Learning standards and real life.
Sent to the Baltimore Sun, Nov 6Arnold Packer is right: "The Common Core won't help the common man," (Nov. 5). As Packer points out, the math standards are skewed to the college path. So are the English Language Arts standards: Susan Ohanian has remarked that they seem to be made for English majors. John Gardner, former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, spoke to this problem i
Opt Out of Testing Is Now a National Movement
A clip from The Nation: ". . . .As standardized testing has grown, so too has its shadow. In 2011, the United Opt Outmovement was established to counter the pro-testing mania sweeping the country. Its website provides opt-out guides for forty-nine states and the District of Columbia, and connects a burgeoning community of grumbling and disaffected parents.“I didn’t ask for high-stakes tes
An Overarching Accountability System Requires an Overarching Accountability System-Maker
Like his The Allure of Order, Jal Mehta’s“From Bureaucracy to Profession: Remaking the Educational Sector for the Twenty-First Century” provides an awesome and eclectic explanation of how to break out of the blame game and create a 21st century educational sector. “The political science concept of “path dependence” explains why the well-meaning efforts of accountability-driven reformers have faile
Exploiting Fear to Steer Education Policy: It's Not Just for K-12 Anymore
Posted at Alternet October 31, 2013 as "Public Threat, Private Gain: How Scare Tactics Steer Education Policy to Benefit Corporate Interests." For more than 100 years, K-12 education policy has been driven by fears of foreign domination. Now that ideology is taking over higher ed, and lining corporate coffers in the process.In the fall of 2006, a special commission appointed by the U
Vallas and CorpEd Lose in Bridgeport Election
The school board election in Bridgeport represents a clear referendum on the antiquarian loser reforms that have increasingly crippled public education over the past 30 years. Will state governments and the Feds take note? How sweet it is! From CTPost.com: BRIDGEPORT -- The city Board of Education slipped out of the hands of Mayor Bill Finch and Schools Superintendent Paul Vallason Tuesday, d
Now Posted Online: Doug Martin on Douglas Storm's WFHB Radio Show: Muckraking Education Politics
In case you missed it last night, here is the link to listen to Doug Martin and Douglas Storm discussing the corporate takeover of public schools last night on WFHB radio in Bloomington, Indiana: http://wfhb.org/news/interchange/interchange-doug-martin-muckraking-education-politcs/ This is from Storm's write-up on last night's show:Martin is a native Hoosier who has been investigating Indiana’s “
Duncan's Expensive Haiti Trip to Prop Up Paul Vallas's National Corporate Welfare Scheme
Some are wondering why Arne Duncan is taking eight members of his staff, along with translators and a security detachment to Haiti. Simple: Since 2010, long-time mentor and education reform loser, Paul Vallas, has been providing "expertise" in creating a national system of publicly funded schools in Haiti that will be privately run. And yes, to stay certified, schools must lock in to t
11-5-13 Schools Matter
Schools Matter: New York's 7 Million Dollar Teacher Observation CoachesWhen Tennessee became the first state to implement a teacher evaluation system based on a Rube Goldberg designed observation rubric and invalid, unreliable, and unfair testing methodology, the State became a laughingstock. Now that same crackpot scheme has come to New York and most likely to a school near you, if your state or
