NRU education edition

At some point we need to have a serious discussion about the charter school *experiment* and what it means that we keep charging down this path despite a lack of evidence that charters are really making a difference.  I think it is too easy, like the council person in this story, to say, no more charters.  Rather, we need to use this as the opening to discuss what we want from public education -- and learn from those charters that are providing what we want -- including how much it costs to do so.

This is a fascinating piece about what teachers (and schools) can do to better handle student outbursts by understanding how children deal with trauma.  Truly fascinating.  Once again, however, it demonstrates the complex set of situations teachers deal with -- and are expected to be expert at handling.

Here is a trio of pieces on the common core ... hope that the links last ... I believe the ap news reporters were trying to be objective by including one piece that present opposition. However most of the common core reporting has been biased to the intervention -- with opposition presented as belly-achers or paranoid teachers... what do you think?

For many years, researchers have been advocating that adolescents not get up early for school because they have erratic sleep patterns due to their physical changes.  Here's another round of that discussion -- sadly, no one says what we all know -- high schools start when they do in order to allow for sports programs ... blame the teachers if you like, but I am sure you could find enough teachers who want to sleep in, too, to work at schools that took adolescent sleep patterns into account.

Here's another interesting story asking whether or not the STEM crisis really exists -- and what would that mean to the many interventions set up to deal with that crisis?

Oh... and the band played on -- MOOCs failure to save the world and "low-cost" online education coming to those who we don't think are Ivy Leaguers -- low cost in quotes because the venture is for profit and led by someone that has capitalized (or tried to) on NCLB among other questionable educational endeavors.   Once again, all I can say is Harvard and U Penn were good enough for you, but not for those coming behind you... and just cause you're brown don't make it ok.