Story Archives of 'High school'

This year a new system for tracking student progress, called “competency based assessment” is supposed to be set up. Assessment, organizers say, is about demonstrating mastery of the material instead of grades or attendance. But as progress moves forward on the system, many educators have more questions that need to be answered – and doubts to be addressed – before they jump on board. We'll look at the system and how it might change our schools.

Guests

• Fred Bramante, Past chair and current member of the New Hampshire Board of Education
• Mark Joyce, Executive Director of the New Hampshire School Administrators Association

We'll also hear from

• Tom Bennan, superintendent of the Manchester School District
• Tim Mayes, superintendent of the Bedford School District

A controversy over reading material at Campbell High School in Litchfield may have led a teacher to resign this week.

The move came after some parents complained about the appropriateness of some short stories in an elective English class at the school.

NHPR’s Phil Sletten has more.

Imagine a world governed by playground rules. If after getting stopped for running a red light... after finding spinach stuck in your teeth during a job interview... we could simply stop and say: "no fair! Do over!" Just like when the kickball rolled into the bushes or no one could agree if the runner was safe or out.

When we look into the rear-view mirror of our lives, what if we could get a second shot at the mortifying things that, decades later, still make our stomachs turn?

Writer Robin Hemley flubbed the lines in the school play, and he never got up the nerve to ask Lizzie Clark to the prom. One thing Robin Hemley did get right: a Guggenheim fellowship for his work on the do-over! Which is now a book called, what else? Do-Over! In Which a Forty-Eight-Year-Old Father of Three Returns to Kindergarten, Summer Camp, the Prom and Other Embarassments. Robin joins us on the line from Iowa City to explain why he decided to make a list of do-overs, and actually do them.

(Photo by Georgios Karamanis via Flickr/Creative Commons)