Update from Indiana: Negotiations Underway
I posted a comment earlier from a reader in Indiana who said that the State Board of Education was set to strip State Commissioner of Education Glenda Ritz of the authority and powers of her office. Other readers from Indiana have contacted me to say that negotiations are underway between the board and State Commissioner Ritz to reach a reasonable settlement that does not destroy the powers of her
Indiana: Democracy on Trial This Week
Governor Mike Pence moves to strip the State Commissioner of Education of Education Glenda Ritz of the powers of her office. She won more votes last year than Pence. From a reader: OUTRAGEOUS!!!! From the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education FB post: It looks as though the State Board is going to do the unthinkable this Friday. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT WE ALL WRITE LETTERS TO THEM NOW! Th
Yet Another Study Shows That Financial Incentives Don’t Work
This post reviews a study by Roland Fryer, Jr., in the peer-reviewed Journal of Labor Economics. Fryer analyzed the results of New York City’s merit pay program and found that it made no difference on several levels. “A randomized experiment, a gold standard in applied work of this kind, was implemented in more than 200 hundred NYC public schools. The schools decided on the specific incentive sch
New Book Demonstrates That Public Schools Outperform the Competition
Please read this article about an important new book by Christopher and Sarah Lubienski, scholars at the University of Illinois. Their book is The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools. The article contains an interview with Christopher Lubienski, in which he explains their “counterintuitive” findings. Here is a sampling: IDEAS: The thought of a “public school adva
HuffPost: How a For-Profit College Created Fake Jobs to Win Taxpayer $$$
Huffington Post has a startling expose of how a particular for-profit college paid employers to hire its graduates, but only temporarily. This was done to pad its job-placement numbers. This will please federal regulators and enable the college to say that its graduates are easily hired. What they don’t admit: They are soon laid off. Here is the story: Eric Parms enrolled at an Everest College cam
MIT Researchers: Higher Test Scores Do Not Translate into Higher Levels of Thinking
A new study by researchers at MIT, Harvard, and Brown cast doubt on the value of pursuing higher scores on standardized tests as an end in themselves. Since this has been the highest goal of federal policy since 2002, when No Child Left Behind was signed into law, the study raises questions about the billions spent on testing, test preparation, evaluating teachers and schools by test scores, firin
Please Join Me in Westchester County, New York, on January 16
Please join me at Fox Lane High School in Bedford, New York, on January 16 to discuss Common Core, testing, and other issues. The event is free and open to the public. Registration is required.
Wisconsin Researchers: Poverty Influences Brain Development in Children
A new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison concludes that poverty has an important negative effect on brain development among young children. “Poverty may have direct implications for important, early steps in the development of the brain, saddling children of low-income families with slower rates of growth in two key brain structures, according to researchers from the
European Scholars: PISA Rankings Are “Utterly Wrong” and “Meaningless”
Professor Svend Kreiner, a prominent statistician and psychometrician at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and Dr. Hugh Morrison of Queens University in Belfast have published studies blasting the reliability and validity of the PISA league tables. They describe PISA’s rankings as “useless,” “utterly wrong,” and “meaningless.” According to TES (London), “Professor Svend Kreiner, a statistic
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 12-16-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: New York Regent Betty Rosa: State’s Program Designed to Create FailureThe New York Board of Regents is determined to pour unprecedented sums into more standards, more tests, and more tests and more standards. Two Regents have opposed this determined focus on standards and testing: Regent Betty Rosa of the Bronx and Regent Kathleen