Ivy Leaguers’ Class for Poor Becomes ‘Platinum’ Charter Schools - Bloomberg.com

This was written up in Outliers:

Ivy Leaguers’ Class for Poor Becomes ‘Platinum’ Charter Schools - Bloomberg.com:

"A 2005 study by the Educational Policy Institute in Virginia Beach, Virginia, found “large and significant gains” among fifth graders in KIPP schools nationwide on the Stanford Achievement Test, a standardized assessment used by school districts. The students scored an average of 9 to 17 points higher in reading, language and math, on a scale of 99 points, than they had the previous year elsewhere.

KIPP has an 85 percent college matriculation rate, compared with 40 percent for low-income students nationwide, according to a 2008 report card on the organization’s Web site"

Wednesday whales take down Twitter - CNN.com

Wednesday whales take down Twitter - CNN.com:

"In a Twitter post on January 12, company CEO Evan Williams wrote that the site continues to grow.

'Across all metrics that matter, yesterday was Twitter's highest-usage day ever. (And today will be bigger.),' he wrote."

Adult Learning - Neuroscience - How to Train the Aging Brain - NYTimes.com

Adult Learning - Neuroscience - How to Train the Aging Brain - NYTimes.com:

"Educators say that, for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain already full of well-connected pathways, adult learners should “jiggle their synapses a bit” by confronting thoughts that are contrary to their own, says Dr. Taylor, who is 66.

Teaching new facts should not be the focus of adult education, she says. Instead, continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you “bump up against people and ideas” that are different. In a history class, that might mean reading multiple viewpoints, and then prying open brain networks by reflecting on how what was learned has changed your view of the world"

The Decade of Zero? Measuring Your Fulfillment in the 2000's | Psychology Today

The Decade of Zero? Measuring Your Fulfillment in the 2000's | Psychology Today:

"...it remains the case that economists, naturally enough, tend to gauge human achievement in terms of gains measured in indexes such as the GDP, GNP, and so on. When they do look at happiness, at least professionally, they tend to rely on pretty unsophisticated measures such as your answer to the question 'how happy are you?' The answers they receive, if you trust them, show certain trends in the huge aggregate but really don't say much about one individual's particular happiness and what affects it."

I have to agree, survey data of happiness data is notoriously fickle.