1. New band that I like: Your Vegas. A Brit-pop band with an 80s vibe and a soaring tenor vocalist.
2. Don't spend too much time sitting, as it is associated with increased mortality even if you work out.
3. Lots of people have cited Wesley Elementary in Houston as a good example of the success of Direct Instruction (see here and here). But it's not such a great example: The Dallas Morning News printed a story in 2004 giving several examples of cheating or apparent cheating at that school. Although an independent counsel found "no conclusive evidence" of cheating, the DMN story is fairly damning (for a related story, see here).
Stuart, with respect to Wesley, I disagree. It appears that much, if not all, of what the disgruntled teachers claimed was never substantiated with evidence. This is not to say that there wasn't cheating taking place of Wesley, but that there was no (or insufficient) positive evidence.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the Dallas Morning News' own analysis showing that students at Wesley (and two other schools) seemed to have among the best test scores in the state, but as soon as the students went on to middle school, their scores plummeted to the bottom? Unfortunately, that's a pretty good signal that something is fishy.
ReplyDeleteYou're trusting a newspaper's analysis considering they gave no details or data of their analysis. I also find it odd how they accomplished such an analysis on specific students in lieu of FERPA regs. How could they have gotten the data?
ReplyDeleteI don't know, but I have a hard time believing that they just invented that claim.
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