May 8th, 2013 at 4:10 am » Comments (24)

Just in case anyone working in a hagwon sees this happen, corporal punishment is illegal: By Nam Hyun-woo Education authorities will crack down on “hagwon” or private institutions allowing their teachers to impose corporal punishment on their students. The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) said Monday that many private teachers continue to physically discipline students in breach of the Juvenile Protection Act. It has therefore decided to file complaints with law enforcement authorities against teachers who violate the law as well as sanctioning institutes found to be culpable. The
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March 22nd, 2013 at 5:43 pm » Comments (10)

The popular tuition assistance benefit has been restored by Congress after being cut due to sequestration: Congress will force military officials to reinstate tuition assistance funding for the rest of the fiscal year after troops and veterans protested the end of the education benefit. On Wednesday, the Senate included the tuition assistance rules as part of their plan to fund federal programs through September. On Thursday, the House agreed with the proposal, and the president is expected to sign it into law in coming days. Congress had until March 27
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March 19th, 2013 at 2:27 am » Comments (2)

Thomas Friedman at the NY Times seems quite amazed by the treatment a Harvard philosopher received in South Korea: I just spent the last two days at a great conference convened by M.I.T. and Harvard on “Online Learning and the Future of Residential Education” — a k a “How can colleges charge $50,000 a year if my kid can learn it all free from massive open online courses?” You may think this MOOCs revolution is hyped, but my driver in Boston disagrees. You see, I was picked up at Logan
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January 16th, 2013 at 6:40 pm » Comments (42)

The more I read about the whole education reform agenda pushed by former DC school superintendent Michelle Rhee the more the reform agenda reminds me of what has happened with the US military’s GI Bill and tuition assistance programs.  Over the past decade the for profit schools have made huge money from these military educational initiative as well as other government programs to fund education while providing minimum educational outcomes for the cost.  I have personally seen servicemembers complete bachelor degrees in under a year and master’s degree programs in
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January 9th, 2013 at 6:49 pm » Comments (36)

On Tuesday night Korean-American Michelle Rhee who was the Washington, DC school superintendent from 2007-2011 was featured on PBS’s Frontline program. For those that don’t watch PBS, Frontline is one of the best news & documentary programs available on TV. This episode about Michelle Rhee is no different.  You can view the Frontline program The Education of Michelle Rhee at the link. After watching the program I was surprised the level of access that Rhee gave the Frontline camera team. She allowed them to follow her around during her entire
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November 21st, 2012 at 3:20 am » Comments (50)

The guy who began using the Korean educational model at a Harlem school has made a visit to Korea with some of his students: A group of teachers and students from U.S. charter schools that successfully adopted the Korean education met with the education minister here on Tuesday and shared their experiences. Some 40 faculty members and students from Democracy Prep Public Charter Schools (DPPS) are in Seoul for a two-week trip through Wednesday to have chances to learn the Korean language and culture, just as they did at their
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September 15th, 2012 at 5:46 pm » Comments (47)

I guess this is an example of the Gangnam Style that PSY sings about: At least three foreign schools — Dwight School Seoul, Dulwich College Seoul and Korea International School — are under investigation for a large-scale admission fraud case involving dozens of scions from chaebol families, sources said Friday. Prosecutors plan to question some 60 parents of children who have been accepted to the schools on suspicion of fabricating passports and admission documents. They include chaebol offspring, along with children of renowned law firm members and hospital heads, the
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July 3rd, 2012 at 3:35 am » Comments (56)

Here is an interesting story about a school in Harlem that is based on the Korean educational model to include making it mandatory for students to learn Korean as a second language: “One of the big values I took away from Korea is that even though the Korean education system is one of the best in the world, nobody here thinks that the Korean education system is good enough and nobody is satisfied with being one of the best countries in the world,” said Seth Andrew, the 31-year-old New Yorker
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June 15th, 2012 at 5:31 pm » Comments (36)

Considering that Kim Yu-na withdrew her complaint it probably means that everything this professor said was true: Figure skater Kim Yu-na again has withdrawn her libel suit accusing Prof. Hwang Sang-min, 49, of Yonsei University of defaming her on radio. Kim’s agency, All That Sports, announced yesterday that despite the fact that Hwang had not offered her a genuine apology, the athlete decided to put the issue behind her. The agency also announced that Kim left for China yesterday to take part in the Artistry on Ice skating event in
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June 7th, 2012 at 5:27 pm » Comments (25)

Via a reader tip comes this article that claims that South Korea is going to do away with teaching evolution in its textbooks: It appears that the United States is not the only country having a hard time accepting evolution. According to a report in Nature, a South Korean creationist campaign has achieved victory in its efforts to see specific examples of evolution removed from high school text books. Their breakthrough is part of a larger campaign to see evolutionary theory removed as much as possible from educational materials. The campaign, which was
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