HGSE in the Media

March 2009

New Bellevue Schools Superintendent Says Her First Assignment is to Listen
"Amalia Cudeiro holds a doctorate from Harvard University and lectures at the school's Urban Superintendents Program, but as a parent she's known firsthand the frustration of trying to find a school that works for a daughter with a learning disability." (The Seattle Times, 3/30/09)

Teacher Training Goes in Virtual Directions
"Online is such an umbrella term that it isn’t really very helpful. It’s like saying chalk-based teaching." - Professor Chris Dede (Education Week, 3/26/09. Registration required.)

The New Cool Kids
"Blacks have yet to significantly close the achievement gap, lagging behind whites in virtually every measure of achievement - national math and reading test scores, high school completion rates, and - even with the recent enrollment increases - college graduation rates, according to the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University." (Boston Globe, 3/22/09)

Giving = Happiness
"This intense focus on happiness is not making our children happier. It's making them less happy. If you focus on kids being empathic and tuning in to others and helping others, they're more likely to be more moral and more happy." - Lecturer Richard Weissbourd (Boston Globe, 3/21/09)

The Third Chapter
"What to do with those extra decades? [Professor] Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, a Harvard sociologist, calls this 'a significant and new developmental period in our culture,' a time ripe with possibilities for self-fulfillment." (Christian Science Monitor, 3/20/09)

With Children, Pay Now, Not Later
"[Professor Jack] Shonkoff, founding director of Harvard University's Center on the Developing Child and co-editor of the groundbreaking report From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development, explained that all children are born 'ready to learn' and that the earliest years of infancy determine the architecture, the actual structure, of the brain." (The News Observer, 3/19/09)

Reading, Math Software Found to Have Little Effect on Scores
"There's nothing really here that superintendents or state policymakers or corporations could use that would be a strong basis for decisionmaking." - Professor Chris Dede (Education Week, 3/18/09. Registration required.)

Building the 21st-Century Mind
"Unless we are able to respect those who appear to be different from ourselves, we are not going to be able to work with them. And unless we behave ethically and responsibly, we will not be able to enter into trusting relationships with others and it will become a dog-eat-dog world." - Professor Howard Gardner (Scientific American, 3/17/09)

Finally Getting Smart about Investing in Learning
"Numerous evaluation studies show that early education works. Children who attend quality early-childhood programs score higher on achievement tests, and quality is all about teaching. Young children thrive when they have sensitive and responsive teachers who offer a curriculum that is cognitively stimulating, developmentally appropriate, and engaging." - Dean Kathleen McCartney (Boston Globe, 3/13/09)

The Third Chapter Can Be the Best in the Book
"There may be something to the adage about growing older and wiser. A lot, in fact, according to the new book by [Professor] Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50." (Harvard Gazette, 3/11/09)

Group Looks for Creative Ways to Understand Creativity
"Or does creativity depend on homemade pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing? That was Carly Dwyer’s creation. Last fall, she brought it to one of the first weekly creativity discussion groups at the Harvard Graduate School of Education." (Harvard Gazette, 3/11/09)

Knec’s Move on KCSE Ranking Queried
"According to Daniel Koretz, a professor of educational measurement at Harvard University and a leading expert on educational testing, parents have a right to know the performance of schools." (The Standard, 3/11/09)

Together We Won't
"When we talk about thinking and acting like a school system instead of system of schools, I think of places like Maryland, where [the state superintendent of schools] can get 24 superintendents around a table a couple of times a month if she needs to talk about educational policy . . . to get everyone on the same page, to connect it with a system of higher education. There are operational advantages." - Senior Lecturer Paul Reville (Boston Globe, 3/8/09)

Backers of '21st-Century Skills' Take Flak
"Such efforts must be accompanied by major changes in the system of teacher training and development, said Tony Wagner, a co-director of the Change Leadership Institute at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, which seeks new ways to improve schools." (Education Week, 3/4/09)