To elaborate upon a piece that Thesis published about the history of children’s literature, I thought it necessary (not to mention, well, interesting) to get a sense of the present and future of the canon of works that have captivated young hearts and inspired young minds.  An enriching afternoon spentRead More

For many of us, some of our fondest childhood memories are associated with the stories and books we learned from our parents, heard from our teachers, and discovered for ourselves. I, for one, get nostalgic at the mention of my friend’s dog Spot (for those who may not directly seizeRead More

Recently, major national news sources covered topics which Thesis has been following for some time now: teacher evaluations and national standardized testing norms.  First, on December 18th,  Al Jazeera America drew its readership’s attention to how schools all over the country have had to postpone (or even sacrifice) designing andRead More

Continuing its widespread coverage of assessment tests, Thesis would like to share with its readers some results from the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a test designed and administered by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) every three years which gauges the capacities of 510,000 fifteen-yearRead More

As teachers have been put under increased pressure to “teach to the test” and boost their students’ performance scores, curricula have been grossly condensed. Depth of knowledge is sacrificed for cursory breadth of knowledge, and in lieu of spending additional time on a given subject to foster discussions, encourage creativeRead More

On November 14th, Assistant Secretary of Education Deborah Delisle issued a letter which drastically reduces obligations for those states which previously sought and received waivers on implementing key tenets of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation. As Thesis previously reported, the national government absolved Texas, together with 41 other statesRead More

A little more than one month ago, the Dallas Morning News’ education blog drew my attention to a frightening trend in student achievement demographics.  Namely, based on the results of the National Center for Education Statistics’ 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) – which bi-annually ascertains performance in mathematics,Read More

A growing number of parents in East Dallas have become fed up with what they view as an inefficient and unresponsive Dallas ISD. Their frustrations range from a perceived over-emphasis on student test results to the inability of parent volunteers to effect changes in school administration, as highlighted by the storyRead More

As a counterpoint to an article Thesis published on October 28th about waning literacy, numeracy, and ICT competence among American adults, the New York Times recently highlighted the results of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, which found that American high-school students seem to be outperforming their internationalRead More

Just two weeks after the Dallas Morning News reported that Texas had scrapped student performance-based merit pay for teachers, it appears that standardized test results will now, in part, determine teachers’ salaries in the Dallas ISD.  Previously, teachers were eligible for pay hikes based solely on seniority; as David LeeRead More

Having decided to write an article about different learning styles and then having realized I knew nothing about the topic, I conceded that a little bit of background reading would be more than helpful.  Lost on a discursive path of search results and suggested reading links, I ended up onRead More

Earlier this year, Dallas ISD superintendent Mike Miles launched his Imagine 2020 program to help boost achievement and morale in beleaguered schools concentrated in the neighborhoods of West Dallas and Fair Park.  As the Dallas Morning News’s web portal Dallas News explains, students at higher-risk schools in these neighborhoods faceRead More

According to a recent study from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), while pockets of adult populations across the world exhibit limited facility with literacy, numeracy, and ICT-based problem solving, American adults, on average, universally rank lower than their peers across all three categories.  A series of testsRead More

As of September 30, Texas public schools are no longer subject to provisions of George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act that govern student performance on standardized tests.  Previously, legislation stipulated that if 90% of students in a given school or district did not meet established thresholds on statewideRead More

On October 17th, twenty-three school districts participating in the Texas High Performance Schools Consortium met to discuss alternatives to existing evaluation systems which consortium-members claim are too dependent on results from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) test.  The STAAR test is an annual assessment for TexasRead More

The observation that American society seems to place a higher premium on extroversion (and, by extension, extroverts) than on introversion (and, you guessed it, introverts) should hardly be cause for debate.  After all, this is a culture that has produced and retained the likes of the elevator pitch, the businessRead More