UC Davis publicity problems, debate over debate location, fixing math ed, science ed teaching and learning, school funding, and more: Required Readings, 04.18.16
Documents released last week show that the University of California-Davis spent at least $175,000 on consultants in an attempt to scrub the Internet of negative online postings regarding a 2011 incident during which students were pepper-sprayed, in order to boost the school’s public image. (I know several librarians at UC Davis who could have explained the Streisand effect and the futility of such efforts for a whole lot less than $175K.) The news represents the latest controversy involving Chancellor Linda Katehi, who has been under fire in recent months in large part for her membership on the boards of for-profit educator DeVry and textbook publisher Wiley and Sons.
Several Virginia debate teams will be sitting out the state championships because they are being held at Liberty University: The school’s president, Jerry Falwell Jr., made a speech in December that many saw as threatening to Muslims. Many of the teams involved have Muslim members, and others wanted to take a stand against what they regard as anti-Islam rhetoric.
The exhausting life of a first-year science teacher, and why some children are falling behind in science education
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