In a damning report, Ofsted said teaching in the subject was not good enough in more than half of English state schools.
Geography – traditionally a cornerstone of the curriculum – is often undermined by a lack of space in school timetables after being edged out by exam practice and other subjects such as citizenship.
Many primary teachers lacked specialist geographical knowledge, the watchdog said, meaning classes often descended into a focus on superficial stereotypes. The subject had practically “disappeared” in one-in-10 primaries.
In secondary schools, classes were often merged with history to form generic “humanities” lessons that focused on vague skills instead of geographical understanding.
Ofsted said the decline severely reduced children’s ability at all ages to grasp key geographical issues, identify countries or capital cities and even read maps properly.
In the worst secondary schools, most students were “spatially naïve” and unable to “locate countries, key mountain ranges or other features with any degree of confidence”, the study said.
Christine G
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During the last 10 years, students with disabilities have served nearly a third of suspensions handed out by New York City public schools, according to a report published late last month by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Student Safety Coalition.
The report, Education Interrupted: The Growing Use of Suspensions in New York City’s Public Schools, analyzed 449,513 suspensions of New York City students from 1999 to 2009, obtaining some of the data is used with Freedom of Information law requests.
Overall, the report found that the number and length of suspensions grew during the last decade, although student enrollment dropped.
Part of the cause, according the report, New York City school administrators changed the discipline code. The code details types of infractions and how schools can punish kids for each.
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The University of Utah recently made the top ten in yet another national ranking.
In this instance, U.S. News and World Report put the U in its list of the “Best Colleges for Winter Enthusiasts”. For some, that’s a no brainer. After all, 
Utah is a four-season climate, and the campus is nestled in the foothills of the Wasatch range. That means you can count on snow for five months of the year, and in less than an hour, you can bask in the landscape and atmospherics that provide some of the world’s best skiing/boarding.
Yes, there is a reason that the department of atmospheric sciences has a web page dedicated to “Utah Ski Weather”.
Yet even folks who don’t take advantage of “The Greatest Snow on Earth” for recreation benefit from it. Utah’s mountains and
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Once again, social science research is refuting the often-cited myth that U.S. News‘s Best Colleges rankings are the main reason that the average student chooses one school over another. That conclusion comes from UCLA’s just-released “The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2010,” a highly respected national survey based on the responses of 201,818 students at 279 U.S. colleges and universities.
The UCLA survey asks students to rate which factors were “very important” in influencing their decision to attend a particular college. Incoming fall 2010 freshmen could choose as many of the 22 reasons listed as they wanted. The college rankings finished in 11th place, up from 12th place in last year’s survey. So, at least based on this nationwide sample of freshmen from all types of colleges, students are using the rankings responsibly—as just one factor in the college search process.
These results also serve as a validation of the U.S. News Best Colleges rankings methodology that weights undergraduate academic reputation at 22.5 percent. P
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Starting in February, Board of Education members will provide opportunities to meet with community members who would like to share a cup of coffee and conversation with a Board member. Join Dave Zuro and Patti Engelman on Wednesday, February 2, at Penera from 7:30 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. to ask questions and share information. Board members will take turns hosting the coffees. The future times and location will be announced on the web and in the Hudson Hub-Times.
