Category Archives: Education News Roundup

For Updates on Progressive Education, Just Read the Tweets

As frequent readers of our blog already know, we’ve occasionally used this space to recommended books to read, organizations to be aware of, and conferences and workshops to attend. Now we’ve got a new reference point to share — people and organizations in and around education whose Twitter feeds you may want to follow.

Twitter-Water_Bottles

Here’s our list of 10 people and organizations in education to follow on Twitter:

  • Laura Thomas (@CriticalSkills1) of Antioch University New England (@AntiochNewEng): Laura believes every learning experience should link to the next, and that there’s great value in teaching teachers how to make those connections.
  • Carlos Moreno (@Carlos_Moreno06) and Andrew Frishman (@AndrewFrishman) of Big Picture Learning (@bigpiclearning): These two men lead vital changes in education by generating and sustaining innovative, personalized schools that work in tandem with the greater community.
  • Steve Drummond (@SDrummondNPR) of National Public Radio – Education (@npr_ed): Drummond is the senior education editor with the National Public Radio’s education team and frequently provides coverage of what’s happening in progressive education.

Educational Reform In The News

In-The-NewsJust like we teach our students, one of the best ways to stay on top of any issue is to read up on it and then discuss it with your peers. That practice doesn’t stop when the diplomas are handed out, and it certainly shouldn’t be curtailed when you’re an educator.

So starting today, and continuing whenever we have a batch of insightful reads to share, we’re going to curate recent news items on our blog that you might find deserve further reading. These blog entries, tagged “In the News,” contain current newspaper features, magazine articles, white papers, studies and findings that we think might be of interest to educators — not to mention members of our own student body and parents.

Our hope is that these brief recaps keep you informed and up to date on the goings-on in the education field.

Here’s our first offering:

Educational reform. A good choice? (From The Economist – Oct. 6, 2014): School vouchers are a divisive subject in America. Proponents claim that vouchers not only grant parents the opportunity to send their children to a private school, but also raise the quality of all education by creating more competition between schools. Critics complain that these subsidies divert necessary resources from public schools, and rarely cover the full cost of a private education. To settle this debate, many have looked to Sweden, where vouchers were introduced in 1992. The results there have been cited as both a case for and against vouchers. So, what has been the actual effect of this Swedish experiment? Read more here.

Fixing the best schools in the world (From Bloomberg Businessweek – Sept. 24, 2014): While some critics dispute the Programme for International Student Assessment rankings — arguing that U.S. schools are evaluated as a national collective, not city-by-city as Chinese schools are — most agree that China produces formidable test takers. The school system in Shanghai, the nation’s largest and wealthiest city, is widely accepted as the most rigorous education system in the world. But Qiu Zhonghai thinks it can do better. Throughout his career he has been pushing the system to improve and adapt alongside China’s fast-changing economy. Today, Qiu is an elder statesman among a growing number of younger, more radical pioneers who think the Chinese education system, for all its success, is archaic and in need of Continue reading…