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Maureen Downey
Education columnist and blogger
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Maureen Downey is a longtime reporter for the AJC where she has written editorials and opinion pieces about local, state and federal education policy for 12 years. She’s also taught college classes in mass communications and journalism.
However, she’s learned more about schools from having four children in them. Her children range in age from 24 to 14, so she’s now dealing with elementary school and college.
Her own education includes an undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware and a master’s degree from Columbia University. She has worked for newspapers in New Jersey and Florida and has covered many school boards. She has won many editorial writing awards, including a National Headliner award. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for her AJC editorials on the Genarlow Wilson case.
Read Maureen Downey's Get Schooled blog
Latest from Maureen Downey
SAT scores: 'A strong measure of accumulated opportunity'
Bob Schaeffer of FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing sent me a note and a chart related to the AJC story on how closely Georgia's SAT scores align with family income. The FairTest chart draws from the College Board's College-Bound Seniors 2013: Total Group Profile Report and College-Bound ...
AJC special report: SAT scores rise with family wealth. A notable exception in state: Norcross High
The AJC education team looked at recently released 2013 SAT scores for metro Atlanta high schools and found something that critics have long said: Scores are closely tied to a factor beyond any student's aptitude: the amount of money their parents have. For its special report, the newspaper matched high ...
Response to recent conversation
Commenters on the AJC Get School blog had a wide range of responses to an AJC investigation into standardized testing errors and to a call by critics of the practice for an end to high-stakes testing in which children are evaluated for promotion and graduation based largely on test scores. ...
Slowing the race
After living in Japan for five years, where praise of children was spare and authentic, writer Christine Gross-Loh returned home to the United States where children earn trophies for matching their socks.At a visit to the local shopping center, for instance, Gross-Loh watched with surprise as a father congratulated his ...
Moderator’s introduction
Today, I write about a new book on parenting that highlights cultural differences that impact children’s success in schools, including a belief among U.S. students that talent is innate — that you are either good at, say, math, or not. In contrast, Japanese students believe effort and hard work can ...
Cherokee board member incurs censure, fine. And Kelly Marlow still faces more trouble ahead.
Many Cherokee parents probably hope their school board sideshow ends. But there are a few more acts left in the tragicomedy starring board member Kelly Marlow. Her colleagues voted this week to censure and fine her for ethical violations. One of her violations was sending a letter to the district’s accrediting ...
Remember the 'I Quit Teach for America' essay? Here's the counterpoint. 'I stayed.'
Tre Tennyson spent two years with Teach for America at an Atlanta school and is planning now to teach in China. He wrote this piece in response to a former TFA at the same APS school where he taught who wrote about why she bailed out of the program a ...
High school: Can't we make it better?
I have been talking to metro Atlanta teens at every opportunity and I am hearing the same stories about their high schools. Classes are big. Teachers can’t teach because of unruly students. Teachers tell me that their administrators are pushing them to teach to higher standards and assign more meaningful ...
Lessons from abroad: Effort over talent
After living in Japan for five years, where praise of children was spare and authentic, writer Christine Gross-Loh returned home to the United States where children earn trophies for matching their socks. At a visit to the local shopping center, for instance, Gross-Loh watched with surprise as a father congratulated ...
Moderate reformers need to jump into polarized education debate where truth gets trampled
The best thing you will read about the education debate this week. This essay from Education Week is by David Rutkowski, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Indiana University Bloomington, and Leslie Rutkowski, an assistant professor of inquiry methodology at the university. Please go to Ed ...
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