Latest News and Comment from Education

Sunday, February 19, 2012

‘You are so smart…why did you become a teacher?’ - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

‘You are so smart…why did you become a teacher?’ - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:

‘You are so smart…why did you become a teacher?’

This was written by Carol Corbett Burris, principal of South Side High School in New York. She was named the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State. She is one of the co-authors of the principals’ letter against evaluating teachers by student test scores, which has been signed by nearly 1,400 New York principals.

Read full article >>

Common Core won’t likely boost student achievement, analysis says

A new analysis on the Common Core Standards Initiative by the Brookings Institution says it is wrong to believe that the effort will do much of anything to improve student achievement in coming years.

Read full article >>

Why don’t top private schools adopt corporate-driven reforms?

This was written by Bruce D. Baker, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. This first appeared on his School Finance 101 blog.

By Bruce D. Baker

Lately it seems that public policy and the reformy rhetoric that drives it are hardly influenced by the vast body of empirical work and insights from leading academic scholars which suggests that such practices as using value-added metrics to rate teacher quality, or dramatically increasing test-based accountability and pushing for common core standards and tests to go with them are unlikely to lead to substantial improvements in education quality, or equity.

Read full article >>

Jon Stewart tries to talk to Arne Duncan

Jon Stewart tried to engage Education Secretary Arne Duncan on “The Daily Show” Thursday night, but the effort was an exercise in the futility of conversing with someone who won’t deviate from his talking points.

Read full article >>