|
Of all the responsibilities that fall to a parent or guardian, few are as nerve-wracking as trying to find a good school for your child. I speak from experience. I could tell you quite a few stories about the difficulties I faced trying to find a decent school for my then-12-year-old daughter in Upper Manhattan in 2013.
Of course, being an education journalist at the time, I relied heavily on several websites for information about various schools’ academic performance. One thing I never asked about – because I didn’t know much about it at the time – was a given school’s academic growth from one year to the next.
That’s one reason I was so eager to have David Houston, an education policy scholar, write about what he found when he conducted an experiment that enabled parents or caregivers to select schools for their children based on a school’s academic growth data. What he found has implications not just for individual families but for the diversity and demographics of schools throughout the United States.
Also today:
|
Different types of data can influence how parents select schools for their children.
Viktorcvetkovic/E+ via Getty Images
David M. Houston, George Mason University
An education researcher explains how most school rating websites lack a key piece of information about school performance.
|
Health + Medicine
|
-
Swathi Kiran, Boston University
The ‘Die Hard’ actor is suffering from a communications disorder that affects 2 million Americans.
-
Joan O'Connell, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus; Luohua Jiang, University of California, Irvine
A clearer understanding of the true treatment costs of dementia for American Indian and Alaska Native adults could help health services better meet the needs of the populations they serve.
|
|
Economy + Business
|
-
Vidhura S Tennekoon, IUPUI
Sri Lanka was already experiencing a severe economic and financial crisis. Then Russia invaded Ukraine.
|
|
Science + Technology
|
-
Rick Wash, Michigan State University
Many people promoting cryptocurrencies are looking for something bigger than the future of financial transactions. They’re aiming to break free of governments and corporations.
-
Lindsey Hasak, Stanford University; Elizabeth Y. Toomarian, Stanford University
The brain can count small numbers or compare large ones. But it struggles to understand the value of a single large number. This fact may be influencing how people react to numbers about the pandemic.
|
|
Ethics + Religion
|
-
Duncan Purves, University of Florida; Jeremy Davis, University of Florida
A cornerstone of the First Step Act, passed with bipartisan support, is the PATTERN risk-assessment tool.
-
Liz Mount, Flagler College
A sociologist explains that the ability to claim transgender identities in India may appear progressive, but this can further marginalize historically stigmatized gender-nonconforming groups.
|
|
Politics + Society
|
-
Rachel Hadas, Rutgers University - Newark
In the middle of a brutal war, poetry asserts its value, challenging the darkness and inhumanity.
-
Tazreena Sajjad, American University School of International Service
The U.S. has promised to take in 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. But there is concern that this could further complicate efforts to welcome and resettle Afghan evacuees.
|
|
