Some Interesting Links

A few links that I have enjoyed this week.

This is about the effects of mainstreaming for low achieving students. The author's conclusions are that whole class instruction is not necessarily a negative for low achieving students.

The second is an account of school turnaround in Hartford, CT. The reviewer says this to wrap up her not entirely glowing account of the reform...

“It is not clear,” Pappano concludes, “whether Hartford Public High School is actually being turned around.” The book ends with descriptions of which academies will be abandoned, which are in the works. Would it not be more productive to convert the energy being spent on academies to ensuring that all students receive, at long last, a content-rich curriculum with a pervasive emphasis on reading, writing, speaking, and reasoning? In this respect, Hartford’s story is indeed America’s story.

With the recent onslaught against public education going on I did some looking into research on the positive effects of education on the populace. The College Board has published these statistics on the effect of education for various groups. They are from 2004 but they certainly show the positive effects of education.