|
NewsPapers
- -03-05-14 SAT Announces Changes in the College Board Tests (New York Times)
"Saying its college admission exams do not focus enough on the important academic skills, the College Board announced on Wednesday a fundamental rethinking of the SAT, eliminating obligatory essays, ending the longstanding penalty for guessing wrong and cutting obscure vocabulary words."
"In addition, Mr. Coleman announced new programs to help low-income students, who will now be given fee waivers allowing them to apply to four colleges at no charge. And even before the new exam starts, the College Board, in partnership with Khan Academy, will offer free online practice problems from old tests and instructional videos showing how to solve them." 03-14
- Good News on America's Education Report Card (CBS News)
"The National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation's report card, charts student achievement and how it changes. It is the latter measure — changes since the last writing test in 1998 — that offers some good news, results released Thursday show."
"Students in fourth and eighth grade showed significant strides in being able to handle challenging writing assignments and applying knowledge to real-life situations."
"Even the signs of improvement must be considered in context: Most students in the three benchmark grades still can't provide coherent answers with clear language, supporting details, accurate punctuation and creative thinking." 7-03
- How High Achievers Scheduled Their Time (Huffington Post)
"Alas, there are but 24 hours in a day."
"And when you have a seemingly insurmountable load of work, it can be a quite a challenge to even know where to start. But remember that history's most legendary figures -- from Beethoven to Beyonce -- had just as little (or just as much) time as you have." 03-14
- Math Scores Up (USA Today)
"From understanding algebra to analyzing data, the nation's fourth-graders and eighth-graders are getting better at math, new test scores show." 11-03
- Poor Marks for U.S. Education System (CBS News)
"South Korea has the most effective education system in the world's richest countries, with Japan in second place and the United States and Germany near the bottom, a United Nations study said Tuesday."
"The ranking 'provides the first "big picture" comparison of the relative effectiveness of education systems across the developed world,' the UNICEF study said."
" 'It is based not on the conventional yardstick of how many students reach what level of education, but on testing what pupils actually know and what they are able to do,' UNICEF said."
|