Ed Week Oct. 13 ed.

http://www.nea.org/home/40991.htm
This is a link to an interesting article I read last week in an NEA publication it talks about the success Finland is having with their educational system and why.

This week I will focus on two "Ed Week" articles.
"Raising Expectations is Aim of New Effort" This article talks about how teachers expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies for students. The article refers to it as the "bigotry of low expectations". One of the interesting aspects of this program presented by the Urban Alliance is that teachers and students were involved in professional-development workshops. Definitely, a way for students and teachers to see each other in a different light. One quote that struck me was" Honestly, as teachers, we can shut them(children) out of the learning process".

The second article "School Discipline Inequites Become A Federal Priority",
parades the same tired statistics about how mainorities are unfairly represented in expulsion and suspension rates. This reminds me of the statistics about the criminal justice system. The sad truth is that a large percentage of criminal or bad behavior conduct is perpetrated by the minority populations involved. It has nothing to do with the per centage numbers their members make up in society. It seems so obvious-- that it takes a complete flight from reality to chalk this up to racism and victimhood.