1/30/17: Children represent 23% of the present U.S. population and 100% of our collective future.

1-29-17: “We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact we haven’t so far.” – Ronald Edmonds (May 24, 1935- July […]

12-28-16: At its Oct. 25 meeting the CMS Board of Education approved a bunch of construction contracts, mostly for heating and air conditioning work. They are listed here in descending order of percentage participation by minority, women and small business enterprises. 34.74% Providence High HVAC Controls 1.5% Harding High chiller 0% Cornelius Elementary chiller 0% […]

8-21-15: Who gets the leg up from pre-K programs? In 2013 about half of the children of adults with graduate or professional degrees were enrolled. But only about a quarter of the children of adults with less than a high school education were enrolled. Let’s break the cycle right there! Data from The Condition of […]

5-30-15: “NAEP long-term trend results indicate that the average reading and mathematics achievement of 9- and 13-year-olds improved between the early 1970s and 2012; however, only 13-year-olds made score gains from 2008 to 2012, and they did so in both subject areas. Average reading and mathematics achievement for 17-year-olds did not change significantly between the […]

5-8-15: It’s connect-the-dots time: What if the read-by-third-grade advocates followed each newborn home from the hospital and tested  the  crib and the  apartment for any lead exposure that will doom that child to developmental delays and permanent brain damage???

5-4-15: If research shows us that education in the first four years of life is the most important, why is it we don’t we have per-child spending in the first four years of life rivaling the spending in the college years? Is it because there’s no alumni association – or no football team?

3-18-15: “No matter how many times the Court has issued Notices of Hearings and Orders regarding unacceptable academic performance, and even after the North Carolina Supreme Court plainly stated that the mandates of Leandro remain ‘in full force and effect’ many adults involved in education, educators and school board members and others, still seem unable […]

3-16-15: “Real equity is about having ALL our children prepared for school when they enter kindergarten.  Until such becomes a reality, the achievement gap will prove virtually impossible to close.” – John Tate at his last State Board of Education meeting March 5. Full text.

3-5-15: “A recent study at Michigan State University tracked 500 students in an introductory psychology class and found that the more they used the Internet for nonacademic purposes such as reading Facebook during class, the lower their test scores in that course were. That was true ‘regardless of intellectual ability’ measured by entrance exams taken during high […]