Summer camps popular in the US are said to stop the summer “learning slide”, which is particularly important for low socio-economic children. But camps can also be quite expensive. So should we adopt the practice here?
Coming to a community college near you. Obama launched his tuition-free promise in Tennessee.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Demonstrating again he is no lame-duck president, Barack Obama has proposed a new higher education initiative celebrated on social media as #FreeCommunityCollege. Obama’s plan to provide free community…
In October 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act was passed and introduced far-reaching changes to immigration policy in the US. At the time, Representative Philip Burton said in Congress: Just as…
How do you measure the value of a charter school?
Reuters/Lee Celano
Imagine a police officer pulls you over and tickets you for speeding. She tells you she measured you going 50.5 MPH in a 50 MPH zone. No, you reply, my speedometer shows that I was going exactly 49.5…
Better hurry up if you want a place.
Reuters/Adrees Latif
Rookie New York mayor Bill de Blasio – poster child for America’s insurgent progressives – has promised to rewrite “a tale of two cities” by seeking to narrow gaps between the haves and the have-nots across…
An important lesson in free speech.
Rick Wilking/Reuters
Students in Jefferson County, Colorado, popularly known as JeffCo, have learned an important civics lesson about their power to influence policy. In late September, hundreds of students organized to oppose…
If you’re an eight-year-old living in Charleston, South Carolina, you’re soon going to need to study extra hard at reading. The US state has joined in with a policy trend across the country that links…
Taking tips from other countries on public education would be a good thing - if only we didn’t follow the ones who are failing.
Flickr/Sakkra Paiboon
Where I come from in North Carolina it is currently 14 hours behind Australian Eastern Standard Time. I tell my colleagues that I have come from the past. However, when it comes to seeing how the failed…
As the coalition government’s free schools continue to stir heated debate, the problem of how to maintain and raise standards and quality is front and centre. To tackle it, MPs have been looking more and…
Brain drain has been a continuing problem in many developing countries for several decades. China is no exception. According to a report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, there were more than…
Don’t mess with my homework, officer.
Dominic Lipinski/PA Archive
The recent horrifying spectacle of a disturbed student fatally stabbing his teacher in front of his classmates in Leeds has spurred a national dialogue about how schools should address violence. Perhaps…
They’re calling it ObamaCore? Not all that again.
Michael Reynolds/EPA
When it comes to US public education, few topics engender such heated debate as a new set of maths and English standards for school children known as the Common Core. Since the final standards were released…
“Hope and change” may have driven the first presidential campaign for Barack Obama, but many educators and public education advocates have been discouraged by Obama’s education policy. While the US secretary…
Students who are held back a year in school or who are older than average for their grade have long been known to be more likely to misbehave and to be suspended from school. But what’s not been clear…
On the march against big business.
Light Brigading
Under the mantra of civil rights, billionaires such as Eli Broad, Bill Gates and the Koch Brothers and the powerful corporate-funded lobby group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are using…
The bi-partisan federal legislation in the US popularly known as “No Child Left Behind” was passed during George W Bush’s first term. It had two important goals: to increase scientifically based education…
We don’t like human meat, said dino.
davidberkowitz
Despite lack of evidence or logic, some people would like kids to be taught as fact that the Earth was created by a supernatural being some 6,000 years ago. That is the case put forth by Christian Schools…