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Arne Duncan: Why can’t we be more like South Korea?
For years, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has lamented that the United States isn’t anywhere near as serious about educating its young people as the South Koreans. He did it in 2010, for example, in a speech in which he told the story about how South Korea’s then-president, Lee Myung-bak, once told President Obama that his country’s […]
Everything you need to know about Common Core — Ravitch
Diane Ravitch, the education historian who has become the leader of the movement against corporate-influenced school reform, gave this speech to the Modern Language Association on Jan. 11 about the past, present and future of the Common Core State Standards. Here’s her speech: As an organization of teachers and scholars devoted to the study of […]
YESTERDAY
How’s this for cynical?
How’s this for cynical? The Illinois State Board of Education wants to remove class size protections for students with disabilities. If the proposal (officially known as changes to state administrative rule Part 226) is approved, there would be no statewide limits on the size of special education classes, or the percentage of students with disabilities […]
Maryland schools need $100 million for online Common Core tests, says report
A new report from Maryland’s Education Department to the legislature says that the vast majority of schools in many of the state’s counties are not technologically prepared to give new online Common Core-aligned standardized tests and that at least $100 million will have to be spent by 2015 to get ready. In Montgomery County alone, […]
Bad news for teachers comes in an automated phone call
Despite decades of failure, merit-pay schemes for teachers continue to be pushed in states and school districts around the country. In this post, Chris Gilbert, who teaches English at a high school and community college in North Carolina, explains a new scheme in North Carolina that involves merit pay for teachers and a loss of tenure […]
JAN 16
Dying teacher makes remarkable journey to visit former students
David Menasche was a very popular, albeit unconventional, literature teacher at Coral Reef Senior High School in Miami who listened to punk rock, loved to skateboard and was distinguished from his teaching colleagues by his many tattoos. In 2006, at the age of 34, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 brain cancer, but he resisted […]
A real school reform agenda for 2014
If you remember your No Child Left Behind history, 2014 is the year that all children were supposed to be scoring proficient on standardized tests. That was, of course, a ridiculous goal, which the authors of the bill knew full well when they wrote it, and a symbol for just how misguided school reform has […]
NY officials’ excuse for link to vulgar test prep questioned
What did New York state education officials do when they were questioned about why a Common Core website they operated was sending students to other sites with vulgar material? Not what you’d hope. Award-winning Principal Carol Burris of South Side High School in Nassau County wrote in this post about the website, and in the […]
JAN 15
A case study in misconceived urban school reform
School reformers are looking at a plan being considered in Kansas City, Missouri, to dismantle the school system as the wave of the future for urban districts. This plan calls for the creation of a collection of schools that will each by run by non-profit organizations under a new central authority, all conceived under the […]
A creepy letter school sent to parents
This is an actual letter sent to parents from a school in Georgia. The parent who provided it asked to remain anonymous, along with the school — but administrators know who they are. Real GA school letter threatens to hold back kids if parents don’t teach test taking strategies at home. #UniteBlue pic.twitter.com/kAo5xGkUl2 — […]
JAN 14
What Christie failed to mention in State of State speech about his education record
A big part of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s State of the State speech Tuesday was devoted to his record on school reform and his plans for moving forward — and it is worth noting the big difference between what Christie (R) says about his record on public education and what he actually did with […]
Michelle Rhee gives the nation a D+ in school reform
School reformer heavyweight Michelle Rhee and her advocacy group StudentsFirst are not, apparently, pleased with the way school reform is going across the country. In their second annual State Policy Report Card, the national average is a D+ and the top state, Louisiana (yes! Louisiana) only eked out a B- with a 2.92 overall grade point […]
What should a school do with a child like this?
What should a school be able to do with a child like this? A third-grade student in a Key Largo, Fla., public school was suspended for two days after he “reportedly threatened to shoot and stab his classmates and teachers during an outburst,” according to the Miami Herald. The unidentified student, according to a report […]
And now, the Bunkum Awards (you wouldn’t want to win)
We just watched the Golden Globe Awards, and now we have the Bunkum Awards. The Bunkum Awards? Presented by the National Education Policy Center, which brings together interdisciplinary scholars at the University of Colorado, Boulder, these awards are given for what the presenters say is “shoddy” educational research, “work based on weak data, questionable analysis […]
JAN 13
Is teacher education a disaster?
One of the biggest debates in public education today is over how to best educate student teachers for the rigors of the classroom. This is the third and final part of a series on the subject by scholar Mike Rose, who is on the faculty of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies […]
Weingarten slams teacher evaluation by student test scores
Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the country’s second largest teachers union, has been a supporter of the Common Core State Standards for a long time but she has expressed concern in the last year over the way the standards are being implemented, saying that the rollout was “far worse” than the […]
U-Va. medical student saves man’s life during training exam
A University of Virginia medical school student performing a training examination on a “practice patient” assigned to complain about a specific condition discovered that the man actually had the disease — and he saved his life in the process. According to the University of Virginia Health System, student Ryan Jones of Danville, Va., was checking pretend […]
JAN 12
‘The Procedure’ and how it is harming education
Do you know what “The Procedure” is and why it is a problem for education? Here to explain is Marion Brady, a veteran classroom teacher, who has written history and world culture textbooks (Prentice-Hall), professional books, numerous nationally distributed columns (many are available here), and courses of study. His 2011 book, “What’s Worth Learning,” asks and answers this […]
JAN 11
NY Common Core website sends kids to vulgar test prep
The rollout of the Common Core State Standards in New York state has been riddled with problems that just keep on coming. Here are some of the latest, from award-winning Principal Carol Burris of South Side High School in Nassau County, who has been chronicling New York’s standardized test-driven school reform on this blog for […]
Single university president signs school contract restricting her love life
How’s this for an unusual agreement between a school and its president? Gwendolyn Boyd, the new president of Alabama State University, signed a contract with the school’s trustees that forbids her from allowing a lover to “cohabitate” with her in the presidential home being provided to her by the historically black university in Montgomery. The […]