Malkin ,

Interesting sources that you posted on the last two posts.  Backlog is your suggestion, backward is my response.  Is the American system this group s aspiration?

According to Nancy your group gets funding from millionaires with learning challenges.  Given your deliberate choices with an enormous bias to the US suggests to me that the money must be from friends down south. 

American education system to be followed by their spin on health care.  Not backlog .... Simply backward. 

Challenge that goes to credibility…..European or Canadian sources in your blog.

Best, Mirka

I said no such thing - “According to Nancy your group gets funding from millionaires with learning challenges.”

I said in one of the posts concerning the Seven Myths of Education, that a few of the billionaires who are dyslexic or ADHD or both, are doing their bit in putting the science research into the British and American schools.

Every bit helps, including the large donations of billionaires to improved the public education system, and especially in areas of children with the invisible disabilities. Richard Branson of Virgin fame has become the unofficial spokesperson in Great Britain for pushing improvements in reading instruction in schools.

Another news item on YouTube - “.The Conference on Dyslexia and Talent was a landmark event that brought together from accomplished dyslexics from diverse fields, including a MacArthur Genius award winner, Pulitzer-prize winning poet, CEOs, artists, doctors, lawyers, and leaders in the dyslexia community.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu7hS2nncrU&list=SPsilMSaqafYi-GL5o672_Ig8Pu_dShwnY&index=3

Over at Scientific American - a sneak preview and it will only cost $3.99, a special education edition.

” New Techniques Make Math Fun for All [Preview]

With the right lesson plan, teachers can turn struggling students into budding mathematicians. The secret is carefully guiding their adventure in numbers

By John Mighton “
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=new-techniques-make-math-fun-for-all

Another Canadian, is making the case for reconfiguring the purpose of education - ” Going to school should be like going to the gym

ZANDER SHERMAN “
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/going-to-school-should-be-like-going-to-the-gym/article13631041/

An American - “In Defense of Working Memory Training
By Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D.”
- See more at: http://www.creativitypost.com/psychology/in_defense_of_working_memory_training1#sthash.xbt9BVNY.dpuf

Who is Scott Barry Kaufman?  One could say, he was the kid that was put in special education and he is now doing his bit to rescue children in the public schools who have such low academic expectations for children who struggled in learning. “On every count, these policies profoundly limit the intellectual and innovative possibilities of all students.

I can attest to just how limiting the process is. As a child, I was diagnosed with an auditory disorder that made it difficult for me to process speech in real time. I repeated third grade. Then, after an anxiety-ridden IQ testing session in fourth grade, I was sent to a school for students with learning disabilities. By the time I re-entered public school in sixth grade, the label “special ed” was hard to overcome, despite my yearning for more intellectual challenges. If it weren’t for a couple of teachers (thank you, Mrs. Jeuell and Mrs. Acton!) who considered the kid rather than the system’s preconceptions, I might never have earned a doctorate at Yale.”  http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/sunday-commentary/20130726-scott-barry-kaufman-american-education-and-the-iq-trap.ece

Over at the American Thinker - Bruce Price who is in the 2013 Who’s Who in America - doing his bit in areas of literacy and the general state of the public
education system. “What is Literacy in the 21st Century?”  http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/what_is_literacy_in_the_21st_century.html

Bruce Price - has his own web site - Improve-Education
with the mission line statement - Our Schools Can Do Better - “BRUCE DEITRICK PRICE is a life-long novelist, painter, poet and essayist. Along the way, he was always fascinated by education: the subjects that are taught; the methods used to teach them; and why the whole process isn’t more skillfully organized. “
http://www.improve-education.org/index.html

Of course, I can pretty well find the same at the European blogs and websites of a collective group of people outside of the education system, who are advocating for change, of a public education system that is loathe to change.

The European Mama -
A Very Special Friday with a Homeschooling Mom
http://www.europeanmama.eu/2013/07/a-very-special-friday-with.html

Nancy,

Thanks for correcting me you are right -you said no such thing.

As for Blogs.  If blogs just quote other blogs you become part of the pyjama people.  Serious blogs that quote serious research is worthy of a group that calls itself a ‘society’. 

The Finland experience is a challenge to comfortable educators and self-professed reformers.

Challenge 1: Rigorous selection criteria for teachers and then the rest takes care of itself.  If a person wishes to be an educator they need to enroll in a rigorous program available through only a few institutions.  They then need to get their Masters Degree.  To be part of this education process candidates are given 7 rigorous scientific articles on education and must then write a multiple choice test on the material.  The rationale is to eliminate individuals who cannot learn from scientific research on education.  Then there is an active component where candidates must in groups come up with lessons that are put in motion with real children and evaluated.  Finally the interview with three members of the University.  Each years they have 1200 applicants and only accept a hundred for the teaching program.

Challenge 2.  The methodical and considered manner in which money is spent on education.  What works with the lens of excellent schools for all children . 

Do look at the U tube clips of the author of Finnish Lessons at Harvard, or better yet read the book. 

cheers.  Mirka