What Happens to Our Best and Brightest?
Posted on September 20th, 2010 by ASEE
American educators too often fail to identify and cultivate potentially high-achieving students who could become tomorrow’s Thomas Edisons or Marie Curies, the National Science Board says in a new report. As a result, the country risks losing innovators key to U.S. economic growth and global competitiveness.
Filed under: K-12 Education News | Comments Off on What Happens to Our Best and Brightest?
Tags: Education Policy, Gifted and Talented, Honors Students, Public Policy, Research on Learning
There are 6.5 million teachers in the United States, but only 9 percent are black. Yet, in many urban areas, black students are, far and away, the single largest cohort. Does this matter? Some educators emphatically say it does.
With a new school year started and the White House pushing for school reform, a look at past reforms reveals little positive change. Why haven’t they worked? Will this attempt be any different? Student motivation may hold a clue.
How is Tennessee, one of two first round winners of the Race to the Top competition, spending its $501 million? $37 million is earmarked for creating innovative new ways of teaching STEM subjects. The state will use at least five test schools, including troubled Stratford High School in Nashville, to test the programs before other districts adopt them.
A growing number of teachers are moving beyond the classroom and into the main office. Teacher-led schools have recently opened in Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, and Boston. Districts are taking a chance on these grassroots experiments to see if teachers themselves can turn around troubled schools. 
Use of value-added modeling systems to assess teacher performance is rapidly increasing. But do they provide a fair and accurate account of teacher competency? 
States across the country have long supported cutting classroom size to enhance learning. But given the tough economic climate and continuing state budget cuts, that trend is likely to be reversed, with class sizes expected to inch back up. A bad thing? Maybe not.
Principal Penelope Eucker worries that America no longer produces enough scientists and innovators. She hopes to counteract this trend at her magnet STEM school through a hands-on, science-based curricula designed with help from local business and technology experts.
The District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island have emerged as winners of the U.S. Department of Education’s $4.35 billion Race to the Top grant competition. The ten will divvy up $3.4 billion in education grants. Not surprisingly, the results were met with a wave of criticisms and finger-pointing.
