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Throw a shoe at George Bush. In Norwegian.
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"Look: even your most novice educational researcher knows that comparing test scores is useless unless you control pretty carefully for things like parental involvement and expenditure levels. And most of the studies I've seen suggest that once you do that, charters perform about the same as traditional schools. At most, they perform only slightly better."
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"The following is a collection of some of my posts that can be put into a simple and quick textbook-type thingy. I am not really sure you would call this a textbook, but maybe you would. This does not include everything you would normally find in a traditional textbook, but clearly it is not traditional."
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"While I have no control about how grades are curved or scaled for my students, I've been thinking about the many different ways to accomplish this task, both traditional, and some more off-the-wall ideas that I've had."
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"I'm in the process of reworking my blog reading, and one area I'd like to expand is science education policy beyond the creation/evolution fight. I'm finding fairly slim pickings, alas." --I'd like to hear recommendations in this area, as well.
Uncertain Principles
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"Uncertain Principles" features the miscellaneous ramblings of a physicist at a small liberal arts college. Physics, politics, pop culture, and occasional conversations with his dog.
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« The Perils of Competence | Main | Jiggitty Jig »
links for 2008-12-16
Posted on: December 16, 2008 4:01 AM, by Chad Orzel
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Comments
Thanks for the DC charter school article. I'm really begining to think that basic statistics and research methodology should be required for all undergraduates so they can be intelligent consumers in life. Of course I focused on policy analysis research methods in grad school, so I'm biased.
Posted by: Kate | December 16, 2008 11:32 AM
I am surprised Chad picked that one tidbit out of the Kevin Drum article. The quote that got my attention was
"The extra funding, it turns out, coincides with improved academic performance: The schools with the largest surpluses have ranked at the top on test scores."
Wow, it turns out if you spend more money on staff, you get better outcomes? Who knew?
Posted by: Brad | December 16, 2008 1:41 PM