Thursday, November 10, 2005

Selections from EducationNews.org

As usual, EducationNews.org has a wondeful selection of links to articles about education. Day after day they find education related articles on the web. They also briefly list various commentaries and reports about education. This is a great place to go for finding what is in the news about education.

Illinois test scores for elementary students have recently been released. The Chicago Tribune reveals that the reading scores have held flat for the last five years, at a very poor level. Some good news, math scores have climbed.

There is a report on Nelson Cowan, a researcher at University of Missouri-Columbia, who has found that you can teach children to increase the speed at which children memorize, but it has no affect in increasing the ability to remember. Learning to remember faster doesn't lead to better memorizing.

The Houston Chronicle found that Texas school districts get $1,442 for students who fail the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test. This seems like a financial incentive to help children fail the test. Later in the article it says the schools risk losing the money if they can't show the money was used to increase scores. Wouldn't it make more sense to give a small bonus for every child who passed the test?

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