The Core Knowledge Blog

A weekly roundup of the week’s most important news, information and blog posts about curriculum, teaching, education policy and other items of interest to the Core Knowledge community.

Core Knowledge

The Smartest Bears in the Zoo
In struggling schools, educational neglect can include virtually any kid who is at or above the proficient level.

Who’s Your Baby Daddy?
The name for someone takes responsibility for his child is a “father” not “baby daddy.”

Best of the Blogs

Tough Choices at Eduwonk
Choices have to be made. It doesn’t mean that we throw different groups of student under the bus, but any accountability system that holds people accountable for everything holds them accountable for nothing.

Everyone’s Favorite Sound Bite About Highly Effective Teachers Put to the Test at Eduwonkette
Estimates suggest that only about one-fifth of the test score gain from a high value-added teacher remains after a single year.

Dueling Manifestos at The Quick and the Ed
The extremes in school-reform debates always seem to conspire against the middle, making change a lot tougher to achieve.

Can’t We All Just Get Along? at Thoughts on Education Policy
“I continue to see no reason why education policy should involve taking sides or demeaning others.”

Can You Say ‘No?’ at NYC Educator
And if you do, do you really mean it? Because if you can’t, you might not want to go into teaching.

Don’t Be Hating at The Quick and the Ed
A teacher like my aunt reading about limousines lined up outside the Waldorf-Astoria for a Teach for America fundraiser might wonder, not unreasonably, why it never occurred to all those rich and famous people to recognize or support her lifetime of service.

Teaching and Curriculum

More Schools Trying Separation of the Sexes
The Washington Post
With encouragement from the federal government, single-sex classes that have long been a hallmark of private schools are multiplying in public schools in the Washington area and elsewhere. By next fall, about 500 public schools nationwide will offer single-sex classes.

Court Upholds ‘Highly Qualified’ Teacher Rules
Education Week
A federal court in California has sided with the U.S. Department of Education, ruling that teachers who enter schools through alternative teacher-preparation programs and are still working toward certification can be labeled “highly qualified.”

Breaking the Logjam on Teacher ‘Value Added’
Douglas N. Harris, University of Wisconsin
Annual student testing has become a mainstay of the U.S. K-12 education system under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, but there remains a sticking point: We haven’t figured out what to do with the results.

Education Policy

High-Achieving Students in the Era of No Child Left Behind
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute
The nation’s top pupils have “languished” academically while the lowest-performing youngsters have gained dramatically.

House Panel Would Kill ‘Reading First’ Funding
Education Week
The controversial federal Reading First program would be eliminated under a fiscal 2009 spending measure approved by a House Appropriations subcommittee.

The Special Education Epidemic
Pajamas Media
Most states provide funds for special education based on the number of students in special education programs. That is, they provide schools with a financial incentive to label more students as disabled.

Homeschooling and Parenting

Fear Can Limit Joys of Childhood
San Jose Mercury News
School’s out. It’s summertime! Exploring the neighborhood, kick-the-can in the street? No so much. Although statistics show that abductions and accidents are both improbable and in decline, most kids are kept on much tighter reins than they were in days of yore.

Tough school year? Check home schooling
The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR)
Parents of children who have struggled through the school year may find themselves considering alternatives to public school. One of those alternatives is home schooling.

Reading can be key to limiting the ’summer slide’
The Calgary-Herald
Summer vacation for children brings to mind sunny days full of picnics, pools, lakes, and hikes… and don’t forget the “summer slide”–the term experts use to describe what happens to children’s academic skills over the summer if they don’t participate in reading and math activities.

Snellville dad quits job to become at-home teacher
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Moms make up the majority of those who teach home school. But it is not unheard of for dads to be the main teacher.

Et Alia

2 School Entrepreneurs Lead the Way on Change
The New York Times
Wendy Kopp and Richard Barth are a power couple in the world of education, emblematic of a new class of young social entrepreneurs seeking to reshape the United States’ educational landscape by creating new schools, training better principals and getting more smart young teachers into needy classrooms.

The flaws of the self-esteem fad
The Houston Chronicle
According to the touchy-feely pop psychology of the education establishment, high self-esteem makes children smarter and more productive. However, this approach has never been proved to work.