For Feb. 1, the inaugural Digital Learning Day, we present ideas any teacher, student or parent can use to participate, as well as with links to Times articles from 1970 to 2002 on the impact of the digital revolution in education.
Urban Parents Turn to Homeschooling
January 30, 2012
Google News
There are an estimated 300,000 homeschooled children in America’s cities, many of them children of secular, highly educated professionals who always figured they’d send their kids to school.
Montana’s One-Student School
January 29, 2012
New York Times
In a prosperous ranching corner of Montana, Amber Leetch, age 11, makes up the entire Sunset School District 30.
Panel raps education reform effort
January 29, 2012
Google News
Panelists at a Town Hall Meeting rallied against the current set of education reform bills making their way through Lansing. The panelists were particularly critical of a bill that lifts the cap on the amount of charter schools allowed in the state.
Harnessing Gaming for the Classroom
January 29, 2012
New York Times
At the Learning Without Frontiers conference in London, the experts gathered to explore the pros, and some cons, of computer gaming as a learning tool.
E.U. cross-border students may be burden
January 29, 2012
New York Times
Cross-border students within the bloc pay the same tuition fees as natives, but a reimbursement system that would see states pay for educating their own students, no matter where they study, has been suggested.
Ontario Online Institute far from launch
January 29, 2012
Toronto Star
The Ontario government’s plan for a sleek new system of online higher learning that would help students mix and match online credits and train profs to design better web-based courses appears to have stalled.
State claims education reforms do not work
January 29, 2012
Google News
New South Wales, Australia — There is no way of knowing if programs aimed at improving the literacy and numeracy skills of struggling students have worked, the state government says.
Alabama charters raise concerns
January 29, 2012
Google News
Charter schools may be in Alabama’s future, and the state’s teachers’ union is not happy to hear the news. The AEA is calling the move a “new assault against public education” in a drive to open the door for privatization.
Chicago expo to link families with schools
January 28, 2012
Google News
Thousands of families filed into Soldier Field Saturday, not for a football game but to shop for a new school during an expo aimed at showcasing new enrollment options for parents amid an influx of charter schools to the area.
Vassar Applicants Mistakenly “Accepted”
January 28, 2012
New York Times
A test letter mistakenly told 76 applicants that they had been accepted to the school. A spokesman for Vassar said that a letter intended as a placeholder had not been replaced before students checked their application statuses online.
Virginia may stop some 3rd grade SOLs
January 28, 2012
Washington Post
The Virginia Senate has approved a bill that would require that third graders take the Standards of Learning exams only in math and English, meaning they would no longer have to to take history and science SOLs.
Obama Decries Rising Cost of College
January 27, 2012
Google News
President Barack Obama called Friday for an overhaul of the higher education financial aid system, warning that colleges and universities that fail to control spiraling tuition costs could lose federal funds.
War on teachers is changing the profession
January 27, 2012
Washington Post
As state after state rewrites their education laws, the teaching profession is being redefined. Teachers will now pay the price: They will be declared successes or failures, depending on the rise or fall of their students’ test scores.
Obama ‘putting colleges on notice’
January 27, 2012
Yahoo News
President Barack Obama fired a warning at the nation’s colleges and universities, threatening to strip their federal aid if they “jack up tuition” every year and to give the money instead to schools showing restraint and value.
College leaders question Obama’s plan
January 27, 2012
Washington Post
President Obama on Friday proposed that the federal government take the lead in curbing the rising cost of college by rewarding colleges that keep tuition down and punishing those that do not.
County to drop test for second graders
January 27, 2012
Washington Post
Montgomery County Public Schools Supt. Joshua Starr has decided to stop giving the TerraNova 2 standardized test to second graders in a move to save money and reduce the number of tests young children are forced to take.
Obama to Link Aid to Affordability
January 27, 2012
New York Times
President Obama is proposing a financial aid overhaul that would tie colleges’ eligibility for campus-based aid programs to the institutions’ success in improving affordability and value for students.
Can computers teach writing?
January 26, 2012
Washington Post
Like many people, I am appalled at how little writing American students are asked to do. But when we crotchety advocates complain about this to teachers, we have to shut up when they point to a seemingly insoluble problem.
Principal Resigns Amid Credit Scandal
January 26, 2012
New York Times
The principal of a troubled high school in the Bronx will resign at the end of this week amid accusations that she gave some students credit for classes they never took.
Principals swamped by teacher evaluations
January 26, 2012
Google News
School principals, including some who back more rigorous review of teachers, are balking at education reforms required by Race to the Top. New teacher evaluations are all-consuming, they say.
