March 2009 Archives

According to a report from the Associated Press, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan believes that big-city mayors should assume control of public schools. Some experts argue that mayoral control benefits school districts.

Duncan hails from the Chicago school district, which Chicago Mayor Richard Daley took over some years ago. Recall that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made a failed attempt to control LA Unified. There has been absolutely no discussion among Long Beach officials that I am aware of concerning any proposal for the mayor to take over the LBUSD.  Do you think we should leave the control of districts to school boards or give ultimate authority to the mayors instead? Do you think so in the case of Los Angeles or Long Beach or both?

This is a little old, but the story didn't get as much play as I expected in the news, so I thought I would post it here in case you hadn't heard about it. In February, a federal appeals court ruled unconstitutional a California law that would have banned the sale or rental of violent video games to minors, as reported in this USA Today article. Judges said the law violated minors' rights under the U.S. Constitution's First and 14th amendments. I'm eager to hear your thoughts: Did the intended ban go too far? Is the voluntary rating system that game companies are now using sufficient?

The Texas state Board of Education made headlines again after wading into another controversy over the teaching of evolution in the state - and the teaching of how old our universe is. Textbook publishers have to cater to Texas because it represents such a large part of the market, so it's possible this change to Texas' learning standards could affect other states, according to this New York Times article. An excerpt:

"Failing to overhaul the curriculum broadly, (Texas) conservatives instead attached a series of measures specific to subjects like biology, where teachers would be newly required to "analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of natural selection to explain the complexity of the cell." In the earth-science curriculum, conservatives weakened language concerning "the concept of an expanding universe" to address instead "current theories of the evolution of the universe including estimates for the age of the universe."

On the education front, there are several sites that offer free learning games online for students of all ages. Here are some sites that offer free online games for math, English and other skills, mostly for primary grades or pre-school years.
Primary Games,  Fun Brain, KidsGames, Gamequarium, Funschool,
I'm curious to know if your pre-school or early-elementary-school child is into video games.

Not often enough - at least among pre-school-aged children -- according to a study published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease. Parents when surveyed were unlikely to recognize their child's being overweight in pre-school years. And parents of normal-weight children saw them as underweight. The researchers say this has implications for the fight against obesity. I'd be curious to see what you think about the concept of obesity so early in childhood. Here's a link to the study: 

A new report by the Alliance for Childhood states that kindergartners don't get enough "play time" even though research shows that it can boost language learning and social skills. Education leaders are too dismissive of the value of properly structured play time, researchers said. Here's an except from the report. I'm not quite sure about the real-world relevance of this "animal research," but the document does raise some interesting points.

"Research shows that children who engage in complex forms of socio-dramatic play have greater language skills than nonplayers, better social skills, more empathy, more imagination, and more of the subtle capacity to know what others mean. They are less aggressive and show more self-control and higher levels of thinking. Animal research suggests that they have larger brains with more complex neurological structures than nonplayers."

I've decided to start an education blog that will be a little different in its approach then other blogs on the Press-Telegram website. Rather than just being a source for breaking local news, I've decided to expand the scope of the blog to include linking to education stories and studies across the nation that may interest you. In addition to news, I hope to include information that could be helpful to parents. So I aim to make this not only a more user-oriented blog, but I also hope that you will give your own opinion on the issues discussed here by posting comments to a blog item that interests you. That interaction is what the power of the Web is all about. So enjoy!