Group items tagged

"nations, like Japan and Germany, where 89 percent of the potential voters go to the polls. In fact, most democracies have about 80 percent voter participation. Of the 153 democracies in the world, the United States ranks near the bottom for voter involvement."

For example, Mel Riddile points out that when one conditions on various measures of poverty, instead of trailing other nations, the U.S. actually comes out on top! He concludes that "when it comes to school improvement, it's poverty not stupid." Poverty causes educational deficiency. Now, I like to actually have data to play around with, in part because people have been known to lie about politically charged issues and in part because I like to have nice graphs (which are not provided by Riddile). Anyway, it turns out that international poverty data is pretty hard to come by and fraught with interpretational difficulties. On the other hand, the National Assessment of Educational Progress provides test data for most of the states in the U.S., and the U.S. Census Bureau provides data on the percentage of people in poverty by state. I took the NAEP data for 8th grade science achievement and regressed on the percentage of people below the poverty line for the measured states. The two are negatively associated: as poverty increases, science achievement scores decrease according to the relationship in the plot below. (Alaska, Kansas, Nebraska, and Vermont did not meet NAEP reporting guidelines and are not included in the plot above.) The association is highly significant (p=9.98*10-6). I also took pilot NAEP data for 8th grade mathematics achievement and regressed on the percentage of people below the poverty line for the measured states. (Evidently, the NAEP has only just started testing for mathematics achievement, and only eleven states were included in their pilot.) Again, the two are negatively associated. The slope of the relation turns out to be almost exactly the same as for science achievement. The association is not as significant, but it is still significant (p=0.0186). (My guess is the association is less significant in this case because fewer states were measured.) Clearly there is an association between poverty and achievement in science and mathem

Community college professor discusses the implementation of heutagogy in an American Government class. His students did not appear to be ready to be self-directed learners

Mastering the craft demands time to collaborate-just what American schools don't provide.

An encyclopedia description of John Dewey, a leader in progressive education.

Pew Internet & American Life Project

"How Online Learning Is Revolutionizing K-12 Education and Benefiting Students"

rural areas still cannot get fast  internet access

AASL provides a ton of research, data, and statistics saying librarians are needed to teach students 21st century learning skills. Schools staffed with librarians have better student outcomes in reading and test scores. Students who read better and are taught research skills by a librarian will have an easier time learning.

This article discuss fully online public elementary schools and the opposition from school districts.

The following pages include tables that help school librarians learn how the AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner and the Common Core State Standards align.