Charter schools are 30 years old as of 2021, and the contentious debate about their merits and place in American society continues. To better understand what happens at charter schools – and as a sociologist who focuses on education – I spent a year and a half at a particular type of urban charter school that takes a “no-excuses” approach toward education. My […] … learn more→
I spent a year and a half at a ‘no-excuses’ charter school – this is what I saw
These gestures that matter for language learning
You have certainly happened to chat with someone in a language you do not understand well. In this kind of situation, one of the reflexes to better understand what is being said is to base oneself on the gestures or facial expressions of the other person. Perhaps he will even have made the effort to underline or […] … learn more→
Universities’ humanities provision should never become history
As a former vice-chancellor, I understand the need to balance a university’s books and to refocus provision from time to time. And I realise that those who lead institutions now do so amid a pandemic they could not have predicted, an associated loss of international student income that they can do little to stem and […] … learn more→
Will education verification help me get a job?
Building a career you can rely on starts with the type of education you receive. Many people start off with one degree and eventually go all the way, finally earning their Ph.D. Others finish their initial degree and then pursue a variety of certifications in an attempt to broaden their horizons and give them a […] … learn more→
Do you really have to learn the syntactic rules?
In these times in which, who more and who less, everyone allows himself to talk about science and its advances, the criticism that is directed towards certain professional sectors connected in a very direct way with science, such as the doctors and teachers, when they incorporate scientific advances. There are some very clear examples that […] … learn more→
Can schools require COVID-19 vaccines for students now that Pfizer’s shot is authorized for kids 12 and up?
With the first COVID-19 vaccine now authorized for adolescents, ages 12 and up, a big question looms: Will students be required to get the vaccine before returning to their classrooms in the fall? As a professor of education policy and law and a former attorney for school districts, I regularly think about this sort of question. In the […] … learn more→
An ill-defined skills agenda is a high-risk sleepwalk into the future
The UK government’s renewed focus on lifelong learning is widely welcomed – and for good reason. The UK is one of the most economically imbalanced European countries; only Romania and Poland have larger inter-regional income gaps. The UK also has greater income inequality than all but one European Union country, and it has the third-highest […] … learn more→
Bac: continuous testing, the winner by default?
A curious fate is that of continuous assessment for the baccalaureate exam. After having been long and strongly refused , both by teachers and high school students, and their respective unions, he is acclaimed by the same. Those who were revolted by the prospect of the introduction of a dose (even a small one) of continuous monitoring are now […] … learn more→
Why business school efforts to recruit more diverse faculties are failing
Despite the increasing diversity among America’s college students, business school professors remain overwhelmingly white. In U.S. business schools, Black and Hispanic individuals make up 23.2% of students, yet only 6.7% of the faculty. As a researcher with a long-standing interest in the reasons business schools lack diverse faculty, I – along with marketing professor Sonja Martin Poole – set out to examine how business schools select […] … learn more→
Sharpen up your application
Who are you writing for? One of the most basic pieces of advice for writers is ‘know your audience’. Unfortunately, I often find that people write their grant applications for a completely amorphous audience like ‘the government’ or ‘the Department of [Whoever is Funding the Grant]’. That’s just not true. Your grant application will be […] … learn more→