Geoff Decker's "Muted Response to Regents' Call for Credit Recovery Comments," inGothamSchools points to both an explicit and an implicit hypocrisy. The big abuse of "Credit Recovery" is the practice of awarding credits to students regardless of whether they attended class or learned the subject matter. As education expert David Bloomfield explains, providing a "fig leaf to cover administrative embarrassment" seems to be a prime purpose. Teachers are outraged by the damage it does to students, as well as the way it cripples efforts to improve test scores. "If you want to hold me accountable," a teacher complained, then you cannot, “go behind my back and pass students that I fail.” The policy wonk in me prompts another objection. The recent study by Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff, "The Long-Term Impacts of
by Paul Bruno
Over at The Daily Howler, Bob Somerby has been on a tear recently pointing out that pundits of all kinds seem to be stubbornly indifferent to good education news. He emphasizes the shrinking achievement gap between black students and white students on the NAEP as something you rarely see mentioned, and I'd add that to the growing pile of good-but-largely-ignored news that includes rising achievement for disadvantaged groups generally and improving school safety. Bob thinks we can chalk up this news blackout to the fact that commentators have sorted themselves into "tribes", each of which dislikes the other too much to risk inadvertently
by Will Treece
