Ideas on Creative and Practical IQ Underlie New Tests of Giftedness

Interesting Ed Week article on a test called the Aurora Battery used to identify gifted and talented students. Attempts to assess things like creativity.

No Child Left Behind Lacks Bite

Lisa caught this article in the WSJ. The article is on how NCLB hasn't really resulted in a lot of restructuring for the most persistently-troubled schools.

The troubles in the restructuring arena reflect broader questions about whether NCLB is a strong enough tool to bring about the overhaul of American education. In many ways, the law was an outgrowth of "A Nation at Risk," a pivotal 1983 federal report that warned that a "rising tide of mediocrity" in education could undermine the nation's competitiveness. That report ushered in the era of accountability and testing, which eventually spawned NCLB.

Supporters maintain the law is helping to fuel learning gains. In the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress tests, reading and math scores for fourth and eighth graders rose compared to 2005, albeit only by a few points.

But NCLB gave states -- not the federal government -- authority to set the academic standards for local schools. And so, while NCLB requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014, states determine what proficiency is and how they will test for it. A 2007 federal study found states don't exactly agree on proficiency.

Asian-American Students Struggling Under NCLB, Group Says

A group is arguing that data for Asian Americans needs to be further disaggregated, because the wide-ranging cultures and languages of Asian Americans makes that designation fairly meaningless, and can hide low-performing Asian groups. If I remember correctly, several Southeast Asian-American groups do have much lower performance than the Asian American Average when data are disaggregated to that level.

Schools are failing to identify struggling Asian-American students under the No Child Left Behind Act and to get them the academic interventions they need, a report says.

“Contrary to stereotypes that cast Asian-Americans as model students of academic achievement, many Asian-American students are struggling, failing, and dropping out of schools that ignore their needs,” says the report, released last week by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

What Do Children Read? Hint: Harry Potter's Not No. 1

Traditional children's books (e.g. books by E.B. White, Judy Blume, etc.) still popular among kids. Founder of Accelerated Reader software is a former ED of NAGB, apparently.