Ex-Yale president to head Coursera MOOC site
Former Yale University President Richard C. Levin is taking on a new role in education. The man who lead Yale for 20 years will in mid-April become the chief executive officer of the two-year-old online MOOC provider Coursera. Coursera offers free online access to classes from more than 100 institutions of higher education — including […]
Jeb Bush: Common Core critics care too much about kids’ self-esteem
While Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa is trying to get the Common Core State Standards initiative defunded in Congress, other Republicans, especially former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, keep doing everything they can to promote the Core. Bush’s latest: He said in an interview with the Miami Herald that critics of the standards and of […]
The brainy questions on Finland’s only high-stakes standardized test
Much has been written in recent years about Finland’s vaunted education system, which has consistently scored at or close to the top in international test scores and has the distinction of operating under policies very different from those that drive U.S. corporate-based education reform. In Finland, teachers are respected and students don’t take a mountain […]
Ravitch: The best reason to oppose the Common Core Standards
The growing opposition to the Common Core State Standards does not all stem from the same criticisms or even from the same political wing. Included in the anti-Core camp are conservatives, moderates and liberals who don’t offer identical critiques of the initiative. Some don’t like it academically; some don’t like it politically. In this post, […]
3-23-14 The Answer Sheet
The Answer Sheet: Kindergarten teacher: My job is now about tests and data — not children. I quit.Susan Sluyter is a veteran teacher of young children in the Cambridge Public Schools who has been connected to the district for nearly 20 years and teaching for more than 25 years. Last month she sent a resignation letter ( “with deep love and a broken heart”) explaining that she could no longer align