Inquisitorial Squad or Dumbledore's Army? - Ed Thoughts
While watching the latest Harry Potter this past weekend, I couldn't help making a lot of cheesy ed reform jokes after laying eyes on Dolores Umbridge again. "From the Ministry of Education comes Educational Decree Number 2001: The No Child Left Behind Act."
Her appearance (and my subsequent re-reading of HP5...love Order of the Phoenix!) reminded me of an important historical fact: it is typically totalitarian regimes that attempt to exercise the most control over education.
At the present moment, I don't think our government is such a regime...but they may very well be making us vulnerable to one in the future, with their mandatory emphasis on a narrow set of frequently (and intrusively) tested, low-level skills. We should be more concerned about students' ability to use both basic and critical