Indiana Vouchers Will Help Fix Church Steeples
Vouchers approved in the state of Indiana are prompting creative bookkeeping on the part of Catholic school leaders, with a significant boon to the churches that run them.
Coalition Launches Testing Resistance & Reform Spring
Yesterday, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich posted this message on hisFacebook page:
We're turning our schools into test-taking factories. We're teaching children how to take standardized tests rather than how to think. The irony is we're doing this at the very time when the economy is becoming less standardized than ever. Computers and software are taking over all routine, standardized tasks. The challenges of the future require the ability to solve and identify new problems, think creatively outside standard boxes, and work collaboratively with others. An obsessive focus on standardized tests can make our children less prepared for this future rather than better prepared.
Though Reich may not have known it, his statement was very timely, because today, a coalition (which I am a part of) announced the launch of Testing Resistance & Reform Spring, with the slogan "Less Testing, More Learning."
The following statement was released by the coalition:
TESTING RESISTANCE & REFORM SPRING
Our nation can do a much better job evaluating our children, teachers and schools. High-quality assessments promote better teaching, learning and student engagement and help kids develop their abilities. Current one-size-fits-all tests are misused to produce narrow, misleading snapshots of our children and our schools.
Widespread resistance to the overuse and misuse of standardized testing is exploding across the nation. Testing Resistance & Reform Spring (TRRS) is an alliance of organizations that have come together to expand these efforts in order to win local, state and national policy changes: Less