Category Archives: In the News

don’t judge an article by its title

One of the goals of applied child development research is to understand the impact of programs and services that serve children and families. Preschool is one of these hot-button programs that has gotten a lot of attention in the press recently. Preschool has been known to have many positive benefits for children (especially for children from low-income backgrounds), but many researchers and policymakers have been worried about recent findings that these positive effects don’t last, they fade over time.

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What I’m Reading

Hi everyone! I’m introducing a new series to the blog! Each week (at least that’s the goal), I’ll post a short list of articles from around the web that I’ve read. The articles will deal with issues related to children and families. I’m starting this as a way to (a) keep myself accountable and focus on reading more relevant and staying current on child and family social policy, and (2) encourage and promote good quality information about these important topics on the internet. All too often I see news roundups that fail to focus on domestic issues that impact children and families from across the sociodemographic spectrum. So I’d like to do my part, and spread the news.

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Urban Experiences We Take for Granted

A recent Brookings article highlights some of the details underneath the hooplah that was this years election. The article talks about some concepts and inequalities that social scientists and education researchers have known for years: folks who live in rural America are not receiving basic education about how the economy works, this is something urbanites take for granted.

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Data Walls

Well, it’s been a long time since I have posted here, but now that it’s summer, I have a little more time on my hands to read for pleasure and post my thoughts on the current education climate in the U.S.

I just read this really interesting article from the Washington Post about “data walls.” Basically, these “walls” are posters that schools put up in the hallways of elementary schools displaying how their students perform on standardized tests. Each student’s standardized test scores are presented in a tidy little graph that’s color-coded to determine who is behind, and who is excelling.

“And once blossoms were on the trees, we were just a few weeks from the exams that would mark us as passing school or a failing one. We were either analyzing practice tests, taking a test or prepping for the next test.”

What this article gets at is something that many parents and families have struggled with for many years. In our current testing-focused climate, we have have lost sight of what is really important: educating our children well. Children have become numbers, and numbers have become currency for schools and teachers. Some student test scores influence school funding and teachers salaries so much so that we have devalued and forgotten about what goes on the other 7 months of the school year, when testing is not taking place.

“When policymakers mandate tests and buy endlessly looping practice exams to go with them, their image of education is from 30,000 feet.”

What has become a further problem as a result of our testing epidemic is what happens when we examine what these tests are actually measuring. What this article hints at is how these test scores might really be measuring access that students have to valuable resources that help them prepare for such tests. And this is exactly what the research shows us. Standardized tests were intended for leveling the playing field, but really they are just making it worse and increasing the achievement gap that we are fighting to hard to close.

There needs to be a fundamental shift in our thinking: away from test scores and toward a more holistic view of learning.