Fixing NCLB?
In Jenny D.’s blog is a question about fixing NCLB, which has started a bunch of pontificating. So I added my own as a comment and then realized I needed to bombard my 0.3737365 readers with it. In essence, major policy questions about NCLB are about two things: the shape of accountability and the federal-state […]
NAEP, NCLB, and hype
Today’s release of the latest 4th and 8th grade NAEP scores has brought a predictable flurry of attention focused on the tepid changes since NCLB. Quoted in the Washington Post article is Tom Loveless, pointing out that the trends look pretty similar whether you’re breaking it into the pre-2002 or post-2002 data. The immediate forecast […]
A contrarian definition of big social-science history
[Social Science History Association] Networks are encouraged to imagine the research program they would conduct with a multi-million dollar grant. (Full CFP.) … Big social-science history is interdisciplinary collaboration in history that can create, develop, or support a research agenda that would not be possible by researchers acting alone. Big social-science history should focus on collaboration and infrastructure that makes research possible. Big social-science history makes the tools and end results widely available to researchers and other readers worldwide…. None of these look like the “big social-science history” projects that were legends when I was in grad school.
Who understands peer reviewing?
In the last few months, I’ve sent out a sprinkling of manuscripts for Education Policy Analysis Archives to folks outside the normal spheres of academe—not only those in think tanks who generally understand reviewing processes because they often submit to refereed journals, but also those in the surrounding “wonkosphere” (for want of a better word), […]
Door-to-door philosophers
By Sherman Dorn on October 20, 2005
Thanks to a student who compared Descartes’s God existence proofs to evangelists, I had perhaps what should be a Monty Python skit of door-to-door philosophers pop into my head: Rorty: I’m sorry to trouble you, but it’s very important that I offer you some practical truth today. Resident: Look, I had John-Paul Sartre peddling his […]
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