ENG 1A - Education Issues: Websites

Search engines, like Google and Bing, give you access to everything that is on the web--the good, the bad, and the ugly.  If you want to narrow your search results to resources that are generally more reliable, use the advanced search feature for the search engine.  Using the advanced search feature, you can generally designate which types of websites you want to limit your search to by specifying the domain(s) (website extensions) you'd like to search.  For example, the domains of .gov or .edu.

Google Advanced Search - Information on educational and governmental websites tend to have more reliable information. 

In the advance search, along with your search terms, enter .edu or .gov in the box labeled "Search within a site or domain:". 

Here are some suggested websites.  Please feel free to recommend other quality web resources to include.

Articles by Alfie Kohn 

•  Author, educator, and journalist Alfie Kohn is an educational reformer whose ideas on how to change and improve the American system of education is contained in his many books on schooling, incentives, discipline, and parenting. Kohn's first book, No Contest: The Case against Competition, was published in 1986 and released in a revised edition in 1992. Excerpted from Contemporary Authors Online, 2012

Pew Research Center

• Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research does not take policy positions.
• On the topic page look for subjects such as college, education, educational attainment, etc.

Pew Research: Hispanic Center

• Founded in 2001, the Pew Hispanic Center is a nonpartisan research organization that seeks to improve understanding of the U.S. Hispanic population and to chronicle Latinos’ growing impact on the nation. The Center does not take positions on policy issues. It is a project of the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan “fact tank” in Washington, DC.
• On the topic page look for subjects such as college, education, educational attainment, etc.

Public Policy Institute of California

• PPIC delivers actionable, reliable, objective research to help the state find systemic and sustainable responses to a range of policy challenges. Their publications range from one-page fact sheets to comprehensive, in-depth reports.
   
  See their Policy Areas link to find information on K-12 Education and Higher Education
   

National Center for Education Statistics

• The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (see Organizational Chart) is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education in the U.S. and other nations. NCES is located within the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences.

The quality of the information you find on the Web varies tremendously so it is always a good idea to check the information against another source. As with all information resources, whether in print or on the Internet, you evaluate its quality based on the following criteria:

• Accuracy (Is it free from mistakes and errors?)
• Authority (What are the qualifications of the author?)
• Objectivity (Is there any strong bias?)
• Currency (Is the information up to date?)
• Coverage (To what extent is the topic explored?)

That's just the basics.  Learn more!

Tutorials on Evaluation Criteria

CRAAP Test (CSU Chico)