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Tuesday Open Thread - Hallo friend SMART KIDS, In the article you read this time with the title Tuesday Open Thread, we have prepared well for this article you read and download the information therein. hopefully fill posts Article baby, Article care, Article education, Article recipes, we write this you can understand. Well, happy reading.

Title : Tuesday Open Thread
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Tuesday Open Thread

In the happiest of news,  the entire Thai boys soccer team and their coach have made it safely out the cave where they were stuck for two weeks.  Huzzah!

Great overview article from The Atlantic on public education in the U.S. and making generalizing statements about it.  I've said for a long time that until we have one national test - that all kids take like other countries - we won't really know as a nation how our kids are doing.  The NAEP is a good snapshot but I'm not sure it provides the fullest picture.

Across that stretch of time, politicians and policy makers have spoken often of the inadequacy of “America’s schools.” In fact, this trope is one of the few things that Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s regulation-averse secretary of education, has in common with her predecessors; she and previous education secretaries have regularly discussed the nation’s schools as a cohesive whole. This phrasing is useful shorthand for a national official, but it obscures the fact that the United States does not actually have a national education system. Many countries do. In France, for example, a centralized ministry of education governs schools directly. But in the U.S., all 50 states maintain authority over public education. And across those 50 states, roughly 13,000 districts shape much, possibly even most, of what happens in local schools.

The issue of principals has again come up.  I previously reported that the World School's principal has resigned with a great deal of pressure coming from students and parents for her to do so.  (Whether she is leaving the district is another issue.)  Crosscut has this recent article, detailing what happened at the school's prom and it's not pretty.

According to two people — a student who was there and who asked to remain anonymous and school staffer Teresita Bazán, a Spanish-speaking facilitator — a confrontation between the principal and the students quickly escalated. While students complained school officials had failed to warn them ahead of time that they would not be allowed in after a certain hour, Britsova, with a microphone in hand, threatened to call the police.

Students panicked. Because Seattle World School caters to immigrants and refugees, many students speak limited English. At prom that night, some students thought the principal had just called immigration.

Last month, the Vietnamese Friendship Association, the Christian nonprofit Urban Impact and others helped students organize a beach-themed prom “redo,” complete with beach balls and a giant, pink flamingo. About 60 students attended the makeup prom at 415 Westlake, an event space in downtown Seattle.

From noted public educator writer/blogger, Mercedes Schneider, news that TFA has been running in the red for the last four years and cutting staff.

Also from Schneider, even as some colleges/universities are not requiring an SAT/ACT score, some elite high schools are phasing out AP classes because some of those higher ed institutions are also not taking AP courses so seriously.

Many colleges apparently no longer consider AP-course completion to be a mark of distinction, or– as the eight elite DC high schools note in their joint announcement– many colleges no longer consider AP course completion as “noteworthy.”

These elite schools don’t like what has become the reality for public education nationwide: namely, the content cram associated with test prep. The eight elite DC schools are “convinced that focusing on a timed standardized test does not promote inquiry or higher-level discussion among students.”

From the message from the high schools:

In truth, with nearly 40% of high school students now taking these courses, the AP designation has become less noteworthy to college admissions officers. Our own survey of almost 150 colleges and universities confirms this. We have been assured by admissions officers that this change will have no adverse impact on our students. The real question for colleges is not whether applicants have taken AP courses, but whether they have availed themselves of their high schools’ most demanding classes.

The perception that colleges demand AP courses leads many students, perhaps reluctantly, to pass up other classes they might find more intellectually transformative and rewarding. Concurrently, because AP tests loom so large, faculty teaching these courses often feel pressed to sacrifice in-depth inquiry in order to cover all the material likely to be included on the test. This runs counter to the fact that college courses demand critical thinking and rigorous analysis. AP courses, by contrast, often stress speed of assimilation and memorization. While we acknowledge the recent attempts to develop more skill-based AP tests, we are convinced that focusing on a timed standardized test does not promote inquiry or higher-level discussion among students. Moving away from AP courses will allow us to offer a wider variety of courses that are more rigorous and enriching, provide opportunities for authentic engagement with the world, and demonstrate respect for students’ intellectual curiosity and interests.

 What's on your mind?

thus Article Tuesday Open Thread

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