will advance "equity" has spread from California, which has adopted watered-down guidelines...
Joanne Jacobs
Mar 9, 20231 min
Elite Philly school is being 'dismantled' by lottery admissions, say parents
An influx of unprepared students, admitted by a new lottery system, is destroying Philadelphia's top-ranked school, charges a report by...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 23, 20231 min
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...
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