Education
Another day, another list, another low ranking for Rhode Island. From Education Week‘s “Technology Counts 2008” State Technology Report Card for Rhode Island… Access to technology F Use of technologyD+ Capacity to use technologyD Overall gradeD The breakdown of the grade of “F” in the “Access to technology” category is as follows… Access to Technology…
Throughout my adult years, I’d never so much as considered sending my children to private school (parochial or otherwise) until very recently. Even my particular tincture of religious faith leads me strongly to feel that spending one’s formative years among a cross-section of the local society — an opportunity that my own experience led me…
We have to stop thinking of education in terms of time-delimited stages. In a world of advanced technology, specialization, and global competition, the old system of markers — with individuals tiered by the name of the highest degree achieved — is becoming both meaningless and expensive, as each degree level deflates and the education industry…
Originally, I had a longish, wonkish, link-heavy post detailing how Warwick got to the place where school closings were deemed necessary. I canned that once I read Warwick School Committee Chairman Christopher Friel’s explanation. Basically, there’s no doubt it was a difficult choice and that the time frame was compressed because of the budget crunch.…
Any additional educational freedom for Rhode Island’s parents would be a good thing, but Julia Steiny’s Sunday column on interdistrict school choice left me wondering about the mechanics of the thing: Cross-district choice would allow the parents to decide which schools should be closed for lack of enrollment and interest, and which should thrive. Right…
Disappointingly, Julia Steiny’s column yesterday takes a two-dimensional view of poverty programs: … it’s nothing short of glorious that Rhode Island has managed, over the course of three years and with a few strategic investments, to reduce the number of families in poverty by 6 percent. That’s huge. Six percent of Rhode Island’s population of…
A cost-benefit analysis of sorts has led me to give up on the Tiverton town council. I simply can’t afford to devote that much time to such an unprofitable activity (especially if my taxes are going to continue to climb). Still, the school committee remains sufficiently interesting and important that I’ll continue to make the…
Just wanted to highlight Max Fenig’s comments on school vouchers: After seeing the poor results for R.I.’s public schools as measured against proficiency standards, we all know what must be done: Double the money for public education and we may reach mediocrity! But one matter regarding education in this state is worthy of note. We…
It’s disappointing even to have to argue against such arguments as the one put forward by Ron Wolk, a member of the governor’s task force on urban education: The main reasons students are not learning algebra and geometry is that they don’t really want to. They think higher-order math is irrelevant to their real lives.…
I’ve had mixed feelings about the reliance on student portfolios for the awarding of high school diplomas. On the one hand, it does place an active, foreseeable academic achievement before all students. On the other, most of the work is done as regular coursework and set aside for the portfolio, which aggregates the work in…