Education Week - April 16, 2014 - 12

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State Lawmakers Take Steps
To Keep Cursive in School
| CURRICULUM MATTERS | The teaching of cursive
handwriting is back in the news as action has heated up
in several states recently. The House of Representatives in
Tennessee overwhelmingly approved a bill last month that
would require teachers to teach cursive. Also in March, the
House education committee in South Carolina approved such
a measure, which now awaits action in the full chamber.
Meanwhile, a bill on teaching cursive sailed through the
Indiana Senate earlier this year, only to die in the House.
As new technologies continue to infiltrate standards and
curriculum in schools, many educators and political leaders
are wondering where, if at all, cursive handwriting fits
into the equation. The Common Core State Standards are
notably silent on the matter.
Responding to that silence, the state board of education
in Florida voted in February to add standards on teaching
cursive to 4th and 5th graders.
A number of other states that adopted the standards have
made clear that the teaching of cursive is still expected,
including California, Idaho, Massachusetts, and North
Carolina, according to the Associated Press.
-ALYSSA MORONES
Common-Core Film Makes
Hazy Case Against Standards
| EDUCATION AND THE MEDIA | A group wary of the Common
Core State Standards has released a documentary film
about the effort.
"Building the Machine" was produced by the Home School
Legal Defense Association and directed by Ian Reid.
The film is not a one-sided, conservative screed
against the common core. In fact, it presents quite a few
voices on both sides of the debate, and, in the end, it
comes off as damning the standards with faint praise,
even though that may not have been the intent.
The home-schooling group says in press materials that
the 40-minute film grew out of its effort to understand
how the common core might trickle down to affect private
schools and home-schooling families.
One of the film's main indictments of the common
core is that the standards were developed in a semisecretive
fashion. One education analyst called the effort
"immaculate conception," because of the difficulties faced by
national standards efforts going back to the administration
of President George H.W. Bush.
At times, the film seems critical of the common
standards for not being rigorous enough, and at other
times it gives voice to people who argue that such
standards and high educational goals are not right for
every student.
Toward the end, the film veers into the idea that the
common core will have undue influence on colleges,
admissions tests, school curriculum, and achievement tests.
That, in turn, means a trickle-down effect on private schools
and home-schooling families, which is why that world
should be concerned, the film suggests.
Amazon's Brazilian Textbook Deal
Stirs Speculation on K-12 Ambition
| MARKETPLACE K-12 | Amazon is an instantly
recognizable player in the e-commerce market, but its
presence in schools so far has been limited, at least
compared with that of other industry giants. But a big
move by the company in an expanding international
market has raised speculation about whether the
company has bigger designs for K-12.
The Seattle-based company recently announced that
it is working with Brazil's Ministry of Education to
wirelessly distribute textbooks to teachers throughout the
country, using a free Kindle reading app. The textbook
material would be delivered to teachers on their Brazilian-
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government-issued Android tablets, according to Amazon.
The project's size, as described by Amazon, seems
enormous: The company says that, to date, more than 40
million e-textbooks have been delivered through the app
project. Textbook materials are being delivered via the
platform Whispercast to 600,000 tablets used by teachers
across the country. More than 200 types of textbook titles
have been made available, the company says.
Teachers using the free app can "read, highlight, make
notes, and reference the dictionary directly in the textbooks,
even when the tablets are not connected to the Internet,"
the company says.
Some observers speculate that Amazon's work in Brazil
offers a likely glimpse into the company's broader designs
for the school market.
Allow Students to Doodle, Draw
-MARK WALSH
In Class, Educator Suggests
| TEACHING NOW | Far from being a distraction from
academic work, drawing can turn students into better
writers, asserts Misty Adoniou, a senior lecturer in
literacy and teaching English as a second language at the
University of Canberra, in Australia. In an essay for The
Conversation, an independent source of academic-research
news, Adoniou makes a case for allowing, and encouraging,
students to draw in classrooms.
Adoniou says research shows that drawing and artwork
actually help improve students' writing skills: "Children
who draw before they tackle writing tasks produce better
writing-it's longer, more syntactically sophisticated, and
has a greater variety of vocabulary," she writes.
She encourages teachers to have students draw their
first drafts instead of writing them to explore and clarify
their ideas.
Just like stringing words together to create meaning,
drawing is a form of communication. One should not be
superior to the other, says Adoniou.
-MARLENA CHERTOCK
-SEAN CAVANAGH
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Education Week - April 16, 2014

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