The Core Knowledge Blog

So much news, so little time. Here are some of the stories I meant to blog about this week before the time conspired against me. Discuss among yourselves.

Can the Schools Be Fixed?
It’s been 25 years since “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform,” which diagnosed the ills of American education. So how are we doing? Richard Rothstein, a former national educational columnist for the New York Times and research associate of the Economic Policy Institute, weighs in at the Cato Institute. On deck: Sol Stern, Rick Hess, et. al.

Let Teachers “Grab” Pupils
Teachers will be encouraged to physically restrain disruptive pupils under controversial new plans unveiled by U.K. Conservative Partly leader David Cameron.

Can Teaching be a Prestige Profession?
Imagine if you created a parallel teaching track called the Urban Teaching Corps. Teachers in this group would have much higher salaries, could be more easily fired, and would be placed in underserved, urban areas.

Principal Minds the Achievement Gap
Many of Florida’s public schools are being demonized so much so that they are perceived as harming students more than helping them. The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a class-action lawsuit demanding one school district close the gap in graduation rates between racial and socioeconomic groups.

Florida Disciplines Teachers Who Cheat
50 Florida teachers, counselors and administrators have been disciplined in the past 10 years for cheating or making errors in giving the FCAT, as well as other exams, according to files obtained from the state Education Department by the Florida Sun-Sentinel through a public records request.

A Good Grade for Teach for America
High-schoolers taught by the program’s novice instructors scored better on year-end exams, study says.

Teacher, a Wheelchair User, Writes Book About Her Accident
Michelle White, a fourth-grade special ed teacher in Lebanon, PA, believes she is a much better teacher since her accident on a sunny afternoon in September 2001.

Abuse Warnings Ignored for Two Decades
Seattle Public Schools will pay $3 million for failing to act on dozens of warnings that a popular teacher was molesting some of his fifth-grade students, a pattern that lasted two decades.

Semicolonoscopy
Much hand-wringing in France over the fate of the semicolon. Its days are numbered; the growing influence of English is apparently to blame.