First-year college students with executive function difficulties arrive on campus and can be overwhelmed by the independence. Research shows that the ability to self-advocate is the most crucial factor in college success for students with executive function deficits, says Allison Lombardi, an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut.

n Making Teacher Evaluation Work, Authors Rachael Gabriel and Sarah Woulfin suggest there’s a way to not only improve the evaluation process, but use evaluations as a way to improve teaching. Rachael and Sarah have created a resource for teachers and evaluators to read together that walks them through every step of the evaluation process.

In part it’s a pushback to the narrow focus on math and reading tests under the former federal accountability law No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Declines in student participation in elective courses nationwide, especially in applied technical education, showed “the poverty of focusing on academics only … and losing the practical application of learning,” says Shaun Dougherty, an education policy professor at the University of Connecticut Neag School of Education in Storrs. “To be a good college student, employee, citizen, you have to have a broader appreciation for why what you are studying might matter.”

Renzulli Academy will host its Invention Convention and Inquiry Project Expo from noon to 2 p.m. March 24 at Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School, 36 Waller St., New London.

Radio Dispatch with The Knefels (13:09 Neag School’s Preston Green is interviewed about how the charter school sector resembles the Enron crisis)

The Neag School of Education ranked 27 this year. In addition, U.S. News ranked three of the Neag School’s specialty programs among the top 20 in the nation. Those were: Special Education, 15; Educational Psychology, 18; and Secondary Teacher Education, 18.

Ed Tech (Research on media literacy in the digital age,  from Neag School’s Donald Leu, is mentioned in this article)

“Unscrupulous individuals and corporations are using their control over charter schools and their affiliates to obtain unreasonable management fees for their services and funnel money intended for charter schools into other business ventures,” the study says.

In 2001, Enron rocked the financial world by declaring bankruptcy in the wake of a now infamous accounting scandal. Within months, shares in the energy and commodities giant – the seventh-largest corporation in the country at the time – plunged to penny stock levels. Thousands of employees lost their jobs. Investors lost billions. The same type of fraud and mismanagement is happening in the charter school sector, says Professor Preston Green.

In 2001, Enron rocked the financial world by declaring bankruptcy in the wake of a now infamous accounting scandal. Within months, shares in the energy and commodities giant – the seventh-largest corporation in the country at the time – plunged to penny stock levels. Thousands of employees lost their jobs. Investors lost billions. Less than 20 years later, the same type of fraud and mismanagement is happening in the charter school sector, says Preston Green, a professor of educational leadership and law at UConn’s Neag School of Education.