HGSE in the Media

September 2008

Whatever Happened to All Those Plans to Hire More Minority Professors?
"Addressing issues of diversity remains a challenge throughout higher education. We at Harvard, like our peer institutions, must do better." - Professor Judith Singer (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/26/08. Registration required.)

Language Classes Create Little Linguists
"There's some indication that children who are learning two languages have better 'metalinguistic awareness.'" - Professor Barbara Alexander Pan (St. Petersburg Times, 9/26/08)

McCain’s, Obama’s Education Platforms on View at Kennedy School
"The presidential style debate on Sept. 17 pitted former acting governor of Massachusetts Jane Swift IOP ’03, representing Republican nominee John McCain’s education policies, against HLS lecturer of law Stephanie Robinson J.D. ’94 who represented Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s education platforms.... The event that was moderated by Harvard Graduate School of Education Dean Kathleen McCartney." (Harvard Gazette, 9/25/08)

NCLB Testing Said to Give 'Illusions of Progress'
"Harvard University researcher [and Professor] Daniel M. Koretz had some good news and some bad news today for policymakers looking ahead to the reauthorization of the federal No Child Left Behind Act: The nation’s K-12 students are now attending Lake Wobegon schools. That is, he said, for reasons that are politically better but academically worse, rampantly inflated standardized test scores are giving the misbegotten impression that, as in the fictional town made famous by radio personality Garrison Keillor, all children are above average." (Education Week, 9/22/08. Registration required.)

Charter School Brain Drain
"We believe the these schools are an opportunity to take the best principals and practices behind charter schools and make them more broadly available to students all across the Commonwealth at a pace that far exceeds the glacial place with which charter schools have been developing in recent years." - Senior Lecturer Paul Reville (National Public Radio, 9/18/08)

Can Working Moms 'Have it All?'
"My research shows that flexible work schedules during the day time … are good for children's development, so it's an important issue." - Professor Hiro Yoshikawa (The Tuscaloosa News, 9/14/08)

Game Enables Users to Guide Evolution on Screen
"When most game developers have to choose between presenting completely accurate material and making their games fun, they choose fun, said Christopher Dede, a professor of learning technologies at Harvard University. Mr. Dede said the educational value of games depends on how accurately they present academic ideas in science or other subjects." (Education Week, 9/12/08. Registration required.)

Area Leaders Form Education Coalition
"[Senior Lecturer] Paul Reville, state secretary of education, said in a statement, ‘We look forward to working with these and other committed advocates for reform, and we welcome the sense of urgency they have expressed." (Boston Globe, 9/12/08)

Study Details Barriers to Career-Changers Going Into Teaching
"[Professor] Susan Moore Johnson...noted that some districts have proposed alternatives to reworking the entire salary structure by starting off midcareer entrants on higher rungs on the salary ladder. Others have offered financial bonuses. But not all the schemes have proved effective at attracting older recruits into the profession and retaining them, [she] said." (Education Week, 9/10/08. Registration required.)

Wanted: The Perfect Person
"These five schools rely heavily on what we call home-grown leadership. They promote from within. They have more 'distributed' leadership, so that teachers within the organization take on tasks that are part of the leaders' jobs, and this enables them to grow their own leaders." - Professor Katherine Merseth (Education Week, 9/8/08. Registration required.)

Entrevista: Paola Uccelli
Assistant Professor Paola Uccelli recently participated in the third ADA Professional Development Congress for over 300 teachers in Costa Rica. Uccelli spoke about the importance of reading for understanding and explicit strategies to acquire this. (Nacion.com, 9/2/08. Article linked is in Spanish.)

Bay State Governor Presses Education Plan
"We wanted to have a seamless system where kids don’t fall in between the cracks." - Senior Lecturer Paul Reville (Education Week, 9/2/08. Registration required.)