NPR:The Case For Summer Vacation
Put down those Popsicles. No more sleeping in. Beach time is over.
Economists have long hated summer vacation. All those wasted school facilities! All that educational backsliding! Kids are getting dumber!
The conventional wisdom is that summer vacation is a relic of agricultural times, when kids had to help their parents on the farm. But the economist William Fischel says that story is completely wrong.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/08/20/752524359/the-case-for-summer-vacation
Greg Rosalsky| August 20, 20196:30 AM ET
Education Week--Federal Lawmakers Tell Ed-Tech Companies to Turn Over Data-Collection Details
Three Democratic senators have sent pointed letters to a long list of ed-tech companies asking that they turn over details of how they collect data on students.
Sens. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Richard Durbin of Illinois, and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said they wrote to the businesses because of worries about the “vast amount of data being collected about our nation’s students, and to request more information about your company’s data-collection practices.”
The lawmakers sent two letters. One went out to a broad set of ed-tech companies in both the K-12 and higher education markets. The other letter was sent to what the lawmakers said were “data brokers,” who they described as creating lists of potentially sensitive information and making them available for commercial use.
Sean Cavanagh| Managing Editor