Former education commissioner blasts Common Core process
A year ago, Robert Scott, then the commissioner of education in Texas, shook up the ed world when he said that standardized test-based accountability had led to a “perversion” of what a quality education should be. He’s no longer the … Continue reading →
A 15-year-old student’s ed reform plan: Self-directed learning
Arooj Ahmad
Arooj Ahmad is a high-achieving 15-year-old high school sophomore at Libertyville High School in suburban Chicago who has taken a focused interest in reforming the U.S. education system, which he calls outdated.
He says that schools spend too much time forcing students to memorize a mountain of facts rather than teaching relevant knowledge that can help them select a career path and function well as adults.
In this post he explains what he thinks is wrong with school and how he would fix the system.
By Arooj Ahmad
The present education system in America is doing exactly what it is intended to do —
Do young kids need to learn a lot of facts?
I recently published a piece called ""A tough critique of Common Core on early childhood education" by authors Edward Miller and Nancy Carlsson-Paige. They wrote that early education experts were not involved in the writing of the Common Core State Standards and that the standards themselves "endanger" young children by pushing educational practices that Miller and Carlsson-Paige say are not supported by research. Then I published a response to that piece by E.D. Hirsch Jr., called "A Common Core Standards defense," who, as the title of the post suggests, takes issue with the first piece, while noting that the standards are far from perfect. Now, here is a response to the response, by Miller and Carlsson-Paige.
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