Faxing The Senate
Today's the day I'm writing my senators about charter schools and ESEA. They'll be short faxes-- I'd like to enjoy a day off before heading down to the Board of Trade. It's a depressing task but it must be done. The irony is that even though Mark Kirk has a charter jones, too, not unlike my representative, Jan Schakowsky, he might at least obstruct HR2218 nsimply to participate in the permanent GOP obstruction.
Tests, Shmests
Tests, Shmests
I've heard Karen Cator say these things before:
First of all, there she is, hawking Cognitive Tutor even though it's clear from the rest of the article that Cognitive Tutor is less effective than random chance of teaching kids anything about math. What it does is generate chartsKaren Cator, a former Apple executive who directs the Office of Educational Technology at the Department of Education, said the clearinghouse reports on software should be “taken with a grain of salt” because they rely on standardized test scores. Those tests, Ms. Cator said, cannot gauge some skills that technology teaches, like collaboration, multimedia and research.Ms. Cator’s office is developing a new framework to measure the educational value of technology, but she advised schools and districts not to wait to invest in software like Cognitive Tutor. “They know what their students need to know and what they need to be able to do,” she said.
