AM News: Baltimore & Chicago Report 2012 Scores

Absent, suspended city students falling further behind on MSAs>/a>bsp;Baltimore Sun: For the third year in a row, Baltimore's scores on state tests show a double-digit achievement gap between chronically absent students and their peers who attend school regularly, and the system's recent spike in suspensions has created a similar disparity.

Elementary test scores hit record but up by tiniest margin since ’05 Sun Times:  Chicago’s elementary test scores hit a record high during the first year of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s watch but rose by the smallest margin — only 0.9 of a percentage point — since 2005, preliminary data released Monday indicated.

Education's pendulum: Thinkers or test takers? LA Times: The people of a large and mighty nation wonder why their schools can't do more to imitate those of another large, powerful nation across the Pacific Ocean. But this time it's not the United States seeking to emulate the schools of an Asian country — it's China seeking to emulate ours, at least to some extent.

Can Character Be Taught? NBC News: On July 1st, NBC's Andrea Mitchell discussed the role that character, grit, persistence and other non-cognitive skills can play in education with Dominic Randolph, Russell Shaw, and Paul Tough at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, CO. (NBC News)

Can Arne Duncan hoop with Team USA's women? USA Today: 
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan shows up to practice against Tamika Catchings and the U.S. women. But does he have game?

Not very impressive, I know.  See also "Weekend Reading" (below) for more education stories.

Comments

[Bruce]

The L.A. Times editorial ("Thinkers or test takers?") posits a false dilemma. We needn't have just one or the other; truly world-class education in the 21st century can achieve both. The most academically rigorous American and the most modern, reform-oriented Asian schools are already showing the way. Interesting in this regard is the Education Network (EDNET) of APEC (the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation), especially in its priority areas of mathematics, science, technical education, ICT (information and communications technology), and learning English and other languages. APEC's math and science materials have been fundamental to the design of the math and science programme development at One World Secondary School, whose students, unlike the children in the picture accompanying the Times editorial, will be studying algebra, not pre-algebra, in the seventh grade.

[Sarah]

After talking to a teacher friend of mine recently, my opinion on math and science education has changed a little bit, if I may stumble into a brief aside. I don’t really think, anymore, the problem is that we’re teaching incorrectly. I think we’re teaching the wrong things the right way. Math is and was always my strong suit, so, as an example, schools teach now the most efficient way to do a problem last in a misguided attempt to first “explain the concept.” But nobody provides a guideline as to how such a thing should be done. So you see many teachers give up on students who don’t get something after a week, because test scores have slipped into a state where they mean more than actual knowledge to the typical K-12 school.

[Sarah]

And at the very least, at least Chicago’s test scores are going up. It’s certainly better than the alternative, which many communities are facing.