HGSE in the Media

April 2009

The Dalai Lama Speaks at Harvard
"Education has an important role to play in enlightening the spirit, said the Dalai Lama. But he warned that people with intelligent minds but lacking a compassionate heart can succumb to competition, anger, and jealousy." (Harvard Gazette, 4/30/09)

Obama's First 100 Days
Dean Kathleen McCartney reflects on the issue of education in the United States on the occasion of President Obama’s 100th day in office. (Harvard Gazette, 4/30/09)

Raising Happy — and Moral — Children
"'Not infrequently, parents fail to help their children grasp their responsibility for a community. … Caught up in our children's happiness, we too often let children off the hook when they fail to take responsibility for their peers,' writes Richard Weissbourd of the scenario in his new book." (Harvard Gazette, 4/30/09)

What's Missing in Obama's Education Plan?
"But the effects of the previous accountability programs have been disappointing: relatively small improvements on trustworthy indicators of performance, and many serious side effects." - Professor Daniel Koretz writing in Education Week. (4/29/09. Registration required.)

Project Zero Encourages Student Creation in Frankenmuth; Gets a Look from State Educators
"[Teachers]can use these big, vague words like see, think and wonder and generate responses." - Professor David Perkins (The Saginaw News, 4/24/09)

Facebook Users -- and Research -- Need Further Study
"Facebook somehow encourages students to seek technical careers rather than humanities interests. I would be very hesitant to conclude anything from a weak correlational study of this type." - Professor Chris Dede (The Wall Street Journal, 4/22/09)

The Union War on Charter Schools
"The most telling study is by Harvard economist [Professor] Tom Kane about charter schools in Boston. It found that students accepted by lottery at independently operated charter schools significantly outperformed students who lost the lottery and returned to district schools." (The Wall Street Journal, 4/16/09)

High School Students Rub Elbows with Literary Giants
"As our lives get older, we start becoming old and stagnant. The learning takes place in the early part of our lives and we just stop after that. I observed people as they challenged themselves to grow beyond the age of learning." - Professor Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot (The Sun-Sentinel, 4/15/09)

Awake and Sing!
"One skeptic is Howard Gardner, the Harvard education professor who has created seminars at several elite colleges to counsel students in the notion of pursuing meaningful, ethical and effective work — 'Good Work,' as he has titled it. He believes that many students may still be operating on the assumption that the world of finance will just pick up where it left off in a few years." (The New York Times, 4/11/09)

Researchers Examine Contracts' Effects on Policy Issues
"Susan Moore Johnson, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, expressed reservations with the researchers’ definitions. She pointed out that Ms. West’s paper conflates the presence of bargaining with union influence, a distinction she said should be clarified." (Education Week, 4/8/09. Registration required.)

High-Tech Simulations Linked to Learning
"Keeping that in mind can prevent educators from being disillusioned by games, which are often billed as a “silver bullet” technique to solve all the problems in a classroom, said Christopher J. Dede, a professor of learning technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who studies simulations and games in education." (Education Week, 4/8/09. Registration required.)

The Challenges for Charter Schools
"For many funders, practitioners, and policymakers, scaling the most successful ventures has become the sine qua non of successful reform. Thus far, these pockets of excellence have produced tangible results, but the means of bringing them to scale have remained elusive." - Associate Professor Monica Higgins (American Enterprise Institute, 4/3/09)

Why Are We Praising Our Children So Much?
"These days children are often showered with praise. Spend just a little time on a playground, a sports field, or in a classroom, and you'll inevitably hear adults praising kids for behavior that a generation ago would not have merited notice, such as showing up on time or remembering to do homework." - Lecturer Richard Weissbourd (Psychology Today, 4/1/09)

'No Effects' Studies Raising Eyebrows
"It's not a question of whether a particular new intervention is efficacious at all; it's a question of whether it's better than what we would've been doing otherwise." - Professor Richard Murnane (Education Week, 4/1/09. Registration required.)