While U.S. college students stay up late playing “Modern Warfare,” what are international students doing? Maybe homework? (Boston Globe)
As states work to link K-12 with postsecondary data, what problems lie ahead? (Education Week)
With more kids using computers every day, wouldn’t you think that more kids would also be taking computer science so they’d know how [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'Education Research'
QUICK Hits
Journalists and Charter Schools
Eduwonkette has some beef with the Washington Post’s recent coverage of charter schools, specifically the Post’s claim that public charter schools are outperforming district-run public schools (thanks Chad) on student achievement measures. Accompanying the test score results, the Post reported on the successful practices many schools engage in as reasons for their high scores – [...]
Magnitude
Expanding on something I alluded to in the post below about training and certifying teachers vs. attracting and selecting them: the way these issues are often discussed reveals one of the weak spots in the way research is applied to policy. Essentially, people don’t properly account for differences in magnitude.
All rational people want education policy [...]
Candor
In a discussion about the use of standardized college admissions test, William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard university, says:
“At Harvard we get terrific students, and we turn out terrific students later on. Is that due to Harvard or is that due to the students to begin with? Who knows?”
I appreciate honesty and candor [...]
What Works
Since its creation in 2002, the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), housed at the Institute of Education Sciences, has been quietly putting out reports on the efficacy of education policy programs. Every couple days I get a new evaluation in my inbox, most often telling me that program X showed “no discernible effects” or the [...]
Cloud-y Thinking
Via This Week in Education, Time’s John Cloud says:
Harvard professor Martin Feldstein used to tell students in his introductory economics class that economists agree on 99% of the issues in the field. From the nature of monopolies to the basic laws of inflation, Feldstein asserted, economists of all political stripes are in accord on the [...]
Attention Researchers
At Teacher Magazine, Jessica Shyu ask her readers to weigh in on what makes teachers stay. Good question. After that, we should figure out what makes them leave. Then we need to know what makes people join or not join the profession in the first place.
Of course, we already have plenty of theories, conjectures, and [...]
Debating NCLB with Progressives
I’m late in getting to this interesting conversation that Ganesh Sitamaran and Jason Spitalnick have been having over at TPM Cafe about NCLB and the future of education reform thinking. I don’t know whether to think that AFTie Ed’s and many of their commenters’ conclusions that the posts are somehow teacher or union-bashing is a [...]
An AERA Newbie
I just finished my first trip to AERA and, while shocked by the sheer number of people there, I was generally impressed with the research, presentations, and thoughtful comments. Consistently, people expressed a desire to make research a critical part of both ground-level action and the policy decision-making process.
Appropriately enough, USA Today published an article [...]
Grass is Greener?
This week’s Newsweek cover story looks at apparently-conflicting research findings on the health impacts of different dietary choices and how confusing they can be for the public. For example, after years of warnings about the dangers of high-fat diets for both heart health and waistlines, many Americans were understandably surprised–and a few ecstatic–to hear about [...]
Lowering Student Loan Default Rates: What One Consortium of Historically Black Institutions Did to Succeed 
College and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
03/11/10 | Kevin Carey is quoted on the rising costs of education in The Economist.
03/10/10 | Chad Aldeman's False Fronts paper is quoted on Accuracy in Academia.
03/09/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on Federal Family Education Loan defaults on The Huffington Post.
03/09/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on loan origination on the Firedog Lake blog.
03/07/10 | Kevin Carey calls for a Race to the Top in higher education in a column in The Chronicle of Higher Education.