Latest News and Comment from Education

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

8-7-13 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:




Picture of the Day
It's a dead sand shark somebody left on the N train.No truth to the rumor NYSED Commissioner had it dropped there to send a message.

Tests As Shock And Awe
Leonie Haimson weighed on what the education reform establishment is doing with by rigging the scores to dramatically fall: So why are King, Arne Duncan, Joel Klein and the billionaires like Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch who are pulling the strings, so determined to prove that more that 69% of the students throughout New York State are failing?  This is the Shock Doctrine at work.  Naomi Klein has

Spin, Baby, Spin
Those fine journalists at Gotham Schools, ever mindful of their funding and perhaps angling for some of that Bloomberg philanthropy money, spin the state tests scores for the mayor:The state’s first round of Common Core test scores are out and they are just as low as officials warned.But there is some good news for New York City: Its scores are close to the state average, and far ahead of those of

NYC Passing Rates: 26% ELA, 30% Math
When you rig the exams to give you these kind of outcomes, well, these are the stats you get:Large numbers of New York students failed reading and math exams last school year, education officials reported on Wednesday, unsettling parents, principals and teachers, and posing new challenges to a national effort to toughen academic standards. Across the city, 26 percent of students in third through e

What The Testing Game Is All About
Norm Scott: Well, we know what the testing game is all about and it ain't children. It's about using tests to go after teachers, close schools, end tenure, de-unionize the teaching force so they can lower salaries, and create massive turnover in a temporary teaching force so they will never have to pay pensions.Is that enough of a mouthful for you?So will all the sturm and drang over the "failures

Joel Klein, The Man Who Hawked Inflated Test Scores As Chancellor, Lectures People About Inflated Test Scores
You can't make this stuff up.Here's the former NYCDOE chancellor and current head of Rupert Murdoch's for profit education technology division, Joel Klein, lecturing people about how inflated New York's test scores were in the past:For years, states around the country dummied-down standards to make it look as if students were more prepared for success after graduation than they actually were. This


8-6-13 Perdido Street School
Perdido Street School: NYCDOE STILL Doesn't Have Common Core Curriculum Materials ReadyTomorrow the new Common Core test results for ELA and math classes, 3rd-8th grade, will be released to the public.They are going to show some very, very low scores.The scores will be so drastically different from previous years because these tests were a) based on the new Common Core standards and b) had difficu