Kevin Schofield

I'm over in the UK this week, and in this morning's paper there was a fascinating report about a study giving Omega-3 supplements to children that seemed to dramatically boost the children's ability to concentrate. If it checks out, we might be hearing more about this in the U.S. soon...

This week the Commission on Higher Education, set up by the Department of Education, issued a draft of their widely-anticipated report on the state of higher education in the United States.It doesn't pull a lot of punches. The commission registers a litany of complaints, which fall into four…

Last month the Department of Education released a new report  trying to determine if there was a substantial difference between private and public schools in terms of the quality of learning.Here's the abstract of the report:This study compares mean 2003 National Assessment of Educational…

In Shanghai, according to this report, ten percent of the teachers blog as a way to increase and improve communication and interaction with their students. Unfortunately, the students aren't reciprocating -- the teachers are having a very difficult time getting their students to comment or otherwise…

Inside Higher Ed has an article this week on a flap between the Student Public Interest Research Group and a textbook publishers' association. PIRG claimed that college students spend an average of $900 annually on textbooks. As the textbook publisher association pointed out, they were misquoting a…

The No Child Left Behind Act is coming up for renewal by Congress. Much debate is ensuing about changes that need to be made.However, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has gone on record saying that she thinks the act is "99.9% pure." Meaning, no changes should be made.A shame,…

USA Today has an article today about a new report, comparing the American higher education system with its counterparts in other parts of the world. It draws alarming conclusions from the disparity between the number of college graduates in the 25-34 age bracket, vs. 35-64 year olds. In the 35-64…

The fantastic site HowStuffWorks.com has posted an article on "How College Admissions Works."As always with HowStuffWorks, it's a high-level explanation but extensively researched, including interviews with the head of admissions at Duke University. This is a must-read for every high…

The Washington Post has a great article about turnitin.com, a company that helpd teachers check student papers to see whether they are plagiarizing.Some students, teachers and administrators have a problem with this, in that they believe it's the equivalent of mandatory drug testing for all…

According to Inside Higher Ed, the University of Washington this year revoked admission to 18 students who goofed off the second half of their senior year and saw a significant downturn in their grades.Good for them.I remember hearing that empty threat when I was a senior, that I needed t keep my…