MOOCs(大规模的网络开放课程)的星球

　　10. Go, Fight, Win: Texas Cheerleaders and the B-I-B-L-E

　　Don’t mess with the Bible in Texas. The cheerleaders at Kountze High School in East Texas took their words of encouragement to a whole new level when they wrote Bible verses on the banners that football players run through when taking the field. After the banners, with phrases like “And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us” (Hebrews 12:1)， caught the eye of the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, the cheerleaders were told by the school district to keep God off of their signs. In response, the 15 cheerleaders and their parents sued the district, claiming the ban violated the students’ freedoms of religion and speech. “As students, we still have rights,” cheerleader Rebekah Richardson told the Associated Press. “As Christians, not only is it our right, but it’s our job. It’s our duty as Christians to share the word with other people, and that’s what we want to do。” After nationwide outcry on both sides of the debate, Governor Rick Perry intervened, saying the ban was “a great insult,” and a judge issued a temporary injunction that allowed the cheerleaders to use the banners for the rest of the season. No word yet on what will happen next season。

　　10、加油，战斗，胜利：德克萨斯和b-i-b-l-e(圣经)啦啦队

　　在德克萨斯州，不要乱用“圣经”。东德克萨斯州的孔茨高中的啦啦队队员，把圣经里的话当做鼓励奔跑在田径场上的足球运动员。当出现了类似这样的标语之后“让我们用耐力与上帝设在我们面前的比赛一同奔跑”(希伯来书12章1节)，这吸引了威斯康星州以宗教自由为基础的基金会的注意，随后该学区的啦啦队员被告知在标语中不要出现上帝。作为回应，该区的15个 啦啦队员和他们的父母状告该区，声称该禁令违反了学生宗教和言语自由。“作为学生，我们也有权利”，啦啦队员利百加理查森告诉美联社记者。“作为一个基督

　　徒，这不仅是我们的权利，它是我们的职责。基督徒与其他人分享这句话，是我们义不容辞的责任，这就是我们想要做的。双方在发生了令全国哗然的辩论之后，州 长瑞克·佩里干预，他说，这一禁令是“一个极大的侮辱，法庭颁发临时强制令，允许拉拉队在赛季余下的比赛中使用该标语。

　　9. The Rise of the Digital Textbook

　　“Over the next few years, textbooks should be obsolete,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said on Oct. 2 in his remarks to the National Press Club. As tablet use both in and out of the classroom ticks upward, state governments, textbook publishers and tech companies are jumping on the digital textbook bandwagon. In January, Apple released the holy grail of education technology—slick, easy-to-navigate iPad textbooks that integrate video, photo and interactive graphics—and Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung and Google have all made advances into the industry as well. The benefits of digital textbooks are clear: they are more engaging, easy to customize and integrate with social networks, and can be updated more quickly than dead-tree books—and perhaps even save school districts money in the long run. But as cool as these new-age textbooks are, the hurdles to overcome are even bigger: many districts don’t have the money—or the mandates—to make digital books available to all students. (Voters in Idaho just defeated a ballot initiative that would have given every high-school teacher and student a laptop。) But those issues won’t be around forever. “The world is changing,” Duncan said. “This has to be where we go as a country。”

　　9、数字教科书的崛起

　　10月2日，在全国新闻俱乐部上教育部长阿恩·邓肯(Arne Duncan)说：“在未来的几年中，纸质的教科书应该被淘汰。”随着平板电脑使用在课堂内外使用的不断增多，州政府，教科书出版商和科技公司都纷纷加入了数字教科书的行列。今年1月，苹果发布了教育技术的一大法宝------很容易浏览的，整合了视频，照片和交互式图像的iPad的教科书，并且亚马逊，微软，三星和谷歌公司都有所进展。数字教科书的好处是显而易见的：他们更吸引人，容易定制并且和社交网络整合，同时比纸质的书籍更新的速度更快，甚至从长远角度来讲它也节省了学校的资金。这些新时代的教科书很酷，但是要克服的障碍也更大：许多地区没有资金或者没有权利给每个学生提供电子图书。(爱达荷州的选民投票否决了给每一个高中老师和学生每人一台笔记本电脑的倡议。)“但是，这些问题不会永远存在，世界正在发生变化”，邓肯说，“这是我们一个国家必须要前进的方向。”

　　8. Harvard’s Cheating Scandal

　　“Students may not discuss the exam with others,” the directions explicitly stated at the top of the take-home final. But that didn’t stop some 125 students at Harvard University from allegedly doing just that, submitting answers on the final that were identical or what the school described as “too close for comfort。” While the Harvard scandal may have been the highest-profile cheating incident this year, it was hardly the only one. At the U.S. Air Force Academy, 78 cadets were suspected of cheating on a skills exam, while school administrators in El Paso, Texas, have been accused of orchestrating a scheme to prop up standardized test scores by keeping low-performing students from taking the tests. The incidents raised questions about high-stakes tests, the line between collaboration and cheating and the drive to succeed at any cost. And after 71 kids at New York City’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School were caught exchanging answers on state tests via text message, the school newspaper offered this insight: “For years, cheating has gone unchecked, creating a perverse set of incentives in which the benefits of cheating outweighed both the probability and magnitude of punishment。”

　　8、哈佛作弊丑闻

　　“学生不得与他人讨论考试”带回家的指导语在最上面明确规定。但是这并没有阻止约125名哈佛大学学生涉嫌这样做，提交最终答案相同或像学校形容的“距离过近，舒适。”虽然哈佛丑闻可能是今年最引人注目的作弊事件，但它绝不是唯一的。在美国空军德克萨斯州埃尔帕索学院，78名学员在技能考试中涉嫌作弊，而学校行政管理人员被指控策划了该方案：为了支持标准化考试的成绩，不让表现不佳的学生参加这个测试。这些事件把不计任何代价参加高风险的测试，合作与欺骗和对胜利的渴望这些问题提出疑问。71名纽约著名的史岱文森高中学生，在参加州考试时通过短信交换答案被抓住之后，学校的报纸提供这种见解：“多年来，作弊已经泛滥，创造出一个反常的激励，作弊的利益压倒了受惩罚的概率和力度。”

　　7. Shaming the For-Profit Colleges

　　After a two-year investigation of the for-profit higher education industry, the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee issued a report in July that condemned for-profits for delivering a poor-quality education for a monster price tag. The report said that the 30 for-profit colleges investigated, including DeVry, Kaplan and the University of Phoenix, misuse government funds, attract students with deceptive advertising and burden them with massive amounts of debt—some programs at for-profit schools cost as much as four times more than similar programs at non-profit schools—without providing graduates with good job prospects. And these schools do all of this on the backs of American taxpayers: In 2009-10 alone, for-profit colleges received $32 billion in federally backed student loans. But since Congress issued its scathing report, little has been done to reform for-profits. The Obama Administration’s “gainful employment” rule, which would stop awarding federal loans to for-profits whose students graduate with more debt than they can realistically repay, was slated to take effect in July, but a lawsuit brought by a trade association representing the for-profits has put the provision on hold. In the meantime, some for-profits are making voluntarily reforms—the University of Phoenix, for example, has implemented a three-week, non-credit orientation course in an effort to get students to think twice before enrolling—but for the majority of for-profits until Congress takes action, it’s business as usual。

　　7、耻辱的盈利为目的的学校

　　经过两年对盈利为目的的教育行业的调查，参议院的健康，教育，劳工和养老金委员会七月发布了一份报告，谴责的为了利益而提供质量低劣的教育。报告中说，被调查的30个盈利性高校，包括德锐，卡普兰和凤凰城大学，滥用政府资金，用欺骗性的广告吸引学生并且用大量的债务加重他们的负担--------在一些以盈利为目的的学校的项目花费高达非盈利学校相同项目的四倍以上的资金，同时没有给毕业生提供好的就业前景。所做的这些都是在美国纳税人身上：仅在2009年10月，盈利性高校，就获得了由联邦政府提供的价值32亿美元的抵押学生贷款。但是，由于国会发出了措辞严厉的报告，盈利性高校才完成小部分改革。奥巴马政府的“有报酬的就业”的条例，被定七月生效，这将停止授予联邦政府贷款给盈利为目的的学校的权利，这些学校的毕业生伴随着比他们能力范围内能偿还的还更多的债务。在此期间，一些盈利为目的的学校自愿地改革，例如凤凰城大学，已实施了三个星期，让学生思考后再报名参加非信贷投向课程。但对于大多数的盈利，除非国会采取行动，他们还是照常营业。

　　6. Bypassing No Child Left Behind

　　George W. Bush’s signature education-reform legislation marked its tenth anniversary this year. But Congress has never gotten around to reauthorizing or adjusting No Child Left Behind, which has been widely branded a failure as it punishes more and more schools for failing to make adequate progress toward the law’s goal of having 100% of students be proficient in math and reading by 2014. With no relief in sight from Capitol Hill, the Obama Administration in February began awarding waivers to states that adopt the Common Core curriculum standards, develop plans to overhaul their lowest-performing schools and implement teacher evaluations that take into account how students perform on standardized tests. To date, 34 states and the District of Columbia have received waivers, effectively ending the NCLB era of public education in the U.S。

　　6、解决不让一个孩子掉队

　　乔治·W·布什的签名教育改革立法，今年已经签署十周年。但国会从来没有解决或者重新授权不让一个孩子掉队的法案，它已经被打上了失败的烙印，因为它惩罚越来越多因为没有在2014年之前让100%的学生在数学和阅读上取得长足的进步这一目标的学校。眼下国会没有所改变，奥巴马政府在2月开始授予豁免权，各州制定共同的核心课程标准，修改表现最差的学校和教师的评价，以及到如何把学生的标准化考试按计划实施。至目前为止，34个州和哥伦比亚特区已收到豁免权，有效地结束了美国NCLB年代的公众教育。

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