If you missed Education Sector’s talk last week with author Peg Tyre you can listen to it below. The discussion features Tyre, best-selling author of The Trouble with Boys, New America Foundation Senior Analyst Sara Mead, and USA Today columnist Richard Whitmire. Topics ranged from gender differences in NAEP scores and ADHD diagnoses to boy-girl brain differences and why boys like the video game World of Warcraft.
Better Benefits: Reforming Teacher Pensions for a Changing Work Force
Forty-seven states have unfunded pension liabilities, and collectively the gap between what states owe to current and future retirees and what they have saved totals almost $500 billion. But the problems with teacher pensions are not just financial, and they do not just affect individual teachers and retirees, argue Chad Aldeman and Andrew J. Rotherham in this new Education Sector report. The way pension plans are structured can negatively influence the teaching work force as a whole, they say.
The Course of Innovation: Using Technology to Transform Higher Education
The National Center for Academic Transformation has helped a number of colleges redesign courses to both improve student learning and save costs. With higher education facing its worst fiscal environment in a generation, it would seem that all institutions would adopt these proven reforms. But this is not the case. In this new Education Sector report, Policy Analyst Ben Miller highlights successful redesign models as well as the barriers to innovation in higher education.
09/03/10 | Kris Amundson gives Virginia policymakers a true/false quiz on the condition of K-12 public education in the state.
09/02/10 | Elena Silva compares two proposals for the next generation of computer-based assessments funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
09/01/10 | Forrest Hinton explains why consumer choice and market forces are currently weak influences on higher education quality. 
09/01/10 | Chad Aldeman's and Kevin Carey's thoughts on value-added teacher evaluations are featured in The Atlantic