[UNITED STATES] What Does It Really Mean to Be College and Work Ready?
What Does It Really Mean to Be College and Work Ready? Community colleges expect little of first-year students — and get even less, concludes the National Center on Education and The Economy.
The report paints a grim picture.
High school graduates have trouble reading textbooks written at the 11th- to 12th-grade level, so instructors provide study aids to help poor readers get by. Students do little writing. When they do write, ”instructors tend to have very low expectations for grammatical accuracy, appropriate diction, clarity of expression, reasoning and the ability to present a logical argument or offer evidence in support of claims.”
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It’s not enough for community colleges to raise expectations, the report concludes.
We need to bear in mind that a very large fraction of high school graduates does not meet the very low expectations that community colleges currently have of them. The nation may have to learn to walk before it runs, which means that it is important, first, to enable our high school students to meet the current very low standards before we ratchet those standards up.
The Singapore Ministry of Education has been surveying educators and parents about their concerns with the Singapore education system. The results reveal worries about a perceived over-emphasis on exams and grades that contribute to a high stress education system that overlooks non-academic talents.
Schools are protected by international human rights law; they should be safe places for children to play, learn and develop. But in Syria, schools have come under direct attack, denying children their right to education in a safe learning environment. An eight-year-old boy from Aleppo refused to talk for more than two weeks after fleeing Syria. When he eventually did speak, his first words were,“They burned my school.”
(via Save the Children)
Boys suffering from low body image
[ENGLAND] A survey of 693 members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers found 78% thought girls suffered low self-esteem and 51% thought boys had low confidence in their body image.
Former model Natasha Devon, who campaigns about body image issues, told the BBC many boys “don’t feel they’ve got an environment… where they can discuss these issues freely.”
The number of standardized tests students have to take is about to increase, but the according to a national survey from Scholastic and the Gates Foundation, the nation’s teachers overwhelmingly don’t see the high-stakes exams as essential.
The survey asked more than 10,000 educators about their classrooms, schools, and how student and teacher performances should be measured. A huge majority of teachers believe in measuring student achievement, but they believe it should be measured with a variety of assessments, not just standardized tests. (via Only 7 Percent of Teachers Believe in Standardized Tests - Education - GOOD)
MIAMI - Elementary schools without drama classes. High schools with large numbers of poor students that do not offer music.
Those are two of the bleaker pictures that emerged Monday from a report by the U.S. Department of Education on the state of arts education.
Fewer public elementary schools are offering visual arts, dance and drama classes than a decade ago, a decline many attribute to budget cuts and an increased focus on math and reading. The percentage of elementary schools with a visual arts class declined from 87 to 83 percent. In drama, the drop was larger: From 20 percent to 4 percent in the 2009-10 school year.
Spending more than two hours a night doing homework is linked to achieving better results in English, maths and science, according to a major study which has tracked the progress of 3,000 children over the past 15 years.
Spending any time doing homework showed benefits, but the effects were greater for students who put in two to three hours a night, according to the study published by the Department for Education.
The finding on homework runs counter to previous research which shows a “relatively modest” link between homework and achievement at secondary school.
The academics involved in the latest research say their study emphasises what students actually do, rather than how much work the school has set.
(via Two hours’ homework a night linked to better school results | Education | The Guardian)
Also see recent story on a group of French parents and teachers boycotting homework.
Teaching must be made more attractive for the brightest students, says a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Report author Andreas Schleicher says teachers need to be given “status, pay and professional autonomy”.
The international report identifies the quality of teachers as the key to raising education standards.
The most successful systems, such as Finland and Singapore, recruit high-achieving students, says the report.
Sexual harassment has long been an unfortunate part of the climate in middle and high schools in the United States. Often considered a kind of bullying, sexual harassment by definition involves sex and gender and therefore warrants separate attention. The legal definition of sexual harassment also differentiates it from bullying.
Based on a nationally representative survey of 1,965 students in grades 7–12 conducted in May and June 2011, Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School provides fresh evidence about students’ experiences with sexual harassment, including being harassed, harassing someone else, or witnessing harassment. The survey asked students to share their reactions to their experience with sexual harassment and its impact on them. It also asked them about their ideas for how schools can respond to and prevent sexual harassment.
While Canadian educators believe that digital technologies can enrich students’ learning, there are still significant challenges to overcome in making this happen – with one of the main barriers being students’ lack of digital literacy skills. And school filters and policies that ban or restrict networked devices in the classroom take away the very opportunities young people need to develop digital literacy skills such as good judgment and responsible use.
These are among the findings in Young Canadians in a Wired World, Phase III: Teachers’ Perspectives – a new report from Media Awareness Network (MNet).
