Category — Public Policy

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 [...]

[Read more →]

Over the past few weeks, as the presidential race dissolves into the muck of negative campaigning and simplistic rhetoric, it is easy to become discouraged. With each passing day, as we get closer to the moment of selection, our politics and our discussions grow ever smaller.
Sadly, with America involved in two wars and our economy [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

As we noted in our prior post, Dr. Tanya Byron, a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, recently released an important set of E-safety recommendations, “Safer Children in a Digital World,” for children in the UK. Today we turn to her summary recommendations regarding video gaming.

Here again, the most compelling aspect of her research as well as her [...]

[Read more →]

Across the pond, Dr. Tanya Byron, a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, recently released an important set of E-safety recommendations for children. Her report, “Safer Children in a Digital World,” was commissioned by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2007 in response to growing concerns about the dangers of the Internet.
Ms. Byron’s recommendations appear, dare we say [...]

[Read more →]

According to Drs. Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, the authors of Grand Theft Childhood, those people examining violent video game play may in fact be asking the wrong questions and making incorrect assumptions. As but one example, the authors note that “instead of looking for a simple, direct relationship between video game violence and violent [...]

[Read more →]

An interview with Dr. Cheryl Olson,
author of Grand Theft Childhood
In my previous post, I acknowledged a long-standing personal concern regarding the potential detrimental effects of playing violent video games, especially the impact such play might have on teens. That stated, in our prior piece we referenced the latest research from two Harvard professors, research that [...]

[Read more →]

If you are a parent of a teen today you are no doubt concerned about what you hear regarding violent video games. Generally speaking, there appears to be a wide-spread consensus that such games are the bane of society and the source of growing anti-social and risk-taking behavior in teens.
At the same time, if [...]

[Read more →]

A 2006 article from RethinkingSchools.org should become mandatory reading for anyone in early childhood education, particularly those teaching in public schools. The post is titled “Why We Banned Legos” and carries the most interesting of subtitles, “Exploring power, ownership, and equity in an early childhood classroom.”
Banning Legos
The article by Ann Pelo and Kendra Pelojoaquin [...]

[Read more →]

The Internet has been abuzz since the release of “What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?” by Ellen Gamerman of the Wall Street Journal. In essence, Finland teens are able to deliver the goods on international tests and now American educators have begun researching the Finnish system to see what tidbits they can glean.
According to [...]

[Read more →]