Category — Equal Opportunity

In the third of our four part series discussing education in the Netherlands we take a look at the secondary school options available to students. In using the term options, we do not mean strictly a choice of which type of programming to attend. Instead, the option is determined by school performance at the elementary […]

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When looking at the Dutch school system, there are some glaring differences between what takes place in the Netherlands and what takes place in America. However, while many educators have taken a look at high performing Finland for ideas, it should be noted that in the Netherlands the socioeconomic diversity is more in line with […]

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A short time ago we took a brief look at Finland, the highest scoring country on the 2006 PISA Exams (Programme for International Student Assessment). The tiny country demonstrated extraordinary results taking the top spot in science, the number two slot in Reading (only trailing Korea), and the number two slot in Mathematics (trailing […]

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This past week, a Boston Globe article revealed the development of an alarming educational trend within the State of Massachusetts. Hidden beneath the surface was yet another subtle demonstration as to why the No Child Left Behind Act may actually be acting as a deterrent to improved educational outcomes.
The issue? It seems that many Massachusetts […]

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For the first time in American history, one out of every 100 American adults is in jail or prison according to a report released by the Pew Center on the States. With roughly 1.5 million in state and federal prisons and 700,000+ in local jails, the United States now has 2.3 million adults incarcerated. As […]

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While traditional, campus-based colleges continue to see flat enrollments, online universities are seeing steady up-ticks in student numbers. The primary reason for that growth is due to the flexibility online programs offer. However, two recent innovations by two different national online schools also demonstrate why these institutions continue to be so popular; they are simply […]

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Over the past couple of weeks we have heard the phrase stimulus package to describe a short term approach to help our declining economy. At the behest of our president and apparently supported by the House and the Senate, the current package comes in a rather troubling form accompanied by an equally bizarre directive. The […]

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Each year I become more and more amazed by the discoveries taking place regarding intelligence and the learning process. The first video in our post The Twelve Must See Videos of 2007 proves we knew little about learning and learned behavior in infants.
In that first video an infant of six months is exposed to shapes […]

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I read with great interest the story of retiring teacher Mary Barrera-Gomez. Currently a fifth-grade teacher at Forbes Elementary School in San Antonio she will be retiring after 29 years in education.
What makes her story truly unusual is twofold. First there is the fact she left the administrative ranks six years ago for one […]

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It was quite some time ago we wrote about Martin Haberman’s viewpoint regarding learning and teacher preparation programs. In his article “The Source and Nature of Best Practice in Teaching,” the columnist and Board advisor to EdNews.org defined learning as “changed behavior.” We noted at the time that Haberman made no specific mention of traditional […]

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