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So this article points out that a good program needs to be put into place early - early enough to see long term gains. And the changes might need to be pretty radical, not just more of the same. Another good article.

Radical change for failing schools

Second in a series

The most promising part of the No Child Left Behind Act is language requiring schools to use research-based practices. Yet it’s the least embraced by the educational establishment.

An interesting article in the Oregonian on the Oregon Connections Academy, a virtual K-9 school.

What is interesting:

1. They have 700 students across Oregon, but had to turn away another 500 due to space limitations
2. It is a privately run charter school. So it receives public funding and has to follow almost all rules of public schools

Well here's an interesting article about a group of people that demanded that the school district use effective curriculum for failing schools.

I'm not saying it has to be a faith based group like the one in the article, just a group of concerned citizens.

It can happen. Are you listening Corvallis?

Full Story Here
Clinics Will Open, Officials Pledge

An interesting story about an Oregon public school using Don Crawford's Mastering Math Facts (purchase here).

Oregonian Article Here

JANET GOETZE

Anyone who went beyond third grade remembers memorizing multiplication tables. Today, that's old stuff for some of Sari Hedges' second-graders.

New Glarus filling in reading gaps
Published Friday, February 3, 2006 8:00:54 AM Central Time

The district is counting on a new approach to help struggling students.

By Ellen Williams-Masson

Times Correspondent

An interesting story about Oregon's unwillingness to use research based reading.

Two teaching methods with ties to Oregon are applied in a fraction of schools
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
STEVEN CARTER

Two elementary school reform programs with roots in Oregon show the best evidence of raising student achievement, a new study commissioned by the federal government shows, yet they are barely taught in Oregon classrooms.

Read Story Here

This fascinating article depicts a research study showing poor readers brains displayed pronounced activity in several of the same left-brain areas that are active when good readers do reading-related tasks after the poor readers completed an experimental program.

I think I'm going to get sick. Nope, kids have never gone from autism to normal IQ and indistinguishable from peers. Never. (please note sarcasm). Maybe we should write letters to Michelle Harper at White
Mountain Middle School in Eagle Point, Oregon. Geez.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/12/02/special.ed.testing.ap/index.html

Special ed students skew test results
EAGLE POINT, Oregon (AP)

Time Article Here

An interesting article on how unions blocked the creation of charter schools that would have been fully funded (and built!) by a philanthropist. The idea that 90% of the kids had to BOTH graduate AND go to college must have scared them.

Joe Klein on how Detroit lost out on $200 million for new schools
By JOE KLEIN

Monday, Oct. 27, 2003

Starting on the February 24th strip at Doonsbury Online, you will find various pokes at Oregon schools. An interesting read and definitely some truth to it.