Anya Kamenetz

NPR

Anya Kamenetz appears in the following:

Activists Stop Paying Their Student Loans

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Latonya Suggs says she borrowed thousands of dollars in student loans to attend the for-profit Corinthian Colleges but has nothing to show for it. Most employers don't recognize her criminal justice degree.

"I am completely lost and in debt," Suggs says. And now she's doing something about it: She's refusing ...

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Students From Troubled For-Profit Colleges Refuse To Pay Back Loans

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

A group of students met with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Tuesday to send a message: They won't pay back the loans they incurred attending troubled for-profit colleges.

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In Congress, New Attention To Student-Privacy Fears

Monday, March 23, 2015

Several efforts in Washington are converging on the sensitive question of how best to safeguard the information software programs are gathering on students.

A proposed Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act of 2015 is circulating in draft form. It has bipartisan sponsorship from Democratic Rep. Jared S. Polis of ...

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Questions To Ask About Ed-Tech At Your Kids' School

Thursday, March 19, 2015

When a 4-year-old comes home from pre-K proudly announcing that she spent her "choice time" playing on the computer, what's a parent to do?

Among public school classrooms, 97 percent have at least one computer — a stat that dates back to 2009, light-years ago in technology time. More ...

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Six Things We Learned At South By Southwest EDU

Sunday, March 15, 2015

The NPR Ed team is back from Austin, where we connected with hundreds of educators and people excited about education at the annual South By Southwest Edu Conference. As with many conferences, there's just as much to be gained from conversations in the hallways and chance encounters as from the ...

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Math Love, Game-Based Learning, And More From NPR Ed At #SXSWEdu

Monday, March 09, 2015

It's not quite as glamorous as the way our colleagues at NPR Music do it, but this week, the NPR Ed team will be heading down to Austin, Texas for the South By Southwest Edu conference.

In its fifth year, the conference brings together — sometimes uneasily — ...

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If Your Teacher Likes You, You Might Get A Better Grade

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Were you ever the teacher's pet? Or did you just sit behind the teacher's pet and roll your eyes from time to time?

A newly published paper suggests that personality similarity affects teachers' estimation of student achievement. That is, how much you are like your teacher contributes to his ...

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Q&A With Lani Guinier: Redefining The 'Merit' In Meritocracy

Friday, February 20, 2015

As a high school student, Lani Guinier wrote a letter to the College Board over a math question on the SAT that she found problematic.

When she got to Harvard's Radcliffe College, her roommate announced that she was worried about something: With her perfect SAT score she'd have trouble finding ...

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Q&A: Exit Interview With A Nationally Known School Leader

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Joshua Starr, a nationally prominent superintendent with the Montgomery County schools in Rockville, Md., this month was granted early release from his contract after three and a half years.

Starr, 45, a father of three, is the former superintendent of the Stamford, Conn., schools and director of accountability for the ...

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Virtual Schools Bring Real Concerns About Quality

Monday, February 02, 2015

At the end of Angela Kohtala's leadership skills course, her high school students have to plan and carry out a community service project. Maybe it's fixing up their school courtyard, or tutoring younger students in an afterschool program.

Afterwards, they create a PowerPoint with pictures of the project. This isn't ...

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Competency-Based Degree Programs On The Rise

Monday, January 26, 2015

Competency-based education is in vogue — even though most people have never heard of it, and those who have can't always agree on what it is.

A report out today from the American Enterprise Institute says a growing number of colleges and universities are offering, or soon will offer, ...

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The Past, Present And Future of High-Stakes Testing

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Steve Inskeep talks with NPR Ed's Anya Kamenetz about her book, The Test: Why Our Schools Are Obsessed with Standardized Testing — But You Don't Have to Be.

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A New Study Reveals Much About How Parents Really Choose Schools

Thursday, January 15, 2015

The charter school movement is built on the premise that increased competition among schools will sort the wheat from the chaff.

It seems self-evident that parents, empowered by choice, will vote with their feet for academically stronger schools. As the argument goes, the overall effect should be to improve equity ...

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Arne Duncan Wants To Drop 'No Child Left Behind' — But Keep Its Tests

Monday, January 12, 2015

In a speech Monday at an elementary school in Washington, D.C., Education Secretary Arne Duncan laid out the president's position on the nation's largest federal education law, even as debate unfolds over the law's re-authorization.

Duncan called No Child Left Behind "tired" and "prescriptive." Nevertheless, he declared that the ...

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A 'Sizable Decrease' In Those Passing The GED

Friday, January 09, 2015

The new GED is more expensive, computer-based and tougher. As a result, some states are embracing alternative tests, and the number of GEDs awarded last year fell.

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What Schools Could Use Instead Of Standardized Tests

Tuesday, January 06, 2015

Close your eyes for a minute and daydream about a world without bubble tests.

Education Week recently reported that some Republican Senate aides are doing more than dreaming — they're drafting a bill that would eliminate the federal mandate on standardized testing.

Annual tests for every child in reading ...

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An Update On For-Profit Colleges

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

NPR Ed is updating readers on some of the top stories we've been following in 2014.

There was lots of news coming out of the for-profit education sector this year, most of it related to regulatory action.

As we reported earlier,

"Between 2000 and 2010, enrollment at the ...

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An Update From New Orleans

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

NPR Ed is updating readers on some of the top stories we've been following in 2014.

All this year, NPR Ed has been exploring the dramatic changes to the New Orleans school system, where more than nine out of ten children attend charter schools, most run by the state ...

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12 Weeks To A 6-Figure Job

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Marlon Frausto is in pursuit of the new American dream. Just a few weeks ago he left his job, in Hispanic marketing for the legal industry, and moved to San Francisco.

Every day he wakes at 5:30 a.m., commutes 45 minutes by train, and studies until 9 or 10 at ...

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The Fate Of The Administration's College Ratings

Friday, December 19, 2014

Some say a vaunted attempt to improve the quality of colleges is dead on arrival. Let's find out why.

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