Latest News and Comment from Education

Sunday, March 17, 2013

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 3-17-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:









Mayor Bloomberg’s Chaos Theory

This article in the New York Times describes how one large high school now houses nine small schools. Some succeed, some fail, some statistics are better, some are worse or no different. Some statistics are undoubtedly inflated by credit recovery and other tricks to game the system. One thing is clear: a building that once had one principal now has nine.
It is not clear that the nine schools are doing a better job than the one old school in meeting the needs of the 


Louisiana Blogger Wants Chas Roemer to Answer His Question

Forgive me if I seem to be focusing quite a lot of space on Louisiana, but please understand that the state is now a Petri dish for privatization of public education on a massive scale. To keep costs down, the state is doing its best to drive out experienced teachers and replace them with TFA.
Another reason I post often about Louisiana is that it has so many excellent bloggers. They are smart, fearless, and relentless. They help the rest of us understand the systematic destruction of public education (a process now called “reform”).
When I spoke in Baton Rouge last Thursday, I debated the president of the state board of education, Chas Roemer. Chas described himself as “a redneck from northern Louisiana,” but Locals know that his father was governor, he graduated from Harvard, he is an avid supporter of choice, and his sister heads the state charter 


Data-Driven Teacher: I Will Not Quit

A letter from a NYC teacher:
I am a Nationally Board Certified Teacher (2003, 2013) teaching in NYC. Two years ago, I was intimidated to leave my first NYC school due to test scores on the grade 8 ELA exam. My students passed but didn’t make enough progress. This school was an “A” school in a very depressed neighborhood. Unfortunately, I did not love data enough and I refused to view multiple-choice questions as text.
I chose to assess my students differently: Where are they now? Where are they going? What do they need to know to get there? How can I help them reach their goal? I asked myself these questions daily. I chose community texts, intensive writing workshops, and art to help my students reach their goals. More than 


Diane in the Evening 13-16-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 1 hour ago
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Book Banning in Chicago by dianerav Since I wrote a book a decade ago called “The Language Police,” I can’t pretend to be shocked that a book was pulled, removed, or censored by the Chicago Public Schools. Jersey Jazxman sums up the controversy here. It is no consolation, perhaps, to know that school boards–state and local–have been censoring books for many My Debate in Louisiana by dianerav Last Thursday I flew to Louisiana for a lunch debate with Chas Roemer, who is chairman of the state board of education... more »