EducationNews.org

As if there weren’t already oceans of bad news, here’s an ugly statistic we’d better face head-on.

“Emotions are one of the killers of academic achievement.”

Several schools in Rhode Island had more than 20 percent of their students absent on Friday. Normally, absentee rates are in the single digits.

Robert Balfanz is an accomplished, even famous researcher. But he also has one foot firmly planted in the reality of a high school, which anchors him and his research in the raw, complicated realities of being a kid these days, particularly an urban kid.

If the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s most recent report had been an international comparison of test scores, the media would have gone berserk

As he wandered among the test-takers, he was blown away by the number of kids leaving the open-ended questions blank. They seemed buffaloed by having to explain their thinking in writing. His heart sank.

In a particularly dramatic case in 2007, 14 of the 18 elementary teachers at Times{+2} Academy were “bumped” by more senior teachers that other Providence schools no longer needed.

Lori Marcotte, who graduated last month from Rhode Island College with a degree in communications,

Sometimes performing the real work of science involves slogging around in real rain, through real mud, while getting whiffs of the pungent perfume of real rotting chicken. Who knew?

Julia Steiny - Every year, Rhode Island’s eight teacher-preparation programs mint about 1,000 new teachers.