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Hey, Urvashi - fascinating study! Is there any way you can post a different link to this? I can't access it through this one.

Here's a study on one bilingual classroom that tries to teach Spanish to English speakers and English to Spanish speakers: Here are the goals: "For middle class English-speaking children, two-way programs offer an enrichment opportunity: a chance to learn a foreign language in the early grades of elementary school, something quite rare and special for English speakers in a U.S. context. For working-class Latino children, two-way programs often offer stronger academic programs and more primary language support than their neighborhood schools. They offer a chance for children to maintain and develop pride in their heritage language and culture while still learning English, which is critical to their survival in the United States."

As the study points out, it doesn't always work that way, due to power issues, but it is an interesting idea. I wonder if it was taught making the power explicit (how could you do that with 2nd graders though?), if it would be more effective, i.e. being clear about the the fact that learning to be bilingual makes you more powerful for either side, but the non-native English speakers need to learn English to have any power at all in this country.

It would be an interesting PROBE paper topic - hint, hint. ;)

http://ows.edb.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/users/dpalmer/EngSpkrs%20TESOLQ.pdf

Looks like Virginia passed a similar policy, and this is Jeb Bush's response to it: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/24/school-expectations-should-be-colorblind/

While I don't agree that Florida "A-F" school rankings are a fix for these problems, I do agree with his main point: differentiating goals/standards by race just perpetuates the achievement gap that we already have.

Wednesday's Judiciary Committee hearing was a milestone for a movement that has fought to raise awareness about these kinds of policies in schools around the country. The issue sits squarely at the intersection of race, educational equity and criminal justice. The committee heard testimony from Obama administration officials, a former Chicago Public Schools student, reform advocates and criminal justice leaders who sought to answer some basic questions: What good has the rise of zero-tolerance school discipline policies, now responsible for three million suspensions a year, done for the students they were supposed to protect? And just as pressing: What justifiable explanations are there for the deep disparities that zero-tolerance school discipline so reliably produces?

I'm so glad Kara posted her link already because this is a great follow-up to it. If you are interested in learning more about the kids in "Shame of the Nation", here is an interview with Kozol talking about the impact of poverty on schools and his new book "Fire in the Ashes".

We like to believe all students have an equal opportunity to learn regardless of the color of their skin or the amount of money their families have. However, a new report by the Schott Foundation for Public Education details just how far from that ideal the education available to students from differing backgrounds in New York City actually is.

"Only about half the US population have ancestry arrived to the country before the Civil War, and less then 20% of the 2000 population can be attributed to colonists arrived before the US independence" (p. 1632).

This is one of Jessica Ross' sources, and I think it's really an interesting connection to the idea of school as a game and the possibility of creating reward junkies vs. the benefits of instant feedback. Here's the quote she liked from it: "Clearly,verbally identifying misbehaving students by name, publicly stating specific transgressions, and the provision of team debits on a blackboard may have acted as a discriminative stimulus for appropriate conduct (Salend, Reynolds, & Coyle, 1989) and provided a source of immediate feedback."

Can we use video games as an example for improving education?

"While the general trend in middle school mathematics performance was upward over the period of the project, students of teachers randomly assigned to the treatment group (eligible for bonuses) did not outperform students whose teachers were assigned to the control group (not eligible for bonuses)." So much for the argument that paying teachers more is enough to raise their kids' test scores!

This is an interesting connection: today's education budget cuts directly impact the viability of our future economy. So much for racing to the top...

Maybe moral education should be about developing students' individual passions? And supporting them in developing "grit"?

An academic version of the impact of poverty on schools - good source for your PROBE papers!