Education Today 12/12/2008

Eureka: Poverty hurts!

Neuroscientists have found through EEG readings that children from lower economic classes have changes in their prefrontal cortex. Bad changes. This is the part of the brain that helps plan things, the control center that coordinates what you think with what you do; this is where the brain says 'Whoa, cowboy, think twice before you throw a chair at the teacher.'

We can make education work for our future

...A third of our students don't graduate from high school in four years. The numbers are even more disturbing for minority students - half of black and Hispanic ninth-graders don't graduate in four years.

These are dismal statistics. They show we simply aren't doing a good job of preparing our kids to move on to the next step. And when we shortchange our students, we undercut our ability to compete globally.

The rest of my favorite links are here.