Carl Davis's List: Blogs I like

• My kids, and especially my middle school aged daughter, insist that they concentrate better with background noise. That is their perception, but research suggests otherwise. Studies on students who multitask—do homework while exchanging text messages while listening to music on their MP3 player—have found that they do not generally do any of the simultaneous tasks as well as they could.
• Some teachers, however, told me recently that they now allow students to listen to their music through headphones at times during class, resulting in more students seeming to focus intently on their wor
• hen I visited the school earlier this month, several students told me they are better able to concentrate on academic work when they are listening to music.
• Children's Internet Protection Act, or CIP
• writes that filters are especially skilled at blocking out one group of Internet users at schools: teachers

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• According to The New York Times, a new federal study shows that nearly a third of the states lowered their academic proficiency standards in recent years to stay ahead of sanctions under NCLB.
• Not so long ago the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education was presented with a proposal to increase from two to three the number of years of mathematics required for graduation. The proposal was in response to expected changes in state standards as well to similar changes enacted in peer districts. How could Boulder Valley School District hold its head up if it required less math for graduation than was needed for college entrance? To their credit the Board voted the increase down. Their reason? They knew that changing the way math was taught from kindergarten through high school was the only way to prepare all students to take and pass more demanding high school math requirements. In the absence OF such change, the outcome of an increase in requirements would have been either a higher drop out rate, or watered down math classes that all students could nominally pass. And as hard as it was to admit, they knew they did not yet have the resources needed to make the needed changes in mathematics education. And so they resisted the satisfaction of having done something to raise the bar until they could do something to change learning. Would that other policy makers had the same courage.
• None of these glowing forecasts are novel. In 1922, after inventing the film and starting a private company to market the innovation to schools, Thomas Edison said: “I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and tha

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