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Education Week: Restructuring Schools Under NCLB Found to Lag
"A Washington research group is raising questions about the wisdom of the U.S. Department of Education’s favored strategies for turning around the lowest-performing schools with stimulus funding, saying that its research shows that similar federal school restructuring strategies have not been effective.
The questions raised by the new study were on the agenda Monday as the Center on Education Policy, which issued the report, hosted a forum on its findings that included a top Education Department official. The exchange highlighted tensions in the debate over “turning around” low-performing schools as federal officials prepare to hand out billions of dollars from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for that purpose, and as they gear up to advocate school improvement strategies for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
The center studied what 23 school districts and 48 schools in six states learned during the past five years about improving struggling schools. It found that the five strategies for restructuring spelled out in the No Child Left Behind Act, the current version of the ESEA, did not offer much help to schools that were trying to improve after five or more years of failing to make adequate yearly progress under the law. "
Education Week: Dropout Costs Priced for 50 Major U.S. Cities
"If half the students who dropped out of the class of 2008 had graduated, they would have generated $4.1 billion more in wages and $536 million in state and local taxes nationally in one average year of their working lives, according to a new analysis.
The study, issued this month by the Washington-based Alliance for Excellent Education, calculates what the dropout problem costs the country and each of the 50 largest metropolitan areas.
Underwritten by State Farm Insurance of Bloomington, Ill., the study uses a model developed by an Idaho company that specializes in tools for socioeconomic analysis. The model blends education and jobs data, and an examination of each metropolitan region’s economy, to estimate the increased wages, education, and tax revenue that would be generated if the dropout rate were cut in half."
Executive Summary | Pew Internet & American Life Project
"This Pew Internet Personal Networks and Community survey is the first ever that examines the role of the internet and cell phones in the way that people interact with those in their core social network. Our key findings challenge previous research and commonplace fears about the harmful social impact of new technology:"
Top News - How tech drives success in Title I schools
"New resources examine technology's potential to make a difference among low-income student populations "
Twitter-Study-August-2009.pdf (application/pdf Object)
via The Value of Twitter
By Brittany Ballenstedt 08/24/09 01:00 pm ET
Pear Analytics, a San Antonio-based research firm, recently released a study examining how people are using Twitter.
Their initial hypothesis was intended to prove that Twitter was being used largely for senseless babble or self-promotion, and while babble made up more than 40 percent of tweets, the researchers found that more than 37 percent of tweets were conversational and almost 9 percent had pass-along value. Only 5.85 percent of tweets were for self-promotion, the study found. As Twitter continues to evolve, not only as a brand but from a user's perspective, it is likely that usage patterns will change, the study concluded.
While the study shows that Twitter has generated some pass-along value, it also shows that it has been used largely for self promotion, babble and spam. So what does this mean for federal agencies, which are moving quickly to adopt Twitter feeds? How will its usage patterns change, especially as the government begins to see its value?
http://wiredworkplace.nextgov.com/2009/08/the_value_of_twitter.php
Are Students Really Studying More than Social Networking?
SurveyU, students went on the record to say that they are much likelier to spend more than three hours studying online each day than participating in any other online activity, such as using FacebookFacebookFacebook or other social networking sites.
StudyBlue, an online academic network that aims to help students study smarter, used SurveyU’s high school and college student panel to survey about 1,500 students, ages 13 – 24, about their online study habits. While we expect students to actively use the web to enrich their study experience, we’re a little surprised that studying won out over social networking. After all, we use Facebook and TwitterTwitterTwitter all day long.
The study found that 60% of students plan to study online three hours longer than doing anything else online, while only 26% of respondents predicted that they will spend more time online social networking than studying. Thankfully, 84% of surveyed students think the web has helped them perform more effectively and efficiently in school, and 54% have plans to increase their online studying habits this year over previous years.
A few other interesting stats from the survey:
College students are about twice as a likely to plan on spending 3 hours or more a day studying and doing homework online than they plan on going to social network sites (26%), communicating (email, IM, Chatting, etc…) (28%), or watching TV, Videos and online movies (22%)
College students are more than 6 times as likely to plan on spending 3 hours or more a day studying and doing homework online than they plan on spending playing online games (9%)
College students are three times as likely to plan on spending 3 hours or more a day studying and doing homework online than they plan on reading blogs/news and other content (18%)
On a semi-serious note, however, social media is proving to be an educational resource and utility,
» Brain Plasticity: How learning changes your brain « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains
Social Influence Given (Partially) Deliberate Matching: Career Imprints in the Creation of Academic Entrepreneurs — HBS Working Knowledge
How do people select partners for relationships? Most relationships arise from a matching process in which individuals pair on a limited number of high-priority dimensions. Although people often match on just a few attributes, it may be that some set of additional characteristics, which was not considered when a choice was made to develop the relationship, results in the social transmission of attitudes and behaviors. For this reason, social matching is only "partially" deliberate. HBS professor Toby Stuart and coauthors observe this phenomenon in an analysis of the origins and consequences of the matching of postdoctoral biomedical scientists to their faculty advisers. This work shows the imprints of postdoctoral advisers on the subsequent choices of the scientists-in-training who travel through their laboratories. The researchers' findings contribute to a burgeoning literature on the interface between academic and commercial science. Key concepts include:
* The fact that matching is only partially deliberate clearly opens avenues for the unforeseen transmission of attitudes and behaviors.
* In certain circumstances, the attributes to which we are unexpectedly exposed can matter. Particularly when these exposures take place in the context of relationships with long durations or ones in which there are notable status or experience differentials between partners, chance exposures can fundamentally change individuals' points of view.
* In long running, asymmetric relationships (such as those between protégés and advisers), the length of interaction provides ample opportunity for the standard pathways of influence to take hold. And when these experiences occur in the process of professional development as seen in this study, they may result in turning points that reorient actors' career trajectories.
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