Latest News and Comment from Education

Friday, January 24, 2014

1-24-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:










Burning through Teachers and KIPP's Public Shaming of Children
Here is a tiny clip from one interview with a former KIPP teacher that I have been re-reading today.  Sadly, it represents the norm for the total compliance testing camps where these former teachers taught:. . . the first thing I would say would be, like I said, there is zero down time. And they are completely understaffed. For example, because the school was on such a ____________, we couldn’t ge


March 28-30, Denver, CO: Be There
"Parents in this year’s opt-out movement are standing up for something larger than their own child’s test-day happiness: the conviction that all children have better things to do with their days than fill in bubbles on a multiple-choice sheet, and that all children have better things to do with their heads than bang them against a table in despair." --The New Yorker, 01.23.14Be a pa
The Common Core and Voluntary Reading
 Sent to the New York Times, January 23, 2014Charles Blow's inspirational testimonial ("Reading is fundamental," January 22) in support of reading is supported by mountains of research showing that voluntary reading results in tremendous growth in all areas of literacy. Is this the same Charles Blow who enthusiastically endorsed the Common Core Standards in the Times a few months ago (&q


1-23-14 Schools Matter 
Schools Matter: 1-22-14 Schools Matterby Jim Horn / 16min Children's Authors Beg Obama for Relief from Testing InsanityWish in one hand, and spit in the other; see which one fill up first.  From MSNBC, of all places:Famed author and poet Maya Angelou and 120 other children’s book authors are challenging President Obama’s national education policy over what they call an “overuse and abuse” of stand