Diane Ravitch sets the record straight
In her new book, Death and Life of American Schools, Ravitch comes out strongly in favor of public education and for all the right reasons. You should check out some of the many interviews she gave in the last few months. Here is one

Common Core Standards
Governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states, 2 territories and the District of Columbia have committed to developing a common core of state standards in English-language arts and mathematics for grades K-12. Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) is a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). More information

 Education Week's Catherine Gewertz reports on the release of a new study on adolescent literacy and its call for "re-engineering for change" at all levels of education. In discussing the report on educaiton in grades 4 through 12, "Time to Act", the panel called for "re-engineering" of approaches to adolescent literacy, suggesting a "literacy revolution" is needed. Read the full article here

In a New York Times “Future of Reading” segment entitled, “A New Assignment: Pick Books You Like” (August 29, 2009), Motoko Rich established an either/or polemic between two dominant reading instruction approaches—the teacher-directed, whole-class survey of canonical literature versus the reading workshop. In light of widely-accepted philosophical perspectives on the nature of reading literacy as a goal-directed social activity, neither approach is sufficient in providing children with pedagogical interactions that sufficiently support the development of competence, identity, agency and responsibility as readers.

The traditionalist approach has long been criticized for narrowly conceptualizing learning as solely a product of teaching, and teaching as merely a process of transmission. It neglects the need to differentiate instruction to the particular needs of students. Though supportive of student autonomy and freedom to choose what to read, the workshop approach relies on an outdated conception of reading as a private, individual process rather than a socially purposeful one. Also, it fails to provide sufficient instruction for delayed readers, relying on individual, teacher-student conferences as the primary medium of differentiated instruction (logistically impractical for the average middle school teacher who sees 150+ students a week).

Advanced and low-achieving readers alike need opportunities to learn how written text work within the context of instructional situations that are engaging, communal, educational and supportive of the development of personal agency. Neither traditional, teacher-directed teaching methods nor the reading workshop provide sufficient learning experiences.
Read the full article here

46 States, D.C. Plan to Draft Common Education Standards, a report by Maria Glod in The Washington Post. Read the full article here

Don’t! The secret of self-control, by Jonah Lehrer, The New Yorker, May 18, 2008
 
The routines of the Genre Practice curriculum involve children in on-going and plentiful opportunities to take stock of their strengths and needs, set goals for themselves, and take account of their progress in meeting their goals. In his feature article, “Don’t! The secret of self-control,” author Jonah Lehrer traces the work of psychologists who study self-control and its relationship to academic achievement. Read more to learn about why it is important to teach children strategies and habits they need to achieve the learning goals they set for themselves. Read the full article here

In his New York Times opinion editorial,
“Some Thoughts on the Lost Art of Reading
Aloud,” May 16, 2009, Verlyn Klinkenborg suggests that “our idea of reading is incomplete,
impoverished, unless we are also
taking the time to read aloud.”
Unison Reading, an integral part of
the Genre Practice reading curriculum,
involves a few students in a joint reading
process of the same text. Read more to explore
the advantages of the lost art of reading aloud.
Read the full article here

"Effectiveness of Selected Supplemental Reading Comprehension Interventions: Impacts of a First Cohort of Fifth-Grade Students." National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance within the Institute of Educational Sciences report on the impacts on student achievement for four supplemental reading curriculum programs that use similar, "scientifically-based" comprehension instruction strategies showed no significant differences from the control group. Read the full article here

'No Child' Law Is Not Closing Achievement Gap. Sam Dillon of the New York Times writes, "The achievement gap between white and minority students has not narrowed in recent years, despite the focus of the No Child Left Behind law on improving the scores of blacks and Hispanics, according to results of a federal test considered to be the nation’s best measure of long-term trends in math and reading proficiency."
Read the full article here

Ability Grouping In Elementary School Hampers Minority Students' Literacy, is an article in the Science Daily, the title making any further explanation redundant. Read the full article here

Reading Test Dummies is an Op-Ed in the New York Times by E.D. Hirsch Jr., on test taking in American Schools since the advent of NCLB. While Hirsch accurately blames NCLB-influenced test-prep curriculum for having dreadful consequences on instruction and learning (old news), his proposal that stringent standards would solve the problems in our educational system is just more of the same.  Not only has this kind of curriculum been standard fare in homogenous countries like Ireland for decades, it’s the target of harsh and well-deserved criticism (see Fiona Rooney’s blog) because it’s based on a simplistic and outdated definition of reading. Judge for yourself.
Read the full article here

"New Study Shows Time Spent Online Important for Teen Development." Read it at the MacArthur Foundation's website. Read the full article here

 The Cambridge Primary Review published two important studies that exposed negative trends in education that result from an over emphasis on literacy skills instruction and high stakes accountability at the expense of creative teaching and student engagement.   The studies can be found here.