Eric Hoefler

I understand (and agree with) the goal of removing ineffective teachers from the classroom. I have no idea why anyone thinks that removing 50% of the teachers in a school and replacing them with substitutes and college grads will make things better. But Mary Tedrow might have the answer: Young, un-credentialed teachers are much easier to control [...]

This chart pretty clearly illustrates the correlation between student performance and socio-economic status: I have no interest in defending ineffective teachers, but we also have to talk honestly about what schools can and can’t do to help students. I don’t doubt that the effectiveness of a teacher is the single largest factor in determining a [...]

Simon Winchester, commenting on the fact that the Oxford English Dictionary won’t be reprinted and future editions will only be available in digital formats: The printed book is about to vanish at extraordinary speed … Books are about to vanish; reading is about to expand as a pastime; these are inescapable realities. In practical and environmental [...]

Marion Brady presents two theories of learning and suggests that the one currently driving reform is based on the notion that learning is all about transferring information from books and teachers into the empty brains of students. No research says how much of what’s recalled at test time remains permanently in memory, nor to what [...]

I’d seen Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon a while ago, but had a chance to watch it again recently. I enjoyed this slasher satire for many of the same reasons I enjoyed the first Scream: both are meta-slasher films that use humor to deconstruct the genre while still serving as examples of [...]

Thousands of veteran D.C. teachers were removed from the classroom recently. Their replacements? 4,500 Teach for America recruits placed in public schools this year after five weeks of summer preparation If that sounds like progress to you, then I suspect your concern has more to do with budgets than with students.

This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, but apparently it’s news: Pupils show greater motivation, are better behaved and are more likely to be independent and strategic thinkers when teachers are not obsessed by grades.

How much biology would you be willing to sacrifice in order to preserve your library? Archaeologist Timothy Taylor: If you said to me, you can either have your toes cut off or your whole library destroyed, with no chance of ever accessing those works again, I’d say “take my toes”–because I can more easily compensate [...]

Savvy publishers, [Visel] says, “should be establishing themselves as brands or curators.” And they “could be in the business of providing community to the readers: allowing readers to have conversations with authors or like-minded readers. Books Have Many Futures I also like Visel’s phrase: “there are futures of the book.”

I developed a document for my work to provide an overview of the privacy options in Facebook. I’ve modified it a bit for personal use and thought that others might find it helpful. Of course, this will likely be out-of-date within a month, given the way Facebook’s privacy settings and offerings continue to evolve, but [...]