News
‘Accountability’ won’t solve the teaching-math problem
5+ hour, 35+ min ago (287+ words) Chad Aldeman's March 16 op-ed, "When high school grads can't do math," focuses on outputs, such as MCAS and the proposed MassCore. There is no discussion of inputs, namely the resources needed to produce favorable outputs. MCAS has been a failure,…...
When high school grads can’t do math
6+ day, 5+ hour ago (525+ words) Chad Aldeman is an adviser to the Collaborative for Student Success, a national nonprofit focused on K-12 practices and policies, and writes for EduProgress.org and WeAreAllSolvers.org. Massachusetts has a graduation gap on its hands. While the state's high schools…...
From rockets to cancer research, here’s how the number pi is embedded in our lives
1+ week, 5+ hour ago (641+ words) Representing the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, pi is approximately equal to 3.14159 " but its digits go on forever. In school, you might have used it to calculate the area of a circle or the volume of a…...
Mass. House leaders, lamenting lagging reading scores, plan vote on literacy bill Wednesday - The Boston Globe
4+ mon, 3+ week ago (916+ words) Massachusetts House leaders said Monday they plan to pass a major reading instruction bill this week, a major step in what's been a multi-year effort to discard outdated literacy techniques in the state in the face of sharply declining achievement....
Key Beacon Hill committee advances bill to address student literacy crisis - The Boston Globe
5+ mon, 1+ day ago (713+ words) Two days after House Speaker Ron Mariano named early literacy as a near-term priority, the Joint Committee on Education on Friday quietly advanced a sweeping proposal that would require all Massachusetts public schools to use "evidence-based" methods to teach children…...
We think hallucinations make AI different from us. What if they make us the same? - The Boston Globe
5+ mon, 3+ week ago (522+ words) But when I asked him whether we had met before'a standard part of my neurological examination'he squinted at me and nodded. "At our high school reunion, wasn't it? Last year?" He spent months in the hospital and every day I…...
Harvard mathematician among New Englanders awarded MacArthur ‘genius’ grants - The Boston Globe
5+ mon, 1+ week ago (152+ words) A mathematician in Cambridge, a cultural anthropologist in Providence, a cartographer in Rockland, Maine, and a basketmaker in Eddington, Maine, are among 22 national winners of "genius" grants announced Wednesday by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The $800,000 no-strings-attached grants are…...
Massachusetts is failing its students if it can’t boost MCAS scores - The Boston Globe
5+ mon, 2+ week ago (572+ words) Pandemic learning loss is real, and student academic performance suffered when schools closed for months in 2020 and 2021. Since then, Massachusetts has spent billions of dollars to help students recover. Yet, as MCAS scores released Monday show, we've failed. Student performance…...
Massachusetts sophomores fare worse on MCAS when test does not count for graduation - The Boston Globe
5+ mon, 3+ week ago (726+ words) For the first time in two decades, Massachusetts sophomores took the MCAS without needing it to graduate. The result: they did much worse than last year, and some state officials and others believe students exerted less effort because the test…...
Brookline High School no longer offers The Calculus Project - The Boston Globe
6+ mon, 1+ week ago (764+ words) Brookline High School students will no longer have access to The Calculus Project, a math program designed to bridge achievement gaps by providing supplemental instruction for students of color and those from low-income families. A lawyer representing The Calculus Project…...