A Swedish firm has worked out how to make money running free schools: BIG-STATE, social-democratic Sweden seems an odd place to look for a free-market revolution. Yet that is what is under way in the country’s schools. Reforms that came into force in 1994 allow pretty much anyone who satisfies basic standards to open a new school and take in children at the state’s expense. [Economist]

Study Finds Little Benefit in New SAT: The revamped SAT, expanded three years ago to include a writing test, predicts college success no better than the old test, and not quite as well as a student’s high school grades, according to studies released Tuesday by the College Board, which owns the test. [NYT]

Now students take field trips online: When seventh graders in Stockton took a field trip this week to see elephant seals, they didn’t even step outside their school. Instead, with the help of a projector and a video camera, the students teleconferenced with a state park guide on the California coast. [CSM]

A bid to boost ranks of minorities with PhDs: In its 14 years, The PhD Project has helped to triple minority presence on business school faculties. [CSM]

June 19th, 2008 at 10:34 am

This article is filed under Blog, Education.

Report Takes Aim at ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype of Asian-American Students: The report found that contrary to stereotype, most of the bachelor’s degrees that Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders received in 2003 were in business, management, social sciences or humanities, not in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering or math. [NYT]

In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: For many of my students, this is difficult. Some of the young guys, the police-officers-to-be, have wonderfully open faces across which play their every passing emotion, and when we start reading “Araby” or “Barn Burning,” their boredom quickly becomes apparent. They fidget; they prop their heads on their arms; they yawn and sometimes appear to grimace in pain, as though they had been tasered. Their eyes implore: How could you do this to me? [Atlantic]

‘Sisters’ Colleges See a Middle Eastern Bounty: So this spring the admissions deans of the five leading women’s colleges — Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Mount Holyoke, Wellesley and Smith — went recruiting to a place where single-sex education is more than a niche product: the Middle East. [NYT]

June 10th, 2008 at 11:02 am

This article is filed under Blog, Education.

Don’t Know Much About Geography: At some point, America decided that providing kids with a geography education didn’t matter. That was a mistake. [The American]

Western front: While secularists sleep well-funded creationists are on the march in Europe, says Peter C Kjærgaard. In October 2007, the Council of Europe issued a report warning against the rise of creationism, which in some countries not only draws Darwin’s teachings into doubt but also attacks his personality. [Eurozine]

Creationism edges into U.S. high school classes: One in eight U.S. high school biology teachers presents creationism or intelligent design in a positive light in the classroom, a new survey shows, despite a federal court’s recent ban against it. [msnbc]

May 22nd, 2008 at 10:40 am

This article is filed under Blog, Education.

A Crisis of Attention and Intention: The students flipped open their laptops and started clicking away. A few solely took notes, but many flipped back and forth between multiple windows: shopping on Amazon, cruising Facebook, checking out The New York Times Style section, reorganizing their social calendars, e-mailing, playing solitaire, doing homework for other classes, chatting on AIM, and buying tickets on Expedia. [American Prospect]

Democrats for School Choice: When Florida passed a law in 2001 creating the Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program for underprivileged students, all but one Democrat in the state legislature voted against it. Earlier this month, lawmakers extended the program – this time with the help of a full third of Democrats in the Legislature, including 13 of 25 members of the state’s black caucus and every member of the Hispanic caucus. What changed? [WSJ]

Should huge college endowments pay tax?: With nine of its colleges and universities boasting endowments above $1 billion, Massachusetts is now center stage in the emerging national debate over whether wealthy schools are doing enough to justify their tax-exempt status. [CSM]

What’s So Odd About Religious Colleges?: It’s tough to run a college these days. It’s tougher still when you set high standards. And it’s toughest of all when those standards reflect an Ozzie and Harriet morality in a Sarah Jessica Parker world. Just ask the folks at Wheaton College. [WSJ]

May 20th, 2008 at 8:35 am

This article is filed under Blog, Education.

Students Fail — and Professor Loses Job: Who is to blame when students fail? If many students fail — a majority even — does that demonstrate faculty incompetence, or could it point to a problem with standards? These are the questions at the center of a dispute that cost Steven D. Aird his job teaching biology at Norfolk State University. [Inside Higher Ed]

Virtual schools see strong growth, calls for more oversight: Rather than send her kids off on the yellow bus, Briana LeClaire has school come to her home. Her kids attend a virtual public school, connecting online to teachers and coursework. Everything from books to microscopes to radish seeds arrives via brown trucks. [CSM]

The Bachelor’s Degree Is Obsolete?: Why don’t we declare the bachelor’s degree obsolete? No, not education, not colleges and universities, not professors or libraries or students, just the four-year bachelor’s degree. [Inside Higher Ed]

For working moms, a way to connect with college: About 40 mothers are receiving scholarships from Project Working Mom to earn degrees online. [CSM]

May 14th, 2008 at 10:51 am

This article is filed under Blog, Education.

Rankings Go Global: Once a purely American innovation — or problem, depending on how you look at it — lists of “best colleges” are everywhere. Even as the Times Higher is competing to establish the definitive worldwide college rankings, scores of nations from Kazakhstan to Peru are fast developing new systems to evaluate and publicly rank their institutions of higher education. College rankings have gone global. [Inside Higher Ed]

Bursting the AP bubble: The problem with the AP program is that we don’t have time to really learn U.S. history because we’re preparing for the exam. We race through the textbook, cramming in the facts, a day on the Great Awakening, a week on the Civil War and Reconstruction, a week on World War II, a week on the era from FDR to JFK, a day on the civil rights movement — with nothing on transcendentalism, or the Harlem Renaissance, or Albert Einstein. There is no time to write a paper. Bound by the exam, my history teacher wistfully says we have to be ready in early May. [LA Times]

Harlem parents are voting for charter schools with their feet: The desperation of these parents is hardly surprising. In one Harlem school district, not one public elementary school has more than 55% of its pupils reading at the level expected for their grade. And 75% of 14-year-olds are unable to read at their grade level. So Harlem parents are beginning to leave the public school system in crowds. [Economist]

May 9th, 2008 at 9:42 am

This article is filed under Blog, Education.

A Professor Sues His Students: On bad days, there are no doubt plenty of professors who have joked about suing students. But it is pretty rare that somebody actually does so. A law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has — and the ramifications could extend well beyond his dispute. Richard J. Peltz is suing two students who are involved in the university’s chapter of the Black Law Student Association, the association itself, and another individual who is affiliated with a black lawyers’ group. Peltz charges them with defamation, saying that his comments about affirmative action were used unfairly to accuse him of racism in a way that tarnished his reputation. [Inside Higher Ed]

Schools use cash as an incentive to boost attendance and scores: Baltimore schools teach students about the stock market and let them keep money from their portfolios. Are cash rewards bribery or a creative way to inspire students? [CSM]

April 30th, 2008 at 9:04 am

This article is filed under Blog, Education.

My home-school days: When I tell people that I was home schooled, I frequently encounter an amalgam of awe, pity and curiosity. I can see the false images materializing behind their eyes — a childhood spent idling in front of the TV in my pajamas, or spent subject to the fanciful whims of a flighty New Age mom, or spent imprisoned by my parents’ ignorance and severity. [LA Times]

Elite Korean Schools, Forging Ivy League Skills: One graduate was Kim Soo-yeon, 19, who was accepted by Princeton this month. Daewon parents tend to be wealthy doctors, lawyers or university professors. Ms. Kim’s father is a top official in the Korean Olympic Committee. Ms. Kim developed fierce study habits early, watching her mother scold her older sister for receiving any score less than 100 on tests. Even a 98 or a 99 brought a tongue-lashing. “Most Korean mothers want their children to get 100 on all the tests in all the subjects,” Ms. Kim’s mother said. [NYT]

Degree Scandal at West Virginia Fells Provost: The provost of West Virginia University told deans Sunday that he would resign because of his role in the improper awarding of a master’s degree to the governor’s daughter, saying in a letter to the campus that he regretted that “my one action in ratifying a Dean’s decision in a single situation has had a negative impact on the institution. [Inside Higher Ed]

April 28th, 2008 at 10:30 am

This article is filed under Blog, Education.

Despite 25 years of reform, U.S. schools still fall short: Now, despite the push toward standards-based reform that culminated in No Child Left Behind, the United States has made relatively small strides in student achievement. And it has fallen further behind other industrialized nations. Without major changes, including better teacher training and compensation, the US risks not only stagnating achievement but also serious harm to the economy, reformers say. [CSM]

Informal Style of Electronic Messages Is Showing Up in Schoolwork, Study Finds: As e-mail messages, text messages and social network postings become nearly ubiquitous in the lives of teenagers, the informality of electronic communications is seeping into their schoolwork, a new study says. Nearly two-thirds of 700 students surveyed said their e-communication style sometimes bled into school assignments. [NYT]

Understanding How Educational Freedom Improves Education: The human resources director of a large urban district, who had previously been a great principal, once explained to me that his job largely consisted of dealing with teachers who came to work drunk. In a district with 30,000 teachers, about one came to work drunk every day. And then there are the infamous “Rubber Rooms” where NYC places its hundreds of incompetent teachers which it can’t fire, costing the district tens of millions per year. [Cato]

April 25th, 2008 at 9:12 am

This article is filed under Blog, Education.

Who Will Save Catholic Schools?: Every generation lives off the cultural inheritance of its predecessors. Among that inheritance for today’s American Catholics is a network of parochial schools built by their immigrant forebears, which served both to teach the faith and ground the community. But today, many of those Catholic schools in urban areas are facing a near-fatal financial crisis. [First Things]

The Illusion of College Drinking: Researchers found that the image of a typical college student as a drunken frat boy is largely a myth. Moreover, when students find out that their classmates are relatively modest in their drinking habits, they cut back on their own drinking as well. [Psychology Today]

Marxist professors or sensitive students?: Students complain about indoctrination by professors. Professors complain about vendettas, surreptitious taping and smear campaigns from students and ideologues. Who is right? [LA Times]

April 16th, 2008 at 9:29 am

This article is filed under Blog, Education.