Jason Stanford: Sandy Kress Registers to Lobby for Amplify and Pre-K Testing
Everyone–well, almost everyone–seems to think that pre-K is a great idea that will help children develop vocabulary and learn the social skills to prepare for kindergarten. But, wait! Who knew that Race to the Top, round 2, included funding for pre-K testing? Jason Stanford, intrepid Texas journalist, noticed that Sandy Kress registered to lobby for Rupert Murdoch’s Amplify, the big for-profit ru
NC State Chancellor: We Don’t Have a Music Major
On my recent visit to North Carolina, I met any wonderful people who are working hard to change the state for the better. I saw Former Governor Hunt, who is well respected in the state. I visited the East Durham Children’s Initiative, a very ambitious effort to meet the needs of children and families in the poorest section of town. But the most shocking moment of my visit came at the leadership
Arizona Chief of Public Schools Makes Robo-Calls Promoting Private Schools
John Huppenthal, Arizona’s state superintendent of PUBLIC instruction, is taking part in a campaign to urge parents to take advantage of tax credits to send their child to private school. He is doing it with public dollars. But, as usual, follow the money. . This video contains the robo-call he has made so far to 50,000 parents, touting the virtues of private schools. Question: Why isn’t this man
David Greene Deconstructs the New York Times’ Bizarre Article about “Left” Opposition to Common Core
David Greene asks a logical question: Does the New York Times know its left from its right? This is a confused and confusing portrait of the vigorous, noisy, and numerous activists who are fighting Common Core and its testing and scripted modules in New York. The article leaves out the parent and educator groups across the state: the BATs, the Long Island parent opt-out groups, Leonie Haimson’s
Fear in the Classroom: Thank You, Bill and Eli
This was written by Kipp Dawson, an experienced teacher of English and social studies in middle school in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh won a large grant from the Gates Foundation to apply its ideas about evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students. Things have not gone well, as Dawson reporters here, especially since the city schools have a Broad superintendent who is a true believer in tes
The Vergara Case: Is Harvard Prof Tom Kane the VAMboozler in Chief?
Audrey Amrein Beardsley of Arizona State Is one of our nation’s leading experts on matters related to value-added measurement. In this rarified but important field, Beardsley has a stellar advantage: she was a classroom teacher. Imagine that! She has been following the Vergara trial in Los Angeles closely. She writes here about the testimony of Harvard professor Tom Kane, who advises the Gates F
Long Island Resistance Condemns Regents’ Failure to Fix Common Core
New York parents, especially in the politically powerful suburbs of Long Island and Westchester-Putnam, are outraged by the failure of the New York Board of Regents to take more decisive steps to fix the Common Core. They want a thorough review of the standards by New York practitioners, and not those picked by CC-loving Commissioner John King. They want a true moratorium on the CC testing until
Illinois: PARCC Field Tests Begin, Not Auspiciously
A reader sends this comment: “It is starting in Illinois with the PARCC fled tests coming next month . Technology coordinators and classroom teachers have been trying the online sample field test questions and are appalled at how developmentally inappropriate the tasks and questions are for eight, nine, and ten year olds. I am all for rigor. Ask my students and their parents. Rigor does not mean
An Education Researcher Speaks Out Against War on Public Schools
Tim Slekar moved not long ago from Penn State-Altoona to Edgewood College in Wisconsin, a small Catholic liberal arts college. In both places, he has been a firebrand, fighting to restore common sense to the national dialogue and to promote respect for educators. Tim has made videos, podcasts, a radio show, run for school board (in Pennsylvania), and done whatever he could to draw attention to the
Alfie Kohn on Grit and Its Misuses
Due to the success of Paul Tough’s book “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character,” the corporate reformers seized on the idea that what is needed for academic success is not just strict discipline and constant test prep, but GRIT. Grit, meaning perseverance. As Alfie Kohn writes, the original interest in noncognitive skills focused on emotional intelligence. He w
What Will Happen When Common Core Tests Go National
Experienced curriculum designer Robert Shepherd wrote the following prediction after reading this post: “The oligarchs who got together in a back room and decided that we were going to have a. invariant, top-down national standards, and b. these ridiculous new tests “have grown used to absolute power. They have grown used to implementing policy in their companies, for example, and having people ac
Mark Weber: The Mess That Cerf Leaves Behind in New Jersey
Mark Weber, who blogs as Jersey Jazzman, here describes the legacy of Chris Cerf’s three years as State Commissioner of Education in New Jersey. Cerf has announced that he is leaving to join Amplify, the education division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which is headed by Cerf’s former boss Joel Klein. Cerf was deputy chancellor in New York City when Klein was chancellor. Together, they wil
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH ALL WEEK LONG Diane Ravitch's blog 2-16-14 #thankateacher #EDCHAT #P2
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Why PBS/WNET Returned $3.5 Million to John Arnold’s FoundationInvestigative Journalist David Sirota wrote a brilliant series of articles about PBS taking $3.5 million about pension reform from the foundation of billionaire JohnArnold, a former Enron trader. After stonewalling, PBS decided there was a perception of conflict of inter