Consensus on Learning Time Builds

Under enormous pressure to prepare students for a successful future—and fearful that standard school hours don’t offer enough time to do so—educators, policymakers, and community activists are adding more learning time to children’s lives. Education Week, September 22, 2008

More New York Schools Get A's

The number of schools receiving A’s under New York’s much-contested grading system increased significantly this year from last in what Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said was a clear sign of success and evidence that his signature accountability program was spurring improvement at schools across the city. The New York Times, September 16, 2008

Groups Seek to Keep a Spotlight on Issues of Testing, Standards

The No Child Left Behind Act is not likely to be reauthorized this year and isn’t getting much play on the presidential campaign trail.

But this week, some of the most ardent supporters of testing and standards discussed how the law has bolstered education and what next steps policymakers should consider in renewing it in the next Congress. Education Week, September 17, 2008

States Cite Capacity Gap in Aid for Schools on NCLB

Nearly seven years after the No Child Left Behind Act became law, two-thirds of state education departments report that they don’t have adequate capacity to help low-performing schools, says a study released last week by the American Institutes for Research. Education Week, September 17, 2008

Schools Fail to Meet No Child Left Behind Goals

A Call to Restructure Restructuring points out that 50% more schools failed this year than last under NCLB San Francisco Chronicle, September 23, 2008

Are High-Stakes Tests Making the Grade?

After a decade, have the standards and their high-stakes tests improved public education in Virginia?

It depends on whom you ask.

A Quarter Million Teachers to Get Free Wikis

A San Francisco wiki services provider has just finished a multiyear project under which it gave teachers all over the world 100,000 free wikis. And now, it is doubling up and getting set to give away another quarter million.

Laptops in Schools Help Research, Writing, but Not Test Scores

Student research and writing are on the rise in schools in the state’s laptop initiative, but test scores aren't seeing the same benefit, Education Department officials told legislators this morning.

Sharing Your Notes Online -- and Getting Paid for It

Knetwit is a Web site that combines some familiar Web 2.0 features — user profiles, file sharing, online communities — with the goals of campus note-taking services.

I'll Take My Lecture to Go, Please

When provided with the option to view lectures online, rather than just in person, a full 82 percent of undergraduates kindly offered that they’d be willing to entertain an alternative to showing up to class and paying attention in real time.

Video Games Start to Shape Classroom Curriculum

While more educators adopt games as a learning tool, one public school designs a brand new teaching philosophy. Christian Science Monitor, September 18, 2008

Challenging Conventional Wisdom on STEM Supply

A speaker at the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology said that the worry about a shortage of qualified individuals in science and technology is part of a cyclical trend. Inside Higher Ed, September 17, 2008

College Panel Calls for Less Focus on SATs

A report by the National Association for College Admission Counseling says colleges should focus less on the ACT and SAT and more on admissions exams keyed to high school curricula.  The New York Times, September 21, 2008

Check Mate! Idaho Tries Chess to Boost Math, Reading Skills

An old-fashioned game helps students develop the critical thinking skills they need to succeed in reading and math. USA Today, September 19, 2008

Reading between the Lines -- and Everywhere Else: Where Literacy Is Headed

NCTE Executive Director Kent Williamson reports on results of a survey in which nearly 1,000 respondents told NCTE about the role of twenty-first century literacies in their classrooms. Council-Grams, September 2008

The Grade Game

NCTE author, ReadWriteThink contributor, and consultant John O'Connor talks about alternatives to traditional letter grades. Eight Forty-Eight, Chicago Public Radio September 10, 2008

Twittering from the Cradle

IT would be easy to assume that the first month of Cameron Chase’s life followed the monotonous cycle of eat-sleep-poop familiar to any new parent. But anyone who has read his oft-updated profile on Totspot, a site billed as Facebook for children, knows better. Cameron, of Winter Garden, Fla., has lounged poolside in a bouncy seat with his grandparents, noted that Tropical Storm Fay passed by his hometown, and proclaimed that he finds the abstract Kandinsky print above his parents’ bed “very stimulating!”



The New York Times, September 10, 2008

Information Warfare

How and why famous authors and others were recruited to influence the media during WWII. On the Media, NPR, September 12, 2008

Report: Retool Instruction, or U.S. Will Fail

A new report by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills warns that the economic competitiveness of the U.S. depends on the country's ability to give its students a 21st century education. eSchool News, September 10, 2008

In Rush to White House, "No Child" Is Left Behind

For the next president, one of the first domestic challenges will be to reshape the No Child Left Behind law, hailed six years ago as a bipartisan solution to America's education troubles.

But in their race for the White House, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) are distancing themselves from what has become a tainted brand.

Some California Dropouts Finish High School But Don't Succeed Beyond, Study Finds

While slightly more than 50% of California students receive a high school diploma or GED, 90% never enroll in college or they drop out after they do. Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2008.

Colleges Spend Billions on Remedial Classes to Prep Freshmen

Millions of students are arriving on college campuses unprepared for the work they have ahead of them. See the report Diploma to Nowhere by Strong American Schools.  USA Today, September 16, 2008

Young, Inexperienced Teachers Recruited to New Orleans

September 10, 2008

Black Teachers in Philadelphia Schools: A Vanishing Breed

Philadelphia Daily News, September 10, 2008

Middle School Reading Coaches Found to Build Teachers' Skills

NCTE member Nancy L. Shanklin and the NCTE/IRA
Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse are mentioned.  Education
Week, September 11, 2008

Making Every Word Count: Computers and the Web Complicate Vital Research on Frequently Used Language

Word-frequency rankings are part -- albeit just a sliver -- of the vast output from studies of language corpora, or large collections of written and sometimes spoken text. Researchers parse such data to help make sense of our ever-evolving language.

But the results of these rankings differ widely. Taking a snapshot of English in all its diverse incarnations is devilishly tricky and expensive. Computers and the Internet can make research simpler. But they also add to the challenge because they can distort language patterns.

Who Wants to Be a Teacher? A Whole Lot of People, a New Survey Finds

Forty-two percent of college-educated 24- to 60-year-olds would consider teaching as a career, according to a survey out Wednesday from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in Princeton, N.J.

Online storybooks can help young readers with fundamentals

Parents and children now have another resource available to help learn the fundamentals of reading with a new online database through the Allegany County Library System.

BookFlix combines classic fictional video storybooks from Weston Woods with nonfiction eBooks from Scholastic to reinforce reading skills and develop essential real-world knowledge and understanding.

Reforming the Requirement-Free Curriculum

Brown U. considers how to improve students’ educational experience — while not taking away their freedom. Among the strategies: e-portfolios and being overt about priorities.

Don’t Buy That Textbook, Download It Free

A few college professors have started putting their textbooks online to protest the high prices that textbook publishers can get.

Principal has proud passion for helping students to read

Ask Kathy Harrington what the most important room in the Pine-Richland Middle School is and she won't say a science classroom where students study biology, a French classroom where they learn about the culture of Paris, or the reading classroom where they decipher the words of famous poets.

She'll tell you it's the room where they can do all of the above -- the library.

Latest Reading Push Leaps Off the Page

How do you get a kid to open a book? And once it's open, how do you get a kid to keep reading, book after book?

At Ferguson Elementary School in North Philadelphia yesterday, educators and publishers rolled out a brand-new answer to those questions. It's called The 39 Clues, and it's aimed at readers 8 to 12.

Toddling up to new levels of learning

Two-year-olds discussing insect proboscises and three-year-olds comparing notes on the surface tension of bubbles it is just another day at the Gifted Education Centre.

The Auckland-based programme for toddlers says a funding boost will allow it to open centres across the country next year.

Graphic Storytelling and the New Literacies: An Interview with NCTE Educator Peter Gutiérrez

Referring to The NCTE Definition of 21st Century Literacies, Gutiérrez notes, "Yes, new technologies encourage non-traditional, often non-linear ways of engaging with text, but there's a danger in supposing that what makes the new literacies 'new' is the technology per se -- it's the literacies that are new; . . . they speak to the idea of 'participatory culture.'" Diamond Bookshelf, September 2008

Literacy and Online Reading

NCTE member Donald Leu, holder of the John and Maria Neag Endowed Chair in Literacy and Technology and director of The New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut, is interviewed. Focus 580, WILL Radio, September 4, 2008 (scroll down to program)

Donald Leu is a contributor to NCTE's Secondary School Literacy: What Research Reveals for Classroom Practice.

General Education in the City

Temple's interdisciplinary general education program (about 1/3 of the undergraduate experience) has four themes: "Community-Based Learning," "Globalization," "Sustainability," and, most notably, the "Philadelphia Experience." Inside Higher Ed, September 5, 2008

Ph.D. Completion Gaps

Significant gaps exist — by demographic groups and disciplines — in who finishes Ph.D. programs. Generally, foreign, male, and white students are more likely to earn their doctorates after 10 years than are their counterparts who are American, female or minority.

Print Journalism Squeeze Hits Campuses

Late last month, two student newspapers announced plans to curtail print publications, citing the same drain in advertising revenues that has prompted layoffs at commercial newspapers across the country

No Simple Explanation for College Dropout Rate

Last in a series of articles on colleges and their students -- see links to the entire series with the article. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 6, 2008

"Harry Potter" Author Wins Suit over "Lexicon" Book

Morning Edition, NPR, September 9, 2008

Districts 'Scrubbing' Away Thousands of Students' Test Scores

In this era of academic accountability, the test scores of thousands of Ohio public-school students are being left behind. That's because districts are allowed to throw out test scores -- "scrub" them, in testing parlance -- of students who are not continuously enrolled from October through the testing dates in March and May.

Should We Relax English Spelling Rules?

BBC Radio World Service, September 8, 2008

New Charter School the Pride of Camden

Charter schools can be found in more and more districts, especially urban districts. See the study by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 4, 2008

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

Facebook's News Feed, Twitter, Flickr, and other forms of incessant online contact have created a brave new electronic world of "ambient awareness." The New York Times, September 5, 2008

The Mystery of the Struggling Reader

NCTE President-Elect Kylene Beers notes that "struggling readers don't possess the strategies necessary to get through the text, to figure out how to get through the problem." NCTE members Maryanne Wolf and Nell Duke are also quoted. Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine, September 2008

A New View On TV

In a paper published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics this year, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business economists Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro presented a series of analyses that showed that the advent of television might actually have had a positive effect on children's cognitive ability. The group's research suggests TV enabled an earlier generation of American children in non-English-speaking households to do better in school, helped rural Indian women to become more independent and contributed to lowering Brazil's fertility rate.

Teens Tutor Teens At Student-Created Firm

Private tutoring is big business in the Washington suburbs. And now it is a full-time job for Erik Kimel, who graduated this spring and can devote his full attention to Peer2Peer Tutors, the company he founded five years ago as a senior at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac. Peer2Peer pairs mostly struggling students with older teens culled from the cream of Montgomery high schools.

State falling way behind No Child Left Behind

California schools, required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act to lift more students over a higher academic hurdle this year, instead stumbled and slipped back, as nearly 1,400 fewer schools met test-score targets.

Virtual environment boosts reading skills

For the past year and a half, students at Broad Creek Middle School in Newport, N.C., have used virtual reality technology to enhance their reading skills across the board--and the evidence suggests these efforts are paying off.

Quest Atlantis, created by Indiana University professor Sasha Barab, uses a three-dimensional multi-user virtual environment and games with storylines to help children advance academically and learn about life.

Florida Reading Coaches Help Other Teachers; Effect on Students Unclear"

A recent study of Florida’s middle school reading coaches finds that they seem to have a positive effect on how teachers teach reading.

Author of Book Series Sends Kids on a Web Treasure Hunt

(See Rick Riordan at the ALAN Workshop W.27, Monday-Tuesday, November 24-25, at the NCTE Annual Convention in San Antonio.)

Moving beyond Catcher on School Reading Lists

From Weekend Edition, NPR, August 30, 2008

"Sparking Media Literacy with Comics"

Written by NCTE member Peter Gutierrez and quoting NCTE member Kathleen Monnin. Diamond Book Shelf, September 2008

Learning by DOING

"We can make writing real," said NCTE member Linda Christensen, at the West Linn-Wilsonville School District workshop. NCTE members Shelly Buchanan and Anne Voegtlin are also quoted. The West Linn Tidings, August 28, 2008

Golf Tour's Rule: Speak English to Stay in Play

Players in the Ladies Professional Golf Association will be required to be conversant in English by 2009. The New York Times, August 26, 2008

Testing Change Raises Scores

Northern Virginia's ELL students achieved better test scores this year when portfolios of their work were used for the assessment rather than the same standardized test all the other students took. The Washington Post, August 28, 2008

Who Produces Black Ph.D.’s?

A report looks at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Inside Higher Ed, September 2, 2008

Voting for a Book

Students at Ebert Elementary School in Colorado are learning about the elections by campaigning for their "best books." All Things Considered, NPR, August 29, 2008