Private Education Center

Our recent past Boden Lecturer Dan Kahan and his colleagues have developed a provocative body of empirical and theoretical scholarship on “cultural cognition” (see, e.g., his article here in the Marquette Law Review). Kahan’s basic thesis is that judges and other legal decisionmakers tend to perceive facts in ways that are congenial to their social values. This is not a conspiracy theory – Kahan’s claim is not that judges intentionally manipulate the facts in order to reach desired results, but that their values shape their perceptions in subtle, unconscious ways.

Paul Secunda has been exploring the implications of cultural cognition theory for law and employment law. An initial foray is here, and the latest entry in the series is here. The new p

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The U.S. Department of Education says new data about thousands of schools and school districts show that students across the country don’t have equal access to a rigorous education.

Using information amassed about 72,000 schools in every district in the country with more than 3,000 students through the civil rights data collection, the department’s office of civil rights hopes to get a picture of how equitable schools are within a district and across states. (The data includes information for about half the nation’s school districts. The ones that aren’t included have fewer than 3,000 students.)

The picture isn’t pretty, said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

“These data show that far too many students are still not getting access to the kinds of classes, resources and opportunities they need to be successful,” Duncan said in statement issued today to announce the availability of the data.

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The Air Force Academy K-12 STEM Outreach Center formally came together in February, and has received more than $300,000 in funding, with more likely to come, and it hopes to be self-sustaining within a few years.

Officials have an ever-growing list of ways the center can contribute to education focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, in the region.

Professionals and officers with ties to the academy have gone into the community to share their expertise for so long that no one knows when that started, said Ret. Lt. Col. Billy Crisler, Air Force Academy K-12 STEM Outreach Center director.

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Danyelle, we’ve spoken about your son’s initial diagnosis of autism, and we’ve also talked about that helped you understand the condition and learn how to find the most joy in your mothering. What would you like to tell mothers who have recently learned that their child had autism or another form of cognitive disability?

Every mother needs to know that she is her child’s best advocate. Attend disability workshops, conferences, and parent support groups. Learn whatever you need to know about the stage your child is in right now. Don’t freak out or try to learn everything for his whole life at once. Take a year to just figure out right now – whether that’s early intervention and therapies or school IEP’s and transitions – figure out where you are today and research.

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If you attended our VAClassroom event last week, you’ll know that there’s a ton of buzz going on around Google Places for Business. This tool is positioned to be a Game Changer when it comes to location-based social networks and directories. Why thumb through the Yellow Pages when with the click of a mouse you can uncover even more detailed information about local brick and mortar businesses?

Now, an interesting question popped up during our event—whether or not an Internet-based business with no fixed address or a Virtual Assistant’s business with a private home address could use Google Places. It appe

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Want to know the average grade your professor hands out, or how well the professor is rated on student evaluations? Or how much time he or she spends teaching as opposed to doing research?

On Thursday, the University of Texas System released 821 pages of raw data on each faculty member in the system. System officials have sworn they will not use the data to calculate each teachers net productivity, as Texas A&M University did in the now-infamous red and black report.

But many faculty leaders are still concerned that the data can be abused by simplistic interpretations.   Faculty in general are not concerned about the scrunity brought on us or the release of the data, but are concerned about the potential misuse of the data and a lack of understanding of what is contained in the 821 page spreadsheet.

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