Posted: December 5th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | No Comments »
My friend Tom Kane with a great blog:
Imagine yourself having had a heart attack. An ambulance arrives to transport you to a hospital emergency room. Your ambulance driver asks you to choose between two hospitals, Hospital A or Hospital B. At Hospital A, the mortality rate for heart attack patients is 75 percent. At Hospital B, the mortality rate is just 20 percent. But mortality rates are imperfect measures, based on a finite number of admissions. If neither rate were “statistically significantly” different from average, would you be indifferent about which hospital you were delivered to? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: December 4th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | No Comments »
Kenya, take note:
Florida’s Miami-Dade County school district said it has “pushed the pause button” on one of the country’s largest 1-to-1 digital computing initiatives, citing concerns about the troubled implementation of such programs in Los Angeles, Guilford County, N.C., and elsewhere.
In addition to delaying the deployment of new devices, which had been expected to begin last month, the 354,000-student district is now rethinking its earlier preference for tablet computers and is reconsidering its original plan to give students their own devices.
Read the whole thing here.
Miami is right to be worried. These roll-outs are going badly in LA, in NC, and Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: December 2nd, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | No Comments »
Geordie’s car broke down a couple weeks ago while he was visiting one of our academies. Kids were fascinated by it.
Bridge has launched over 100 new academies since our Boston team launched in July.
Bridge is one of the top purchasers of lumber in Kenya.
Posted: November 29th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | No Comments »
Guess: What percentage of Kenyan parents in slums send their kids to private schools? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: November 27th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 6 Comments »
The wonderful Jay Mathews of the Washington Post writes:
Best elementary school program resisted
A program called Success for All, born in Baltimore 26 years ago to improve elementary schools, has set a record for most glowing reports from tough researchers.
But the latest study showing how well it works also hints at why it has not become more popular: It uses ability grouping and scripted lessons, both disliked by many teachers.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: November 18th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | No Comments »
New from Nobel-winner James Heckman (via Jay Greene’s blog)
Character skills include perseverance (\grit”), self-control, trust, attentiveness, self-esteem and self-ecacy, resilience to adversity, openness to experience, empathy, humility, tolerance of diverse opinions, and the ability to engage productively in society.
Our emphasis on character skills does not arise from any agenda to impose Western middle-class values on society. A strong base of cognitive and character skills is universally valued across di erent cultures, religions, and societies. There are reliable ways to measure them, and there are proven ways to enhance them….
Whole paper here.
Hmm.
To what extent should BIA seek to enhance character? If so, how? At what expense (i.e., take time away from our staff seeking to improve literacy, science, math instruction, and put them on this instead?) Do Kenyan parents want this?
Posted: November 14th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | No Comments »
From National Public Radio, a story about Bridge:
Primary school in Kenya starts at age 6 and runs for eight years. It’s officially free for all children, but parents regularly complain that government schools are overcrowded, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: November 13th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | No Comments »
Dayo Olopade is the author of The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa.
He writes about Bridge in Wired:
At Bridge Academy Machakos, the school manager when I visited was Teresia Jacob, a 23-year-old university graduate with a bright green Bridge T-shirt and a bright smile to match. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: November 12th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | No Comments »
Interview in the Guardian with Shannon May, a Bridge co-founder.
What were your reasons for founding Bridge International Academies? Where did the idea come from?
The original idea actually occurred in China when I was working on my PhD on development. I was working on an eco-system project to totally re-organise this group of nine villages into a carbon neutral eco-city. I was there for 18 months. But as part of the government plan to allow me to do my work, unbeknown to me, I had become the village’s primary school teacher for the entire time I was there. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: November 8th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 1 Comment »
Earlier this week I shared Maddie Winters’ blog. By email, 3 of my favorite folks weighed in.
Chris Duffy, a former teacher at Edward Brooke charter school and producer of this show on public radio, wrote:
I think Maddie’s view is spot on. Every data analysis session I’ve participated in or sat in on has included at least a few kids whose low scores were attributed not to holes in content knowledge but “behavior issues” or “giving up.” I think the negative self-talk is the root cause there.
I’m curious how effective her modeling of hope would actually be.
It doesn’t read very differently to me than just modeling reading strategies. Maybe those few key words would have an outsize impact, but I think the negative self-talk is actually a deeper, more complex issue that requires a broader classroom culture where failure is normalized and Read the rest of this entry »
