Pacific Standard July-August 2013 Cover

Is California About to Embark on a Gigantic New Experiment in Public Education?

June 11, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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The most compelling debate in the global poverty world over the past several years has revolved around whether simply transferring cash to the needy, without conditions, works better than delivering aid through some complicated development scheme. Global charities like GiveDirectly operate on this unconditional cash transfer model. New research out of Uganda shows that poor young people given a year’s salary (around $382), no strings attached, experienced substantial long-term benefits, using the money to help lift them out of poverty and stay there. The return on this investment was ... Read More

More like this: Education
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What Would Diane Ravitch Say?

August 22, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

In their embrace of testing, Sparks Middle School, Aspire Antonio Maria Lugo Academy and Wilmington Middle School reflect the data-driven approach to education that has dominated American schools since the No Child Left Behind Act was approved in 2001. These schools swear by their system, but it's a trend that many reformers decry, among them Diane Ravitch, the former assistant U.S. secretary of education. Ravitch, who initially supported No Child, now says the mandate for standardized testing is "part of the sickness of American education." She chronicled her change of heart in The Death ... Read More

More like this: Education, September-October 2011
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Environmental Literacy: No Child Left Indoors

March 23, 2010 • By • 1 Comment

Page 28 of the Obama administration's blueprint for rewriting No Child Left Behind, released earlier this month, contains a vague but interesting paragraph about ensuring that American students have a "well-rounded education." The plan would provide grants to states and school districts to bolster the teaching of arts, foreign languages, history, civics and something called "environmental education." Patrick Fitzgerald, the director of education advocacy for the National Wildlife Federation, could not think of another time when environmental literacy has been explicitly broached in ... Read More

More like this: Education, Environment, Politics, The Idea Lobby
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