Considering Integration

Integration Worked. Why Have We Abandoned It?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/opinion/sunday/integration-worked-why-have-we-rejected-it.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

The Core of The Common Core?

What's at the "Core" of the Common Core standards? Alfie Kohn does it again.

Read on.

Kids Speak Out on Student Engagement

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/student-engagement-stories-heather-wolpert-gawron

What the U.S. can’t learn from Finland about ed reform

Finland’s high-achieving public school system is now part of the conversation about U.S. education reform these days. What, it is often asked, can we learn from Finland? (Plenty, actually, though U.S. reformers consistently ignore the lessons .) The query has been asked and answered so often that it seems like a good time to ask what the United States can’t learn from Finland. So I asked Pasi Sahlberg, author of “ Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn About Educational Change in Finland? ” to tackle the subject, which he does, below.

Autonomy to Perform

How Micromanaging Educators Stifles School Reform
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/04/why-american-teachers-need-more-freedom/255543/#

Star Tests Are Right Around The Corner

http://unitedoptout.com/

Criticism of "Groupthink"

"A recent New Yorker article entitled "Groupthink" takes a fascinating look at the concept of brainstorming. According to author Jonah Lehrer, brainstorming was introduced in the late 1940s as a creativity-inducing practice by advertising guru Alex Osborn in his book Your Creative Power. The book was a surprise bestseller, and Osborn’s ideas about brainstorming, according to Lehrer, became "the most widely used creativity technique in the world." Whether in business, politics, entertainment, or education, group-thinking was and still is regarded as the ultimate path to ingenuity and productivity.

One small problem: Numerous studies over the years have demonstrated that brainstorming doesn’t work, at least not as Osborn defined it. Lehrer quotes Washington University psychologist Keith Sawyer: "Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas."

Interested? Read on...
http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2012/04/11/fp_graham.html?tkn=ZOCCakkhq03ZAuvCrvLiOrcHbrdyXDSbevQX&cmp=clp-sb-ascd