10 August 2007
Korea talks
Our tour of the Republic of Korea has been wonderful. The temples, the foods, and (especially) the people have been quite delightful. Although Pat Lloyd and I have been seeing some sights, I've also been meeting with special educators in Changwon, Busan, and Seoul.
Comments Off
Equity vs. outcomes in DC schools
In his column entitled "Rights, Wrongs and the Real Task for D.C. Schools" for the Washington (DC, US) Post, Colbert I. King discussed the difficult issues that the Washington schools face. He casts the column as a conflict among the visions of three men who are well known to Washington ...
Comments Off
Factors affecting teachers? effectiveness
The Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) is a project that conducts research on a variety of questions, including factors that affect teachers' effectiveness. CALDER is a collaboaration among researchers at the Urban Institute's Education Policy Center, Duke University, Stanford University, the University of Florida, the ...
Comments Off
Testimonials don?t count
Sometimes it just gets to me.
Learning Upgrade may have fabulous products that produce wondrous outcomes for students (I do not know whether the company does), but I'm not buying those products on the basis of testimonial evidence. The Web site's blog offers testimonial statements (e.g., "Reading Upgrade Helps Texas ...
Comments Off
A whale of an education
In The Know: Are Our Children Learning Enough About Whales?Sometimes things just get away from me. In this nifty parody of debates about education from the Onion, there are some fun pokes at familiar arguments. I'm not sure which one is my favorite; people will probably consider different ones funnier ...
Comments Off
Creativity
Over on Kitchen Table Math Catherine Johnson has a note about several articles on creativity she'd read recently. Upon seeing the entry, I remembered that there are several very interesting?at least to me?behavioral studies of creativity. So I slipped over to the site for the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis ...
Comments Off
Who visits?
Folks, I don't use a fancy stats package and, even if I did, I'd only have a passing idea of who visits Teach Effectively. So, I'm running a poll for the next week or so in which I'm asksing visitors to indicate their connection to education in general and Teach ...
Comments Off
Spammers cut
For a long time I had no problems with spammers who ran scripts that sign-up bogus users for my blogs. But recently, there's been a spate of them. Yesterday, I eliminated these accounts:
ID #51: barsikjak, ID #52: barsikjal, ID #55: beepbeek, ID #54: beepbeet, ID #58: derisgun, ID #50: barsikjan, ...
Comments Off
Visitors
O.K. Maybe there are only five visitors to Teach Effectively! At least, that's the total number of votes on the current pole about roles. So, I'm moving the voting booth over here...putting it in plain sight.
Comments Off
WWC releases more results
The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences that is currently under contract to American Institutes of Research, released several sets of new reports. The reports cover topics in (a) beginning reading, (b) drop-out prevention, (c) early childhood education, (d) elementary ...
Comments Off
Popped myth
The US National Center on Educational Statistics, a part of the Institute for Education Sciences, issued a report about special education. In the report, billed as an "issue brief" and published in March of 2007, Emily W. Holt, Daniel J. McGrath, and William L. Herring describe the results of a ...
Comments Off
Kame?enui?s term expires
Here is the content of a statement by Grover J. Whitehurst, Director of the Institute of Education Sciences, announcing the expiration of Ed Kame'enui's term as Commissioner of Special Education Research.
Dr. Kame’enui joined the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) from the University of Oregon in July 2005 under the provisions ...
Comments Off
RTI presentations
For those who missed the series of talks about response to intervention at the 2007 meeting of the Council for Exceptional Children, the presenters' slides are available from Teach Effectively. The presenters included
Dixie Huefner (University of Utah) and Perry Zirkel (Lehigh University)
Yvonne Bui (University of San Francisco), Jose Luis Alvarado ...
Comments Off
Light commentary
A friend of mine decided to enter a "public radio talent quest" by doing a piece on NCLB. It's too late to enter the voting (and I found out too late as well), but you may get a kick out of his entry. This guy is not an ...
Comments Off
Hawai?i doc studies
The University of Hawai'i at Manoa is offering assiatance to doctoral students interested in developing expertise in special education and one or more of the following areas: distance education, multi-cultural education, and evidence-based practices. Click on the this link to download a PDF with further information or contact Mary Jo ...
Comments Off
Legal questions about RTI
If you're interested in legal aspects of RTI, I've recently added the passouts from Perry Zirkel's talk at CEC in April 2007 to the list of documents available from the day-long session on RTI that I hosted. Here's a link.
Comments Off
Special education professors political views
According to a poll, people in the USA are concerned about the political opinions of professors.
Zogby Poll: Most Think Political Bias Among College Professors a Serious Problem: Four in 10 said the problem is "very serious;" Tenure seen as harmful to teaching quality
As legislation is introduced in more than ...
Comments Off
Closing centers
The Maryland (MD, US) state department of education is moving to close special education facilities, requiring students to attend neighborhood schools instead, according to a story entitled "Special-ed backers scramble to save learning centers" by Marcus Moore. In his article, published in Gazette Net, Mr. Moore reported that Maryland Superintendent ...
Comments Off
Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome missed by physician
News sources are publishing an AP story by Mitch Stacy about a jury that found a physician liable for failing to diagnose a case of the genetic disorder Smith-Lemli-Optiz syndrome (SLOs) and awarded the parents $21 million. In his story, entitled "$21 Million Awarded for 'Wrongful Birth,'" Mr. Stacy explains ...
Comments Off
Characteristics of elementary students receiving special education
Late in July 2007, the National Center for Education Statistics of the US Department of Education released a report by William L. Herring, Daniel McGrath, Jacquelyn Buckley that describes the students who receive special education services during the elementary years. Following a longitudinal cohort across the elementary grades, the report ...
Comments Off
