The Education Blob –Tonight at 9 pm ET with John Stossel

John Stossel thinks our public schools can do a better job and that those who try to make improvements run up against the "BLOB." Watch tonight as he takes a look at what he describes as this Jabba-the-Hutt like thing that can barely be budged.

In the show, Stossel addresses President Obama’s proposal to spend more on Pre-K education. We hear from Steve Barnett, of the National Institute for Early Education Research, who says universal pre-school would be a good thing. But Darcy Olsen, of the Goldwater Institute, says it would not.  Stossel explains that the government’s own data shows that even popular programs like Head Start have no lasting effect. Stossel invites us to hear why some believe early schooling is best while other believe keeping the kids home makes more sense.

And, keeping kids home well beyond pre-k is what more and more parents are doing as they make the decision to homeschool. "They don't think it's worth it to fight the education BLOB," Stossel explains. Instead, they escape it. "Unschooling" (a form of homeschooling) mom, Amy Milstein, and 14-year-old "unschooler,” Jude Steffers-Wilson, talk about a how they take the reins on their own education.
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Why College Kids Shouldn’t Act Like College Kids

Guest post by Dale Stephens, Author Hacking Your Education

If a prophet came and told me that dropping out would be the best decision I ever made, I wouldn't have believed him. In fact, at the age of 15, it seemed like I had more chances of committing a Ghirardelli chocolate robbery then I did of dropping out of college.

But, looking back, it might not seem that way. I’ve been out of school since I was 12 - looks like I was setting myself up to fail, right?

To put it delicately, I’ve realized that not going to school was exactly what set me free. You don’t need physical chains to tell you that you’re being subjugated. But what many don’t realize, is that it wasn’t blindly dropping out that saved me. Instead, it was refusing to throw myself away, that did.

College kids act like college kids because they go to college - you don’t need a forensics team to figure that out. It’s the societal structure that dictates their own behavior, and we can’t blame them. But, within the thousands that go to college, there are many that are hacking their own education, as we speak.
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The mind of a progressive educator

By Maureen Kelly Rossi, seasoned educator and parent

Editor's note:  This post is a response to today's earlier post, "This guy oversees the lives of children?"

The attitude of Ben Chavis (educator) is almost comical. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my son just this week. Joe -my 20 year old, college sophomore, snowboard-loving son- took a terrible fall while in Killington, Vermont three weeks ago. The ER doctors assured him his injuries would heal in a few days, and he should just take it easy. Upon returning to NY, I took him to an Orthopaedic doctor in Stony Brook who immediately cleared his schedule for the next morning to operate on his severely shattered clavicle--one broken piece of bone was embedded in his pectoral muscle and the other end was prodruding on the top of his shoulder a good inch. His stage 3 tear of his MCL was diagnosed in Vermont as a sprain. "How," Joe asked, "can two different professionals come up with such different diagnoses????" My short answer was, "closed minds, Joe." I have been there before with doctors, teachers, colleagues, friends and family members.

Of course, I am older and possess more experiences--so I knew to take him to the top as soon as he returned to NY because of past experiences - namely his brother's horrifying health crisis two years ago.

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This guy oversees the lives of children?

I had an unfortunate run in yesterday with Ben Chavis who uninvited, plopped himself down to pick a fight during a private conversation I was having. I was speaking with the mother of a teen about to be interviewed about the decision taken by a growing number of teens to opt out of school so he could take control of their life and learning.  

At the time we were discussing with another woman the benefits of later starting age for school (like in Finland) verses Universal Pre-K or other options (such as funding home care for young children). However, regardless, I shared I believed every child should have access to educational models like Montessori and Reggio Emilia (which was the model this woman choose for her children). The woman (who I also didn’t know and who also joined the conversation uninvited) said if parents want that for their kids, they should figure out a way to afford it. Turns out this is the sentiment quite a few outspoken education activists have. I asked why all children should not be given opportunities even if they happened to be born to parents who were not able to provide such options.
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Random thoughts about first year teaching

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When your child says, "Go to hell!"

The following post is excerpted with permission from Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life, by Peter Gray.  Available from Basic Books, a member of The Perseus Books Group.  Copyright © 2013.

Purchase your copy at this link.

"GO TO HELL.”

The words hit me hard. I had on occasion been damned to hell before, but never so seriously. A colleague, frustrated by my thickheaded lack of agreement with an obvious truth, or a friend, responding to some idiotic thing I had said. But in those cases “go to hell” was just a way to break the tension, to end an argument that was going nowhere. This time it was serious. This time I felt, maybe, I really would go to hell. Not the afterlife hell of fire and brimstone, which I don’t believe in, but the hell that can accompany life in this world when you are burned by the knowledge that you have failed someone you love, who needs you, who depends on you.

The words were spoken by my nine-year-old son, Scott, in the principal’s office of the public elementary school. They were addressed not only to me but to all seven of us big, smart adults who were lined up against him—the principal, Scott’s two classroom teachers, the school’s guidance counselor, a child psychologist who worked for the school system, his mother (my late wife), and me. We were there to present a united front, to tell Scott in no uncertain terms that he must attend school and must do there whatever he was told by his teachers to do. We each sternly said our piece, and then Scott, looking squarely at us all, said the words that stopped me in my tracks.
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Don't hide your online self when applying for college or career

According to a study by Internet security company AVG, two thirds of HR managers will browse social media profiles of candidates. When it comes to college about 24% of admission officers admit to tracking applicants on various social media sites to check an applicant’s digital footprint, according to a 2011 Kaplan Test Prep survey. Those that snooped typically found something that hindered the applicant’s chances of acceptance, including photos of alcohol and drug abuse, vulgarity, and evidence of a plagiarized admission’s essay.

In response to this, it is common to hear students applying for college or a job say before doing so, they plan to take down their online profiles or change their name to something unidentifiable. Innovative educators know this is not the best strategy. Instead our job is to support young people in creating a responsible digital footprint that, rather than hinder, would attract colleges and employers. Knowing how to do that is the job of educator’s today.

Here are some do’s and don’ts that will help students not only clean up their online presence, but actually update it to represent the “me” they want the world to see.  
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