History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
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Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Kohn: What does education research really tell us?
- 04-01-2011
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Guest blog by Alfie Kohn/Washington Post
It’s not unusual to read that a new study has failed to replicate -- or has even reversed -- the findings of an earlier study. The effect can be disconcerting, particularly when medical research announces that what was supposed to be good for us turns out to be dangerous, or vice versa. Qualifications and reversals also show up in investigations of education and human behavior, but here an interesting pattern seems to emerge. At first a study seems to validate traditional practices, but then subsequent studies -- those that follow subjects for longer periods of time or use more sophisticated outcome measures -- call that result into question. That’s not really surprising when you stop to think about it. Traditional practices (with respect to teaching students but also to raising children and managing employees) often consist of what might be called a “doing to” -- as opposed to a “working with” -- approach, the point being to act on people to achieve a specific goal. (more...)
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