This American Life did a two part report from Harper Valley High in Chicago over the last month. If you haven’t heard of Harper High, it is an inner city school where over the last year, 29 students or very recent students were injured or killed by gun shot. I think it was 8 killed. [...]
This Slate article about the success of the Harvard basketball program seems to hinting at something classiest and elitist, without actually coming out and saying it. The whole tone of the article seems to be that if you are good enough to get a basketball scholarship to college you can’t be “Harvard material.” Now, Harvard [...]
I think we can all agree that the days of graduating from college, getting a job and working your way up the corporate ladder at one company are gone forever. In the present, and even more so for kids just getting to college now, they will probably have 20-30 jobs and 3 careers before they [...]
At America’s most competitive colleges, 50% or more of the freshman class slots are filled via the early admission process. Is this a good idea? I’m leaning towards no on that question. We went through this last year. Applying to William & Mary via early admissions would have required my son to forgo the early [...]
This post, relating the battle between traditional political pundits and Nate Silver to the conflict between proponents of traditional evaluations of student performance in school versus the new wave of statistical student evaluation ignores what I think is the bigger question. Why are we so hell bent on measuring students success in school in the [...]
Jay Matthews, the education writer for The Washington Post, published his rankings of DC area schools. Fredericksburg area schools are at the bottom of the list. However, the rankings really only measure the number of college level tests given, and the percentage of kids that took at least one college level test while in school. [...]
Interesting local controversy. A kid that has enlisted in the USMC wants to wear a non-sanctioned patriotic tassel, even though school rules are very clear that graduation is about official high school achievements only. After the principal said no they took it to the school board and now it’s in the press. 1. The kid [...]
With my son’s recent decision to attend the University of Mary Washington, now seems like a good time to brain dump on what we learned getting our first homeschooled kid into college. This may not be well organized… 1. Start keeping records when they start “9th grade.” We had to take an archaeological approach and [...]
Could such a go-it-alone ideology ever be truly progressive—by which I mean, does homeschooling serve the interests not just of those who are doing it, but of society as a whole? via Homeschooling and unschooling among liberals and progressives. – Slate Magazine. WTF? In what universe are engaged, educated, independent kids not good for society [...]
The latest Hardcore History podcast elegantly covers about 500 years of history in four years; from the Fall of Rome in the 476 CE through the general Christianization of the Germanic tribes shortly before the Crusades. Coincidently, my son and I spent about 4 hours in the car driving back and forth to Richmond this [...]
Fredericksburg Christian Lower (Elementary) caters in fast food every single day. Monday – Pizza of undetermined origin. Tues – KFC Wed – Subway Thur – Salsarita’s Fri – Dairy Queen Really? This is what they are teaching kids about healthy eating? This is a $7000 a year private school, you’d think they could do better [...]
This is a great blog post from Laura Grace Weldon (author of Free Range Learning) about her efforts to get the school system to work with her son, whose learning style was more than one standard deviation from the mean. The school, of course, just wanted to label the kid as ADD and drug him. [...]
Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out [...]
A school board member, successful in the real world by any measure, takes his local 10th grade achievement test. He fails. This does not surprise me at all. Last year when Breck was preparing for the SAT, I was getting the SAT question of the day via email. I did fine on the verbal section, [...]
During the month of October, my 17 year old son has been accepted to college, awarded a significant scholarship, and been invited to interview for a full ride. He also improved his rating in fencing to C, which puts him into Division I. His 15 year old sister won a national level horse judging competition, [...]
