About
those audio books: Is that
reading or cheating? And the prediction
in 1894 that Alexander Graham Bell's
phonograph would be the end of
books.
What
is it about comic
books like "Archie"
that allows them to last and influence?
And what about that "comic
curriculum"
from Columbia University's Teacher's
College?
"Incentives"
for learning—they're
cropping up across the nation,
from Accelerated Reader's point
system to cash awards. Do they
really work?
The new pediatric
research is
connecting some serious learning
disruptions to heavy early childhood
TV-viewing.
When the superintendent says
the teacher must construct sets
of questions for before, during,
and after reading-alouds—does he
have a research
leg to stand on or
is it just a means to block read-alouds?
"Reading
First" / No Child Left Behind:
essays and issues
For
years there were rumors about conflicts
of interest (i.e., textbook-publisher
ties) at Reading First, and the
Inspector
General found 51
pages worth. Then the Department's
researchers started digging and
it got even uglier.
A "national
superintendent of the year" finalist,
William J. Mathis examines NCLB
and finds that beneath the noble
promises lurks a price-tag well
beyond the range of the 10 states
he studied. Here online in the
May 2003 issue of Phi
Delta Kappan is his
study, "No
Child Left Behind: Costs and Benefits."
Heard
about the 'Texas
education miracle' — a
'zero' dropout rate in Houston
high schools? Sorry, not a miracle;
just "smoke and mirrors," number
changing, and "incentives" that
brought new meaning to the term education
mandates.
What U.S. reporters and "60
Minutes" dug up in Houston.
What
if the NCLB research
is as flawed as the intelligence
was on those "weapons of mass
destruction"?
Are
'whole language' folks the only
ones upset by the NRP report? Try
long-time researcher
Dick Allington.
The connection
between learning to read and learning
to ride a horse: the
advantage of owning a horse or
book, and why those who have
the fewest books are left behind.
A
long-time middle school principal
in Ohio offers an apology for all
that his students missed while
in pursuit of higher school scores
(at an "excellent-rated school").