Monthly Archives: November 2013

Here’s some good news:  James Call at the Florida Current reports that Florida Senate Education Committee Chair John Legg isn’t completely happy with the three high school graduation tracks set up by SB 1076, the bill that was wrestled through … Continue reading →

The detailed argument for including Algebra 2 in high school graduation requirements, by the provocateur who got UTeach off the ground, University of Texas-Austin physics professor Michael Marder: marder_algebra2 My favorite bit discusses the assertion that requiring Algebra 2 causes … Continue reading →

From the Dallas Morning News report on yesterday’s State Board of Education meeting: Efforts to require that most Texas high school students take Algebra II under new graduation standards suffered a blow Wednesday when the chairmen of the House and Senate education committees … Continue reading →

H/T Ed Week’s College Bound blog I argued back in June that Florida’s three new high school graduation options are college-ready (the “Scholar” track), career-ready (the “Merit” track) and none of the above (the new standard diploma). It turns out it’s … Continue reading →

The simple scheme proposed here last week to adjust NAEP state proficiency rates for socioeconomics attracted a little attention (School Zone post here) and some positive comments from people I respect.  In ranking states according to their performances on the 2013 … Continue reading →

From my piece in this morning’s Democrat: What is worrying Shea, the Sumter County Teacher of the Year, is the implementation of the Common Core standards, the new multistate standards in K-12 math and English language arts that have been adopted … Continue reading →

The answer to this question is crystal clear:  a full court press on K-8 math. What would such a full court press look like?  It would have two components – improving the performance of the state’s present K-8 math teaching … Continue reading →

In their reporting on the 2013 NAEP results, State Impact Florida and redefinedonline.org have tried to take into account the differences in socioeconomic status of students in Florida and the NAEP leaders such as Massachusetts.  The percentage of Florida public school students … Continue reading →

Update (Sunday evening):  Florida’s high poverty rate, as indicated by the percentage of the state’s public school students who are eligible for free or reduced lunch, is often cited as an excuse for Florida’s subpar performance on multistate assessments like … Continue reading →

According to a Huffington Post article on an analysis by Northwestern University’s Ben Schmidt of the selection of majors by college students, here is the output of the STEM career push up to now: The percentage of college students choosing life science … Continue reading →