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| washingtonpost.com - Jay Mathews: Class Struggle |
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| Jay Mathews: Amid the SAT-obsessed, this family doesn't live by the numbers |
(Sun, 13 Mar 2011)
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| The Demarees of Bethesda seem to be a normal American family, but wait. They didn't tell their children what their SAT scores were? They didn't do test prep? They didn't hire tutors? Could they have the answer to America's obsession with college admission? |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Is America's best high school soft on math? |
(Sun, 27 Feb 2011)
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| By all accounts, he is one of the best math teachers in the country. The Mathematics Association of America has given him two national awards. He was appointed by the Bush administration to the National Mathematics Advisory Panel. For 25 years he has prepared middle-schoolers for the tough admiss... |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Jay Mathews: Md. teachers' support shows value of civics exam |
(Sun, 20 Feb 2011)
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| Teachers, according to many who speak for them, don't like the state tests that have been imposed on them and their students. So what am I to make of the many teachers who are begging Maryland to reverse its decision to cancel the state government test? |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Rhee's five big missteps |
(Sun, 13 Feb 2011)
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Richard Whitmire's deft and revealing book about former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee chronicles a difficult time in the history of the city's schools, when good people fought hard against one another because of sharply contrasting views on how to help our children.
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Harriett Ball dies: Teacher who inspired KIPP charter schools was 64 |
(Thu, 10 Feb 2011)
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| Harriett Ball, a well-known teacher trainer who inspired the most successful charter school network in the country, died Feb. 2 at a Houston Northwest Medical Center after a heart attack. She was 64. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Metro |
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| High-schoolers' 'recess': Benefit or brain drain? |
(Sun, 06 Feb 2011)
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| There is no limit to what you learn about schools if you listen to teachers. Did you know, for instance, that Fairfax County, the Washington region's largest school district, is using 10 days a year of valuable instruction time on do-what-you-like recesses for high school students? |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Prepare your middle-schooler for college |
(Thu, 03 Feb 2011)
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| Even in middle school, there are a few easy things (and some more challenging steps) students can do to up their chances at a college admission. Join Jay Mathews to discuss these tactics. |
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Author: washingtonpost.com |
Category: Live Q&As |
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| Too much 'Glee,' not enough studying, in TV shows about high school |
(Sun, 30 Jan 2011)
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The snowstorm knocked out our electricity last week. It was hard to write the column without access to the Internet. My cellphone wasn't working well, either. This seemed a perfect opportunity to discard any pretense of research and instead vent on a subject too insubstantial for a serious educat...
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Is KIPP abandoning the neediest kids? |
(Sun, 23 Jan 2011)
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| The Knowledge Is Power Program, the nation's and the District's most successful charter school network, has a new official name, KIPP, and a new approach to raising achievement for disadvantaged children. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Who needs school boards? |
(Sun, 16 Jan 2011)
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| School boards are disappearing fast, from 80,000 to less than 14,000 since 1950. In the Washington area, like other places, residents rarely bother to vote for them, or against them. Will they disappear altogether, or do they have secret strengths we don't appreciate? |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Who needs school boards? |
(Sun, 16 Jan 2011)
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| The Washington area has many school districts. Each district has a school board, more or less. (The District's board is going through a neutered phase.) Each school board has many members. Each member is being reminded this month, as meetings resume after the holidays, that their job is to endure... |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Why history book mistakes can be good |
(Sun, 09 Jan 2011)
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In high school, I was a nerd with political ambitions, desperate for popularity. My U.S. history teacher encouraged criticism, giving me a chance for glory when, during the usual Friday game of 20 questions, he said the thing we were trying to guess occurred in the 19th century.
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Let's be open: There's no logic in 'test security' |
(Fri, 07 Jan 2011)
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| Arlington parent Sarah Goodell wanted to help her third grade daughter's math progress by looking at a county math test she had just taken. Sorry, the county said, your daughter's answers on that test are confidential, even if you and other taxpayers supplied the money for them. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Opinions |
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| Winter break student enrichment made easy |
(Fri, 24 Dec 2010)
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| The Local Living school columnist doesn't have any school-age children living with him, so he has no clue how to enrich their educations during the holidays. On orders from his editor, he checked with educators throughout the region and found some great ideas. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Opinions |
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| What some call cheating can help learning |
(Thu, 23 Dec 2010)
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| My daughter is with us for the holidays, having survived her first barrage of law school exams in California. The exams were longer and more difficult than anything I ever had as a graduate student in Chinese studies. But her professors allowed students to have notes with them. This got my attent... |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| To gauge safety better, schools need to survey teachers regularly |
(Sun, 19 Dec 2010)
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There was something strange in The Washington Post a week ago. A chart on page A16, using data provided by the D.C. public school system, showed that in late summer and fall 2009, Spingarn High School had by far the lowest number of assaults, thefts, threats and other crimes. There were just six ...
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| When schools don't communicate well with parents |
(Wed, 15 Dec 2010)
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| A Loudoun County parent discovers the difficulty of communicating with her child's middle school. It has stopped assigning the homework that helped her keep track of the child's progress, and is giving many more quizzes creating new difficulties. She is told to talk to the teachers, but the new poli |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Opinions |
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| Raising school achievement isn't enough - D.C. principals must also keep order |
(Sun, 12 Dec 2010)
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| Dunbar High School Principal Stephen Jackson was fired at the end of the last school year by the private management group in charge of the school but put back in the job last week by interim D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson at the urging of parents, community leaders and teachers. Jackson s... |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Urban schools don't need gifted-and-talented chief |
(Wed, 08 Dec 2010)
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| D.C. school officials decided they could not afford to hire a gifted and talented coordinator. It is no big loss. Gifted programs don't help much in inner-city schools, as one of the nation's most successful big-city school principals reveals in a new book. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Opinions |
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| What happens at school stays at school: When students can't bring old tests home |
(Sun, 05 Dec 2010)
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Besides this Monday Metro column, I write my Class Struggle column every Thursday for the Local Living section. It focuses on parents. When I move to California next year, I hope to rename it "The School Parent" and compare the adventures of families here to parent-school encounters elsewhere. Su...
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Opinions |
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| If your child resists college search |
(Sun, 28 Nov 2010)
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| A frustrated parent brought an unnerving problem to my Admissions 101 discussion group on washingtonpost.com. The student (many of us in the group immediately assumed it was a boy) had gotten into a well-respected public university in his state and, the parent said, "adamantly refused to go on co... |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Let each high school decide how to motivate students |
(Sun, 21 Nov 2010)
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| Two demographically similar and academically impressive local high schools - Northwood in Montgomery County and West Potomac in Fairfax County - have been debating grades. Both schools have been accused of letting too many students pass their courses without learning the material. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| High schoolers failing county final in Montgomery school system? No problem. |
(Sun, 14 Nov 2010)
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| The SAT and Advanced Placement results, put out so proudly by the Montgomery County school system, suggest that it is among the best districts in the country, but the country has seen no significant increase in math or reading achievement for 17-year-olds in 30 years. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Opinions |
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| Diversity is a tough test for Thomas Jefferson High, the country's most selective school |
(Sun, 07 Nov 2010)
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My colleague Kevin Sieff reported last week that the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is not only the most selective school in the United States, but also one of the least diverse. After years of Jefferson promising to reach out to the third of Northern Virginia students wh...
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| H-B Woodlawn can't live down its good reputation |
(Thu, 21 Oct 2010)
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| My annual rankings of high schools were mentioned at a town meeting of the H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program recently. Some students said they didn't like the great reputation I was giving their school. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Arts & Living |
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| Curiosity is banned at Westfield High |
(Sun, 17 Oct 2010)
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| World history teachers at Westfield High School in Fairfax County have decided, in order to frustrate cheating, that students should no longer do independent research. If it's not in the textbook, their notes or their head, they can't use it in their homework. They seem to be saying that curiosity i |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Time for required writing should be made |
(Thu, 14 Oct 2010)
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| In my search for signs of serious writing instruction in American high schools, I have stumbled across a rare creature: a physics teacher in Fairfax County who makes everyone in his honors classes enter a national science essay contest. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Arts & Living |
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| Facebook movie 'The Social Network' shows the folly of Ivy envy |
(Sun, 10 Oct 2010)
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This time of year, with high school seniors slogging through one college application after another and parents jittery about their children's futures, I often write columns explaining why it doesn't matter where they go to school.
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Educators hope STEM bug bites more students |
(Thu, 07 Oct 2010)
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| I know how high school course choices affect college chances, but I know much less about how they affect lives. For that kind of advice, I rely on some experienced career specialists, such as Ann Emerson of Stafford County public schools. She sent me a refreshingly cool appraisal of the red hot... |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Arts & Living |
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| KIPP DC leaders unworried by drop in test scores |
(Sun, 03 Oct 2010)
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| KIPP DC, the city's most successful charter school program, had a drop in test scores, but isn't bothered. KIPP leaders are so confident of overall gains that they have added more low-performing students, and started a high school where KIPP's famous rules for behavior are not so tough. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| A crackdown on cheating would benefit all |
(Thu, 30 Sep 2010)
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| The Sept. 1 edition of Education Week had a provocative commentary, "All my favorite students cheat," by high school teacher Christopher L. Doyle. He and I agree that cheating is rife, but we don't agree on what causes that. He thinks students are protecting themselves against widespread insecurity... |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Arts & Living |
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| Prince George's County high school opens AP courses to all |
(Sun, 26 Sep 2010)
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Charles Hebert Flowers High School, one of Prince George's County's newer schools, has always set high standards for its students and seems to be meeting them. It is one of three high schools in the county with a science and technology program. In 2009, it met all federal targets for adequate yea...
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| For gifted students, skipping a grade is a smart move |
(Thu, 23 Sep 2010)
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| As the second month of the school year nears, some parents wonder whether their children are getting all they need. The lessons might seem too simple. Their kids are bored. If their children have been designated gifted, there might be occasional pullout lessons to enrich what they are learning, b... |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Arts & Living |
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| D.C. presumptive Mayor Gray should keep Bedford team at Dunbar, Coolidge highs |
(Mon, 20 Sep 2010)
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| As prospective mayor Vincent C. Gray's education advisers begin to discuss changes in the way Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee ran the D.C. schools, it should quickly become apparent that they should keep their hands off one of Rhee's smartest moves -- handing management of Coolidge and Dunbar high... |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Models for D.C. schools? Try next door, in Arlington, Fairfax and Montgomery. |
(Thu, 16 Sep 2010)
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| I have been arguing with readers on my blog about how to improve D.C. public schools. It may sound like the same old fight over D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee , which should be resolved soon. (This column's deadline was Monday, before the polls closed on the mayoral race.) But our online... |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Metro |
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| New teacher applauds Michelle Rhee's quick response to problem |
(Mon, 13 Sep 2010)
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Anthony Priest is one of those personnel office surprises -- a 44-year-old just starting as a teacher. He has two degrees in engineering from Georgia Tech and a master's in business administration. He does marathons and triathlons. In 2008, he was project manager for the redevelopment of a...
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Transfer of D.C. teacher Erich Martel seems like administrators' revenge |
(Mon, 06 Sep 2010)
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| My nominee for most effective whistleblower in the D.C. school system, Erich Martel, has finally gone too far in the eyes of some school administrators. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Metro |
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| Guidance counselors' weak spots: Financial aid, potential private school bias |
(Thu, 02 Sep 2010)
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| I love high school counselors. For an education writer like me, guidance counselors have been wonderful sources of information. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Arts & Living |
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| D.C. schools' performance should not be measured by focusing on achievement gap |
(Mon, 30 Aug 2010)
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| The D.C. mayoral race is deeply split on most issues, but everyone agrees on one thing: We must reduce the achievement gap between minority and white students. It is too bad, then, that the gap is such a mindless measure of school progress. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| College offers far more than a career path |
(Thu, 26 Aug 2010)
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My favorite teacher, Patrick Welsh, wrote an intriguing essay for USA Today about what he considers an overabundance of high school students going on to college. The same sentiments were expressed in a well-phrased letter from Eugene Morgan of Wheaton, published on The Post's editorial page June 20.
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Print Edition |
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| College offers far more than a career path |
(Thu, 26 Aug 2010)
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| My favorite teacher, Patrick Welsh, wrote an intriguing essay for USA Today about what he considers an overabundance of high school students going on to college. The same sentiments were expressed in a well-phrased letter from Eugene Morgan of Wheaton, published on The Post's editorial page June 20. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Print Edition |
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| Democratic primary could determine fate of D.C. schools, for better or worse |
(Mon, 23 Aug 2010)
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| School opens today in the District. For the next three weeks, Americans who care about the future of urban schools will watch the city closely. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Opinions |
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| JAY MATHEWS |
(Mon, 26 Jul 2010)
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| The weekly Jay Mathews education column is on break for a few weeks. But it'll be back next month when school starts. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Books at home push kids toward more schooling |
(Thu, 22 Jul 2010)
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My wife's parents did not go to college. Linda's father was a carpenter. Her mother was an aircraft assembly line worker. They grew up in Oklahoma farming families, married, moved to Southern California and raised their children in blue-collar neighborhoods full of families just like theirs.
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Arts & Living |
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| Books at home push kids toward more schooling |
(Thu, 22 Jul 2010)
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| My wife's parents did not go to college. Linda's father was a carpenter. Her mother was an aircraft assembly line worker. They grew up in Oklahoma farming families, married, moved to Southern California and raised their children in blue-collar neighborhoods full of families just like theirs. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Arts & Living |
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| Better data needed to accurately rate school systems |
(Mon, 19 Jul 2010)
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| Educational statistics expert Joseph Hawkins, one of my guides to the mysteries of test assessment, is impatient with the way the Montgomery County public school system is, as he puts it, "always telling the world how much better it is than everyone else." He finds flaws in its latest celebration of... |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Opinions |
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| Long papers in high school? Many college freshmen say they never had to do one. |
(Thu, 15 Jul 2010)
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| Kate Simpson is a full-time English professor at the Middletown, Va., campus of Lord Fairfax Community College. She saw my column about Prince George's County history teacher Doris Burton lamenting the decline of research skills in high school, as changing state and local course requirements and ... |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Arts & Living |
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| Results of D.C. principal's controversial methods need to outweigh criticism |
(Mon, 12 Jul 2010)
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Dwan Jordon, more quickly than any principal I have ever known, has made a name for himself in D.C. public schools.
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Scores affect college choice but not necessarily success |
(Thu, 08 Jul 2010)
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| I wrote a story several years ago about great people who got terrible SAT scores. If you are wallowing in shame over your score in May, and quiver at the thought of taking the SAT again in October, consider the case of Bob Edgar, who got 730 out of a possible 1600. (That would be a 1100 or so on... |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Print Edition |
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| Rhee should take herself out of D.C. mayor's race |
(Mon, 05 Jul 2010)
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| I can't blame D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee for getting herself pulled into the D.C. mayor's race. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty wants her support. She wouldn't have her job if it had not been for him. |
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Author: Jay Mathews |
Category: Education |
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| Today's Class Struggle |
(Fri, 06 Feb 2009)
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| This Class Struggle RSS subscription has changed. To continue getting Class Struggle by Jay Mathews visit washingtonpost.com/class-struggle. |
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Author: washingtonpost.com |
Category: Education |
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| Banging on the PK-16 Pipeline |
(Fri, 20 Feb 2009)
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Looking for this week's Class Struggle? You can find it on Jay's new blog at washingtonpost.com/class-struggle.
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Author: washingtonpost.com |
Category: Education |
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