Education
While announcing legislation that would “require all public schools systems in the state to provide full-time kindergarten programs,” Sen. Christopher B. Maselli of Johnston offers this bit of manipulative rhetoric: “It’s incredible how quickly we, as a state, can commit to spend money on new motor vehicle offices and prisons, but we argue about the…
A couple days ago I mentioned about how–and why–many urban school districts are doing away with middle schools and going to a K-8 model. Apparently, Providence is looking to head in the same direction, as indicated by Mayor Cicilline: Addressing the challenges facing the Providence School District will not be easy, [Mayor Cicilline] said, and…
In his innaugural address, Governor Carcieri vowed to reform our current education system. As Maggie Gallagher reports, maybe getting rid of “middle schools” entirely is one worthwhile goal. According to the New York Post, almost 50 of the city’s 220 middle schools have closed in the last two years, part of a plan to move…
It being the end of the year, the ProJo produced a piece detailing the public policy goals of various Ocean State political leaders. Among the topics was education reform: Lawmakers dole out more than $699 million in school aid to their home cities and towns, but it has been years since the state had a…
Time magazine’s cover story announcing the idiosyncratic choice of “You” as the 2006 Person of the Year is receiving the requisite amount of media and water cooler attention. However, the Time cover story on education reform from the previous week contains more ideas of substance likely to be remembered in the long run. In its…
In a comment to my post on sex education, Rhody points to another of those differences of understanding between conservatives and liberals that seem nigh impossible to resolve: I think the best way to discourage sex before marriage is building kids’ self-esteem and letting them know they don’t have to give it up to feel…
As it happened, the Monday following a weekend during which my interest was piqued by a study making claims about, as the title states, “Explaining Recent Declines in Adolescent Pregnancy in the United States: The Contribution of Abstinence and Improved Contraceptive Use,” Rhode Island Education Commissioner Peter McWalters announced that a particular abstinence-only curriculum had…
Heritage of Rhode Island has overcome intitial objections put forward by the RI Dep’t of Education and has received approval to implement it’s “Right Time, Right Place” abstinence education program in RI’s schools. The key concession seems to be that the “only” of the heretofore proposed “Abstinence-only” program has been dropped. “Heritage’s ‘Right-Time, Right-Place’ curriculum…
I post to defend the honor of Rhode Island chapter of the National Education Association’s Executive Director Robert Walsh. This is the headline of his op-ed that appeared in Sunday’s Projo…Robert A. Walsh Jr.: Straight-party option serves R.I.Yet beneath the headline, the op-ed makes no claim of the sort…Second, [Edward Achorn] implied that public-employee unions…
I found this line, from Ethan Wingfield, particularly interesting: Brown is one of the most relaxed institutions there is. Students can drop out of a course on the last day of the semester and get the class erased from their records. Perhaps the key would have been to pitch a grade-inflation angle to keeping the…
