Education Week October 27th Issue

Language Acquisition Article:  First off, I think that "magnetoencephalography" is the largest word I have ever seen.  That thing is a whopping 22 letters!  But seriously, this article addresses some long held beliefs about learning a second language.  I found it interesting that they were trying to say that it didn't matter very much what age a person was, that we are all capable of learning another language.  Some of the evidence that they provided seemed to contradict that point. "...A Japanese baby, whose native language does not differentiate between the sounds, will get worse at hearing the difference."  They reinforce the point that learning a second language later in life is much more difficult: the age at which many students who learn a second language is when "'they’re becoming less likely to be able to make those native-like sounds in another language,' Ms. Abbott said."  I can honestly say I wish I had been learning a second language during my early childhood years.  I feel that way even more so now after reading this article that basically says that learning a second language early on directly benefits children.  I don't see how this dispells the previous myths that many people had about learning a second language.  If anything,  I thought that this article was pretty confused about itself, almost like a college student who started a paper with one idea in mind and suddenly went completely off course throughout the course of the paper...

Educators Step up Efforts:  Reading the statistics about this school in Kentucky is appalling... "Just 4.7 percent of Shawnee’s students scored “proficient” or higher in math in spring 2010" and "Less than a quarter—22.6 percent of students—scored proficient or better." How is it that the principle there still has a job?  That isnt just underachieving, you practically have to try and do that poorly.  Why wasn't he booted out and replaced with someone who was more likely to do the job.  It seems pretty clear that the effort to turn the school around is going to rub people the wrong way and it will inevitably be very difficult.  Why not bring someone new and do the job right rather than risk letting the guy who let things get so bad try and turn it around.  Not to use a football analogy, but it looks like its a building year for this Kentucky school, and they are in desperate need of a new head coach.  Their abysmal record dictates a change that isn't likely to happen with the same personnel that oversaw such a decline.  Having re-read, and re-thought, the second part of the article, it's also likely that the fact that they are on their 4th principle in 13 years has contributed to the falling standards of the school.  Perhaps some real continuity would do the school some good. Another football analogy: a team that switches head coaches every 2-3 years isn't going to win the Superbowl...