If you're an English teacher and you don't know who Jim Burke is, I just have to wonder where you've been for the last decade. Burke, an English teacher at Burlingame High School, outside of San Francisco, has been sharing his professional insights with colleagues around the country through numerous books and a popular listserv he has moderated for years. His Web site is a treasure trove of resources for novice and veteran teachers alike. Now Burke is trying to use social-networking tools to build an even more vibrant online community for English teachers. He just alerted me that he ...

In case you missed it, the TIMSS results were released this week, and U.S. students didn't fare too badly, unless you count the point difference between them and their 4th and 8th grade peers in Singapore, Korea, and Hong Kong. The report is here, Ed Week's story here, and a critique of the U.S. performance by Mark Schneider, the former commissioner of education statistics at the Ed. Dept., here. I've included the video briefing as well. There are lots of interesting data points and tidbits in the hundreds of pages that make up the report, as well as ...

The International Reading Association is looking to shift more of the decision making back to teachers when it comes to reading and writing instruction. That would be a pendulum shift away from many current policies at the local, state, and federal levels that have instituted strict requirements for the materials and methods teachers use in their classrooms. In a new policy paper, published in the Dec./Jan. issue of Reading Today, the Newark, Del.-based association outlines its recommendations for the incoming Obama administration. The association also wants more and better professional development, as well as a boost in the ...

As the clock ticks down on the Bush administration and the tenure of many appointees at the U.S. Department of Education, I keep wondering what will happen to the Commission on Reading Research. It has been a long, foggy road for this panel, and sometimes I wonder if it has just been a mirage on the horizon. Probably not to the prominent researchers who've agreed to serve on it, and who have patiently endured what may be the longest pending announcement about an education panel in history. Could they still be going through the vetting process? Troy Justesen, who ...

Public and private organizations have tried all sorts of strategies to try to get girls and women more interested in science and math studies and careers—summer camps, the use of role models and mentors in the field, outreach to parents. Now, a new, and I suppose far hipper variation on those efforts is being tried: a social- networking site, aimed at luring more females into the so-called STEM fields. The site, www.underthemicroscope.com, was created by the Feminist Press, of the City University of New York, along with IBM and support from the National Science Foundation. It aims...

Late night funnyman Stephen Colbert, of all people, examined the issue of paying students for performing well in school this week. On Monday, Colbert hosted economist Roland Fryer, who has developed a program for paying students for achievement in school. Students are taking part in these sorts of programs in Chicago, New York, the District of Columbia, and other areas. Remarked Colbert: "If it works, look forward to Secretary of Education Alex Trebek." And later: "What is wrong with the older generation's way of doing things, where they paid kids to do well in school by not opening a can ...

A new survey shows that more high school students are lying, cheating, and stealing—a reflection, it says, of the "entrenched habits of dishonesty" among young people. The 2008 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, released by the Josephson Institute of Ethics in Los Angeles, is the result of a survey of 29,000 students at public and private high schools throughout the country. Sixty-four percent of the students said they have cheated on a test over the past year, with nearly four in 10 doing so more than once. Some 40 percent lifted information off the Internet...

All schools would like to think they're capable of producing the scientists of the future—students with the academic skill, curiosity, and creativity to conduct research in cutting-edge fields. But supporters of math and science academies, or specialty high schools, see themselves as especially well-suited to that mission. Now, a new study will attempt to examine whether specialized math and science public high schools actually turn out more scientists in the life, physical, and behavior sciences. Those schools' performance in that area will be compared against traditional high schools. The three-year study will be conducted by researchers at the University...

In the latest twist in the great California algebra debate, the feds have said that because the state is not complying with a testing mandate, they plan to take $1 million from the California Department of Education and redirect it to needy schools. The move is the result of delays associated with California's attempt to test all 8th graders in introductory algebra, a controversial policy that is now stalled in court. California's state board of education voted in July to require that all 8th graders be tested in Algebra 1 within three years, which state officials say has the effect ...

A couple of weeks ago I pointed to a few lists of recommended books to help parents and teachers find texts that would suck children in to the wonders of reading. The lists included primarily popular and classic literature. Will Fitzhugh reminded me today that such lists are incomplete without the kinds of captivating tales—fiction and non-fiction—that are based on history. Fitzhugh, who has devoted his career to publishing the outstanding history research papers of high school students in the renowned Concord Review, gets agitated by all the well-funded efforts to promote reading that fail to acknowledge...