education

Learning something once, like the fact that “berg” means “mountain” in German, and studying it over and over again may do little to help you remember it in the future. The key to future recall, suggests a new study from Washington University in St. Louis, is how often over time you actively practice retrieving that information from memory.

Early childhood education advocates have a new weapon at their disposal. Recent research by an economics professor at Washington University in St. Louis provides evidence that preprimary education leads to more years spent in school based on the experience of children from relatively disadvantaged households in Uruguay.

Bill Michalski/WUSTL PublicationsA loan finances a young person’s education. Twenty years later, that child is working, contributing to the economy and paying off their loan. As they repay, the capitalized value of the loan pays back their debt to the previous generation in the form of a pension.Funding social security and education are often thought of as separate issues. But the two issues should be linked, says economist Michele Boldrin, the Joseph Gibson Hoyt Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. In the same way that younger generations take care of their elders as a kind of “return” on their parent’s investment, so too can the U.S. invest in the educational needs of its children and have the accumulated debt be paid off to retirees when it comes due.

Proclaiming that “energy and environmental issues represent the greatest challenges of this century,” Washington University Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton today joined presidents of six other premier research universities in calling for universities worldwide to marshal their resources for a global effort to secure a brighter, sustainable future. Plans for collaborative academic programs involving education, research, university operations, social sciences and policy studies are detailed in a statement issued May 7.

Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, will talk about the need to correct disparities in America’s public school system for the Assembly Series at 4 p.m., Wednesday, March 8 in Graham Chapel. The program is free and open to the public.

There is a good story behind science, but no one is telling it in American classrooms. According to Ursula Goodenough, Ph.D., professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, science continues to be taught from K-12 to the college and university levels, in fragmented, incoherent bits and pieces rather than a coherent narrative, a history of nature.

Washington University School of Law will host the interdisciplinary conference, “Whiteness: Some Critical Perspectives,” 9 a.m.- 6 p.m. Oct. 29 in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall. “This important conference, which brings together leading scholars in the fields of critical race theory and whiteness studies, will explore the ways whiteness and white privilege create, entrench, and reproduce themselves,” says Barbara Flagg, professor of law and conference organizer.

Photo by David KilperSt. Louis teachers gather at WUSTL to compare notes.At Washington University in St. Louis, teachers from five school districts are working with science and math education faculty in an effort designed to align curriculum to the NCLB standards and to improve instruction. Their work is supported by $6.5 million from the National Science Foundation, through funding from NCLB.

Photo by David Kilper / WUSTL PhotoRecent Washington University graduate Glenn K. Davis reads to children at Ford Elementary School in St. Louis.As President Bush’s struggling No Child Left Behind Act heats up as a presidential campaign issue, the achievement gap in American schools continues to widen. Can we ever hope to close the racial, ethnic and economic gaps in schools? An education researcher at Washington University in St. Louis thinks it is possible — we just need to think of the achievement gap in different terms.

GWB will host “Shaping the Future of Doctoral Education in Social Work: National Meeting of Doctoral Programs in Social Work.”