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Should Children Eat Tests? Or Should Pearson?

by dianerav

Jason Stanford wrote a blistering critique of the misuse of testing in Texas and Sandy Kress responded. Sandy Kress was the architect of No Child Left Behind, which imposed a testing regime on the entire nation. Kress is now a lobbyist for testing giant Pearson.
Stanford summarized his original column, called “Let Them Eat Tests,” as follows:

1. Texas taxpayers are paying Pearson $470 million for the STAAR test.
2. Sandy Kress, the father of No Child Left Behind, lobbies for Pearson in Texas.
3. The school taxes I pay fund a system that corrupts the classroom experience for my two sons who attend 

A Wise TFA Teacher

by dianerav

Whenever I meet young people who have joined Teach for America, I am always impressed by their idealism and enthusiasm.
As readers of this blog know, I am not as impressed with the organization, TFA, which is filled with hubris, self-promotion, and ambition. No amount of money ever seems to be enough, as this organization grows and grows and collects hundreds of millions of dollars from foundations and corporations (no matter how rightwing they may be), and paints itself as the saviour of American education from those “others,” the veteran teachers. Periodically

What Reformers Don’t “Get” about Education

by dianerav

I have so many brilliant readers. I am happy to share this space with them. They understand so much more than the pundits, reformers, think tank experts, and foundation deep-thinkers who are paid six figures to tell educators how to “reform” the schools. When I worked in journalism many years ago, there were two terms that described arm-chair experts: thumbsuckers and ankle-biters. We hear from them all the time in the media. But they are not the true experts. The true experts are the people who do the hard work of educating kids every day: their teachers, principals and parents.

this is what “educational reformers” don’t seem to “get” about education–education is not a business, it’s a Credibility of Florida’s Accountability System Near Collapse by dianerav The roiling controversy about the legitimacy of Florida’s testing regime is growing by the day. Many school boards have passed their version of the Texas anti-high-stakes testing resolution. FAIRTest says that Florida may be the worst “misuser” of testing of any state in the nation. Students spend 38-40 days each year preparing to take tests and taking tests. That is a bit more than 20 percent of the school year. What reasonable person would want their child to spend 20 percent of his or her school life on testing? That time should be reallocated to instruction, to physical education, to art and singing and play, to activities The Lessons of Louisiana’s Voucher Program by dianerav We will have to wait for court challenges to be resolved before we know whether Bobby Jindal’s voucher plan meets the requirements of both the Louisiana state constitution (which says that public money is for public schools) and the U.S. Constitution, which says nothing about education. The U.S. Supreme Court did uphold a voucher plan in Cleveland a decade ago, and this blogger analyzes whether Louisiana’s plan meets the same criteria. (Of course, no one now points to Cleveland as an example of A New Teacher Says He Is Not “Highly Qualified” by dianerav Dave Reid is an engineer who decided to become a public school teacher after a career of 25 years in the high-tech sector. He has been blogging about his experiences as a new teacher of math in California. He sent this comment to add to our discussion of whether five weeks of training is enough to be considered a “highly qualified teacher.” As a new, second career teacher, I find it amazing that the adverb “highly” is prepended to “qualified” for any teacher with less than ten (10) years experience. What profession designates its rookies and junior staff with the same descriptor as if they were on par with