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23 percent of recent high school graduates don’t get the minimum score needed on the enlistment test to join any branch of the military

In theory, dual enrollment enables high school students to accrue college credits for very little cost and imbues them with a sense of confidence that they can complete college work. If students can succeed in college classes while still in high school, conventional wisdom holds, they will be more likely to matriculate at the postsecondary level.

The problem is that high school is not college and completion of a dual enrollment high school class is not always a guarantee that students have learned the material.

To justify their campaign, ed reformers repeat, mantra-like, that U.S. students are trailing far behind their peers in other nations, that U.S. public schools are failing. The claims are specious. Two of the three major international tests—the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study and the Trends in International Math and Science Study—break down student scores according to the poverty rate in each school. The tests are given every five years. The most recent results (2006) showed the following: students in U.S. schools where the poverty rate was less than 10 percent ranked first in reading, first in science, and third in math. When the poverty rate was 10 percent to 25 percent, U.S. students still ranked first in reading and science. But as the poverty rate rose still higher, students ranked lower and lower. Twenty percent of all U.S. schools have poverty rates over 75 percent. The average ranking of American students reflects this. The problem is not public schools; it is poverty. And as dozens of studies have shown, the gap in cognitive, physical, and social development between children in poverty and middle-class children is set by age three.

Drilling students on sample questions for weeks before a state test will not improve their education. The truly excellent charter schools depend on foundation money and their prerogative to send low-performing students back to traditional public schools. They cannot be replicated to serve millions of low-income children. Yet the reform movement, led by Gates, Broad, and Walton, has convinced most Americans who have an opinion about education (including most liberals) that their agenda deserves support.

THE COST of K–12 public schooling in the United States comes to well over $500 billion per year. So, how much influence could anyone in the private sector exert by controlling just a few billion dollars of that immense sum? Decisive influence, it turns out. A few billion dollars in private foundation money, strategically invested every year

Only one or two students out of every 100 displayed the level of science mastery that the department defines as advanced

a smaller proportion of American 12th graders demonstrated proficiency in science than in any other subject that the federal government has tested since 2005 — except history

Twenty-one percent of the nation’s 12th graders scored at or above the proficient level in science on the 2009 tests, compared with 42 percent who demonstrated proficiency on the most recent economics exam, and 38 percent and 26 percent, respectively, on the most recent nationwide reading and math tests.

“Teaching in the U.S. is unfortunately no longer a high-status occupation,”

“Despite the characterization of some that teaching is an easy job, with short hours and summers off, the fact is that successful, dedicated teachers in the U.S. work long hours for little pay and, in many cases, insufficient support from their leadership.”

In South Korea, teachers are known as ‘nation builders,’ and I think it’s time we treated our teachers with the same level of respect,” Mr. Obama said in a speech on education on Monday.

"Simply stated, the profound improvements that we found after just 4 days of meditation training- are really surprising," Zeidan noted. "It goes to show that the mind is, in fact, easily changeable and highly influenced, especially by meditation."

The meditation training involved in the study was an abbreviated "mindfulness" training regime modeled on basic "Shamatha skills" from a Buddhist meditation tradition

"Findings like these suggest that meditation's benefits may not require extensive training to be realized, and that meditation's first benefits may be associated with increasing the ability to sustain attention,"

- Team Salary (Similar to marketing, each soccer club must determine "ahead of time", how much they will pay each player. The base salary is determined by calculating the expected value of future revenue generated by each individual player with 90% confidence; that is to say, only 10% risk. The remaining 10% risk is not given to the player in the form of base salary, but rather as bonus incentives. "If you score so many goals, or the total games played win % is higher than X%", then a reward is given in the form of additional money. In either case, the job of a Statistician or in this case; Accountant, is to determine the probability of each player's expected preformance; then, the expected change in revenue due to such preformance; determine the risk the soccer club is willing to bear for such preformance; and then determine a fair compensation amount to each individual player.)

When it comes to showing results, he said, “We better put up or shut up.”

Critics counter that, absent clear proof, schools are being motivated by a blind faith in technology and an overemphasis on digital skills — like using PowerPoint and multimedia tools — at the expense of math, reading and writing fundamentals. They say the technology advocates have it backward when they press to upgrade first and ask questions later.

how the district was innovating.

Most of the world's great religious centers, past and present, have been destinations for pilgrimages

Göbekli Tepe may be the first of all of them, the beginning of a pattern. What it suggests, at least to the archaeologists working there, is that the human sense of the sacred—and the human love of a good spectacle—may have given rise to civilization itself.

I have spent the good part of the past 6 years of my professional life analyzing assessment data.  NWEAs, NECAPs (NH’s state assessment), school-based assessments, surveys, etc.  I have studied proficiencies, RIT scores, grade reports and AYP calculations.  I have taught professional development courses on how to use assessment databases and I have met with administrators from other districts to compare our data sets and strategies for improvement.

Test scores are an inadequate proxy for quality because too many factors outside of the teachers’ control can influence student performance from year to year — or even from classroom to classroom during the same year.

there’s a far more direct approach: measuring the amount of time a teacher spends delivering relevant instruction — in other words, how much teaching a teacher actually gets done in a school day.

Thirty years ago two studies measured the amount of time teachers spent presenting instruction that matched the prescribed curriculum, at a level students could understand based on previous instruction. The studies found that some teachers were able to deliver as much as 14 more weeks a year of relevant instruction than their less efficient peers.

Political leaders at every level are demanding we evaluate and pay teachers based on student test scores and value-added statistical formulas. If that turns out to be a bad strategy, the long-term ramifications for the nation could be staggering.

Information and knowledge

they need to have a "growth mindset" — the belief that success comes from effort — and not a "fixed mindset" — the notion that people succeed because they are born with a "gift" of intelligence or talent.

ducators say they see it all the time: Kids with fixed mindsets who think they just don't have the "gift" don't bother applying themselves. Conversely, kids with fixed mindsets who were always told they were "gifted" and skated through school tend to crumble when they hit their first challenge; rather than risk looking like a loser, they just quit.

We don't use the word 'gifted' — ever," Giamportone says. "In our school, you will never hear it." " 'Smart' is like a curse," adds social studies teacher June Davenport.

After four years at the charter school, eighth-graders showed average test score gains in math equal to an additional year and a half of school, compared with district students.

the charter has a lean administrative staff and slightly larger classes—31 students compared with an average of about 26 or 27 in district schools—so it can pour resources into teacher pay and training.

Common ends, diverse pathways.

what makes life worth living