In Denouncing Common Core, Ravitch Promotes National Standards
Even back to the days when Diane Ravitch was a trusted employee of the Bush I Administration, she was an advocate for voluntary national curriculum standards. She has continued to hold this position, even as her previous pro-corporate vices became untenable for anyone with intellectual aspirations or even a lick of integrity. She said in a New York Times op-ed in 2005 that "unfortunately, th
Debate on Bilingual Education Needs to Include All the Facts
Published in Education Week, March 25, 2014 The campaign to full restore bilingual education in California needs to include the research. Despite efforts by academics, this research was not brought to the attention of the voters. Not mentioned in the Education Week article is the fact that studies done before and after Proposition 227 passed consistently showed that students in bilingual programs
Grindstones Make Grit
With Seligman disciple, Angela Duckworth, teaming up with KIPP co-father, Dave Levin, the industrial child psychologists have an able researcher and an experimental site to figure out how to roughen up the grindstone to reduce more urban children to piles of grit. At this point, we don't know what the how much grit will be ground out by subjecting children to years of screaming, labeling, threaten
The Moral Imperative to Opt Out Until the System is Changed
Editorial from Philadelphia Inquirer (ht to Ken Derstine)POSTED: Tuesday, March 25, 2014, 1:08 AmParents are right to protest the oversize emphasis placed on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exams when so many schools are poorly funded.Robin Roberts says her three children won't be taking the PSSAs with the rest of the students at Philadelphia's C.W. Henry Elementary School. "If i
21st Century Skills?
Stephen KrashenYogi Berra: "It's hard to predict, especially about the future.""I contend that, instead of insisting on more and more standardization, we should be increasing variety, flexibility, and choice in what we offer in our schools (Noddings, 2009, p.243)." ... useful knowledge changes as societies change" (Zhao, 2009, p. 135).It is often stated that new standards
3-24-14 Schools Matter
Schools Matter: Maryland Has Some of the Best Public School Protection Laws in the NationAP has a piece in WaPo that pretend that two most voracious advocacy groups for corporate welfare charters represent research groups: Center for Education Reform and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. In pointing out that CER's charter welfare queen, Jeanne Allen, has labeled Maryland among the