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"This was written by education historian Diane Ravitch for her Bridging Differences blog, which she co-authors with Deborah Meier on the Education Week website. Ravitch and Meier exchange letters about what matters most in education. Ravitch, a research professor at New York University, is the author of the bestselling "The Death and Life of the Great American School System," an important critique of the flaws in the modern school reform movement that she just updated."

List of magazines available via Google Books Idea: Ask students to compare Weekly World News to New York Times

After a long legal battle and amid much anguish by teachers and other educators, the New York City Education Department released individual performance rankings of 18,000 public school teachers on Friday, while admonishing the news media not to use the scores to label or pillory teachers.

Historical photos from the New York Times.  Great for story starters or to begin a history lesson.

The Learning Network - Teaching & Learning With The New York Times This site not only provides news, but also includes lesson plans, fun challenges, quizzes and more.

Good update to todays issue with lots of good reference material which the reporter has already started for students.

TEDxNYED, an all-day conference focusing on empowering innovation in education, is being held in New York City on Saturday, March 5, 2011. It will be webcast live here at tedxnyed.com, allowing viewers around the world to join and engage in these ideas worth spreading."

As it happened, New York state just released the results of its annual tests of English language arts and mathematics, and the scores soared across the state to an extent that was literally unbelievable.

Digital collection of images, photographs, audio and video from the New York Public Library

New York Times article about Google search tool allowing users to search for words or phrases and see how often those words have been used over time; shared by Deb Rottinger

How much CO2 is created by a banana? A wedding? A flight to New York? We teamed up with GE to turn 'tons of carbon' into an interactive visual landscape. Enter a CO2 value. Hit the 'random' button for serendipity. Or just click through objects like stepping stones. (There are nearly 200 objects so it may take a second to load) Designed by David McCandless

But, before the multiple choice, standardized testing crowd starts thumping their chests, it's important to note the kind of test the researchers administered. After reading the passage, students "wrote what they remembered in a free-form essay for 10 minutes. Then they reread the passage and took another retrieval practice test." So, to decipher the wonkitude, the students read a passage, wrote a reflection essay, reread the passage a second time, and then wrote another reflection essay.That's a far cry from bubbling in the letter "C" on a scantron form.

A new study claims testing helps kids get smarter-except, the tests that make a difference aren't the ones you think.

A discussion of constructivists curriculums in which Posner played a major role. His 2004 book, Analyzing the Curriculum was popular in education classes, science and psychology classes. He changed the way Americans and educators thought about education. Posner, G. J. (2004). Analyzing the curriculum (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw Hill. http://www.etni.org.il/etnirag/issue4/nellie_deutsch.htm

5 minute video summarizing the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City.

"I am on a flight returning home after a successful Presentation at the New York State Association of Computers and Technologies in Education Annual Conference, NYSCATE. I was pleased with the outcome, but I did make a few observations about how presenting at these conferences is beginning to change and may never be the same. Presentations for any educational conference are the backbone of the conference. They are usually the main reason why educators attend conferences, wild parties notwithstanding. It is a great accomplishment for an educator to have a proposal for a conference presentation accepted and placed on the Program. Being judged and accepted by one's colleagues is both an accomplishment and a thrill and for some, the process could also be terrifying. Presenting is considered by many to be one of those thresholds in an educator's career. I have done several presentations at various conferences over the years and I have been moved by the positive experience with each event. Because it requires putting one's self out there for all to see, most presenters do a great job of preparing and presenting to the best of their ability."

"Conversation is key . Sawyer succinctly explains this principle: "Conversation leads to flow, and flow leads to creativity." When having students work in groups, consider what will spark rich conversation. The original researcher on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that rich conversation precedes and ignites flow more than any other activity.1 Tasks that require (or force) interaction lead to richer collaborative conceptualization. Set a clear but open-ended goal . Groups produce the richest ideas when they have a goal that will focus their interaction but also has fluid enough boundaries to allow for creativity. This is a challenge we often overlook. As teachers, we often have an idea of what a group's final product should look like (or sound like, or…). If we put students into groups to produce a predetermined outcome, we prevent creative thinking from finding an entry point. Try not announcing time limits. As teachers we often use a time limit as a "motivator" that we hope will keep group work focused. In reality, this may be a major detractor from quality group work. Deadlines, according to Sawyer, tend to impede flow and produce lower quality results. Groups produce their best work in low-pressure situations. Without a need to "keep one eye on the clock," the group's focus can be fully given to the task. Do not appoint a group "leader." In research studies, supervisors, or group leaders, tend to subvert flow unless they participate as an equal, listening and allowing the group's thoughts and decisions to guide the interaction. Keep it small. Groups with the minimum number of members that are needed to accomplish a task are more efficient and effective. Consider weaving together individual and group work. For additive tasks-tasks in whicha group is expectedtoproduce a list, adding one idea to another-research suggests that better results develop