Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

Why Chess Should Be Required in U.S. Schools

April 15, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
chess-shutterstock

Rook to B8. Checkmate. There's nothing quite like the feeling of defeating a worthy opponent in a game of chess: the ultimate battle of the wits. Of course, it's not a feeling I have very often, since I'm not very good at chess. On the other hand, my father is officially an "expert" and my friend is a "master." In other words, they are both very, very good. To give an idea of how good, if I was to play 100 games with each of them, I would win precisely zero. Worldwide, chess is still a popular game, but it is treated with particular seriousness in Eastern Europe. For instance, the ... Read More

More like this: Education
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Spelling Bee Now Requiring Finalists to Be Super-Genius Word Cyborgs

April 9, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
spelling-bee

We're talking about the Spelling Bee, so I have to tell you my story. It's a rule. Anyway, I won the school spelling bee in fifth grade. My final opponent—a fourth-grade girl—misspelled "hippopotamus," which I then spelled correctly. Then, I spelled "scheme" with the right six letters in the right order and won.  The girls in my class were mad that I beat their friend, and they told me I only won because we had "scheme" as a spelling word a few weeks before. I showed them ... by spelling one word correctly at the county spelling bee and coming in 18th place because my last name is sort of ... Read More

More like this: Education
Tags: , , , , , ,

Help Others to Help Yourself: High School Students Benefit From Volunteer Work

April 5, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
volunteer-teens

Let’s perform a little parental thought experiment. Your daughter (or son) is in her senior year of high school, headed for the exit, when she’s told she must perform 30 hours of community service before graduation. How does the scene play out? A bit of drama, perhaps some eye rolling and door slamming. After you threaten to revoke her car privileges, she signs up to volunteer at the local elementary school. Once a week, she spends an hour reading to youngsters, helping out with homework, leading playground games, and organizing arts and crafts. In the end, she survives. Maybe she even has ... Read More

More like this: Education, Findings
Tags: , ,

Mindfulness Training Boosts Test Scores

March 27, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
(PHOTO COLLAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK)

Studies reporting the benefits of mindfulness training keep rolling in—not quite with the regularity of those distracting thoughts that keep popping up in your head, but at a good clip nonetheless. The latest, from a team at the University of California, Santa Barbara, reports even a short, two-week course in focusing the mind can lead to immediate, tangible results: higher scores on tests measuring reasoning and comprehension. “Our results suggest that cultivating mindfulness is an effective and efficient technique for improving cognitive function, with wide-reaching ... Read More

More like this: Findings
Tags: , , ,

The Practical Effect of Making Arts Education a National Priority

January 28, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-582721p1.html

Back in the 1990s, advocates for arts education were thrilled by the final wording of the “Goals 2000: Educate America Act.” According to those federal education guidelines, which were signed into law in 1994, fourth, eighth and 12th-graders were expected to demonstrate “competency over challenging subject matter” in a variety of fields, including—for the first time—the arts. Newly published research reveals that their inclusion had more than just symbolic value. In many schools, elevating the arts to core-subject status made a real difference. Kenneth Elpus of the University ... Read More

More like this: Findings
Tags: ,

The Public Pension Story You Weren’t Reading About (Until Recently)

December 13, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

There’s a lot of talk about the sorry state of pensions in America, both the increasing lack of defined-benefit plans and the predicaments of local governments that have made pension promises more generous than they can afford. But according to the Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force on K–12 Education and fellow (and former federal edu-crat)  Williamson M. Evers, the most undercovered important story on public education was … pensions. Teachers’ pensions, to be exact. As the task force explains: Public education faces its own fiscal cliff as baby boomers retire from the ... Read More

More like this: Education, The 101
Tags: ,

Ditch Day Economics: California Schools Paying $35 a Day, Per Kid

October 31, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

In my coworker's email this morning, from the school principal: Hi parents. My sources have told me that seniors are planning a ditch day tomorrow. I hope that is not the case because ditch days are considered unexcused absences and everyone who participates in a ditch day, tomorrow, or any other day, will be issued a Saturday School that must be served before graduation in June. Unexcused absences cost our district roughly $35 a day for each student who ditches. In this economy we cannot afford to lose any money. We have a senior picnic in May that is meant to give seniors a day to ... Read More

More like this: The 101
Tags: , ,

Mediocre Report Card for Charter Schools

September 12, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

Do students attending charter schools outperform their peers? The highly charged issue is the subject of intense debate this week in both Chicago and Los Angeles. But for the most up-to-date answer to that question, one must turn to New York, where one researcher finds their impact on students to be extremely limited. “Although exposés in the media argue that a small group of high-profile charter schools is making waves and transforming the public school system, this analysis suggests that more charter schools are treading water,” concludes the University of Buffalo’s Robert Mark ... Read More

More like this: Education, The 101
Tags: ,

Arts-Heavy Preschool Helps Children Grow Emotionally

September 10, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Preschooler Painting

How do children learn how to learn? One essential skill is mastering their emotions – learning how to stay positive as much as possible, and how to deal with those inevitable interludes of sadness, anger or fear. Newly published research suggests low-income kids are more likely to develop these all-important abilities if they attend a unique preschool program that integrates education and the arts. The arts-rich curriculum produced more “positive emotions such as interest, happiness and pride, and greater growth in emotion regulation across the school year,” reports West Chester ... Read More

More like this: Culture & Society, Education, Findings
Tags: ,

Tiger Moms: The Benefits of Eating Bitterness

February 5, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Over the past weeks, since the publication of Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the ongoing, ever-intensifying debate about China’s rise and American decline has reached fever pitch. The excerpt that ran in The Wall Street Journal has now received more than 7,500 comments, more than any other article in the history of WSJ.com. Reviews, interviews and commentary are everywhere, and the book made it to No. 3 on the Amazon best-seller list. In their outrage most reviewers have ignored the fact that the book is extremely well written. Battle Hymn conveys a tone of deadpan ... Read More

More like this: Culture
Tags: , , ,