Author Archive

It would be funny if it weren’t true.

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

An article in the NY TImes (12/27/2009) sites a department of Education estimate that in order to apply for part of the $4 billion in federal Race to the Top grant money, a state will need to spend 681 hours to fill out the application. If you haven’t seen the application it is available below. I can’t imagine anyone reading it all without being compensated, but a quick scan is likely to be amusing or depressing depending on your personality.

Click here to see the article..

Click here to see the Race to the top application..

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Race to the Top Spoof

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Yong Zhao immigrated from China in the 1990’s. He presents an alternate view on testing and national standards. Here is a link to a funny article in EdWeek where he spoofs the application for state Race to the Top money. I also am working on a summary of his book “Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization.”

Here is the link for this article.

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Tags: Race to the Top, Yong Zhao
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How well are you Connected? – Nicholas Christakis

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD and James H. Fowler, PhD is another must read for anyone who wants to understand how our social networks impact our lives. All educators should consider the implications of this work.
As the authors studied social networks, they began to think of them as human super organisms. They grow and evolve. All sorts of things flow and move within them. This super organism has its own structure and a function, and they became obsessed with understanding both. Once we see ourselves as part of a larger network, we can better understand our actions, choices, and experiences. These connections are natural and necessary and a force for good. Just as brains can do more than single neurons, so can social networks do things that no single person can do. To know who we are, we must understand how we are connected.

Click here to see the summary of this book.

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SuperFreakonomics Levitt & Dubner

Friday, December 4th, 2009

In the follow up to their best selling book, Levitt and Dubner provide us with more surprising data that defies common sense and shows us that we really need to think more about unintended consequences as we make decisions that can impact our lives and the lives of others.

Click here to see the excerpted summary of this book.

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Obama vs. Bill Gates – Place Your Bet

Friday, November 27th, 2009

These two heavyweights are both trying to improve education by throwing money at the problem. The Obama administration’s $4 billion “Race to the Top” fund will go to the states that can convince government raters that they have the best reform agendas. The feds are also spending $350 million to help create common assessments for the nation that will replace the individual tests that states currently create and use to rate schools as required by federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation.
Meanwhile, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is donating $350 million in the next ten years to answer the question: “What, exactly, makes a good teacher effective.
With the federal government spending over twelve times as much as the Gates foundation, you would think that they would show more dramatic and significant results. Since it is too soon to tell, all we can do is place our bets. What do you think. Email your pick to me (dgreen@stny.rr.com) and I will post the results. After I get your votes I will post a detailed rational for who I think will win and why.

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