Bob Collins
This time of the year can be difficult for those of us with educational self-esteem problems.
Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Tag: Education
Today’s dispatch from the ‘Department of What Were They Thinking.’ Eighth grade students in Rialto, California were given an assignment to debate whether the Holocaust really happened. Read more →
A Minnesota school has dropped a requirement that prom goers be tested for drinking before being allowed to attend.
The Minnesota American Civil Liberties Union said Perham High School’s requirement is likely unconstitutional and ineffective.
Read more →
What are the odds that a special education teacher would go on a nasty rant about her students, while she ‘pocket dialed’ her phone, and the call went to the parent of a special education student? Read more →
Unless you think ‘the retard room’ is how you think kids should refer to classrooms for special needs students, there’s not much to discuss about an effort to remove a nearly 30-year-old book called ‘Sixth Grade Can Really Kill You’ from Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan schools. But it’ll be discussed anyway. Read more →
The College Board today is releasing new guidelines for the vocabulary portion of its test, which many high schoolers have to take to prove to colleges and universities that they are worthy. Gone are the days of memorizing words and definitions. Context is in. Time.com says the emphasis will now be on Tier 2 words. Read more →
Keith Robinson, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas, Austin, and Angel L. Harris, a professor of sociology and African and African-American studies at Duke, found in their study that parental involvement may actually hinder student achievement. Read more →
A few years ago, a local knucklehead in high school invited porn stars to be his date at the senior prom. When one accepted, that forced school officials to crack down on whom students can invite to the prom.
And that’s why Jack Jablonski, the Benilde-St. Margaret hockey player who was paralyzed during a game, had to depend on common sense prevailing when he asked ESPN’s Michelle Beadle to be his date. Read more →
What were you doing in the 8th grade?
Cole Willis, 14, has already selected his college. He wants to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and become an engineer. Now he’s moved on to figure out how to pay for it; it’ll cost about $59,000 a year in 2014 dollars. Read more →
And now this antidote for last week’s story about college sports players who skated through high school thanks to educators who were more than willing to pass illiterate students and some parents who didn’t seem to care. Read more →
Writing in today’s Star Tribune, Kirsten Ragatz, who has taught for 20 years, was responding to an earlier Strib article that the poorest schools get the ‘rookie’ (and by innuendo, worst) teachers. Read more →
The Lakeville Area School District is going to reconsider its opt-out policy on student surveys after some parents this week objected to a recent survey which included personal questions about family members. Read more →
Decisions facing parents of African American students, breaking the stereotype of hunger, Kiev is burning, the man who wouldn’t kiss his sister, and frozen Superiority. Read more →
If you’ve been dispirited by the constant cuts in music education in recent years, perhaps you can find some hope in today’s awarding of a Grammy to an upstate New York teacher for excellence in music teaching. Read more →
What do you do when you’re an NBA star, are on the road, and have a day off? You go to college. Or, you do if you’re Kobe Bryant. The Los Angeles Lakers star, who’s injured but accompanying his team on the road anyway, dropped in on a marketing class at Boston College last night, Read more →