The Answer Sheet:
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Why bother teaching a severely brain-damaged boy? His mom explains.
Should government funds be spent trying to educate severely disabled children like the late Ethan Rediske, who was severely brain-damaged, blind and confined to a wheelchair? Andrea Rediske, his mom, explains in this powerful post why the answer is “yes” — but why insisting on giving him and other severely disabled children standardized tests is ludicrous. […]
The manipulation of Social Emotional Learning
What is Social Emotional Learning? According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, it involves the processes through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and
YESTERDAY
Lupita’s Oscar used as marketing tool for IB school program
How’s this for innovative marketing? The International Baccalaureate® is a non-profit educational foundation that offers several intellectually challenging programs for students from the ages of 3 to 19 that are used in schools around the world. In the United States, there are some 1,495 schools that offer one or more of the IB programs, and there […]
They still don’t get it: Obama’s new Race to the Top contest for ‘equity’
They still don’t get it. The Obama administration still apparently thinks — despite evidence to the contrary — that it can achieve “educational equity” by holding a contest with winners and losers. When the $4.35 billion Race to the Top was first announced in 2009 as the administration’s chief education initiative, it was promoted as […]
MAR 06
‘The drive to test, test, and re-test’ leads famous school board member to quit
Rick Roach, who is completing his fifth four-year term representing District 3 on the Board of Education in Orange County, Fla, may well be the most famous local school board member in the country. In 2011, he made national news when he took a test with questions used on standardized tests given to students in Florida and flunked, becoming […]
Why a ‘Student Privacy Bill of Rights’ is desperately needed
The growing use of technology has allowed for the collection of mass amounts of data on students. Control over personal information has been lost by students and the risks to student privacy have risen dramatically. In this post, Khaliah Barnes, director of the Student Privacy Project and administrative law counsel for the non-profit Electronic Privacy Information Center, lays […]
Grieving mom takes on state education commissioner over testing disabled students
I recently wrote about a bizarre open letter to teachers that Education Commissioner Pam Stewart released that accused people who want a change in standardized testing requirements for severely disabled students of launching a political attack on the department. Stewart’s missive followed testimony before the Board of Education by an Orange County, Fla., mother named Andrea […]
MAR 05
The key problem the SAT changes won’t fix
Big changes are coming (again) to the SAT, the once almighty college admissions test that was overtaken in popularity by the ACT. The essay portion of the exam, added in 2005 with great fanfare as a crucial new part of the exam, is now being made optional, because apparently, it wasn’t all that crucial after […]
Parent to Obama: Why don’t private schools adopt your test-based school reforms?
Bertis Downs is a parent who lives in Athens Ga., and the former legal counselor and manager of the band R.E.M. He wrote the following letter to President Obama, inviting the president to visit a high school in Athens to see the impact of his administration’s standardized test-based policies there. Dear President Obama, Last […]
The false markets of market-based school reform
One of the central tenets of modern school reform is that the public education system would be more efficient if it were run like a for-profit business. Here to discuss the problems with this thinking is Bruce D. Baker, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. […]
MAR 04
Ravitch calls for congressional hearings on standardized testing, gets unexpected support
Education historian and activist Diane Ravitch just called for congressional hearings on the misuse and abuse of standardized tests used for high-stakes purposes — and she got some unexpected support. Ravitch and the nonprofit Network for Public Education that she leads held a conference in Austin this past weekend, just before the start of the […]
A bizarre letter from Florida’s Education Department
What is the Florida Education Department thinking? State Education Commissioner Pam Stewart just issued an open letter to teachers (see below) that makes the ridiculous mistake of accusing people who want a change in standardized testing requirements for severely disabled students of launching a political attack on the department. It said in part: “You may […]
MAR 03
What was on ’12 Years a Slave’ director Steve McQueen’s wrist on Oscar stage?
Director Steve McQueen was wearing a red wristband Sunday night when he ascended to the stage after his film, “12 Years a Slave,” won the Oscar for Best Picture. What was it? McQueen was wearing a wristband that said ”Stand Up4Public Schools,” given to him by David A. Pickler, president of the National School Boards Association, […]
Why school isn’t for children anymore — teacher
Dawn Neely-Randall, a 24-year veteran teacher in Ohio, has watched with alarm the rising influence of standardized testing on public education in recent years. In an e-mail, she said she is “weary” of the “testing abuse inflicted” on her students and profession. Neely-Randall wrote the following piece a few days ago about what she sees […]
MAR 02
Getting serious about sex education
According to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, the federal government has spent millions of dollars over several decades promoting abstinence-only sex education even though they “rarely provide information on even the most basic topics in human sexuality such as puberty, reproductive anatomy, and sexual health, and they have never been […]
Your kid is being bullied at school — but not in the way you think
How bad is the standardized testing obsession in public education? Really bad, says James Arnold, the former superintendent of Pelham City Schools in Pelham, Ga., in the following post. A version of this appeared on his blog. By James Arnold Are you defined by a test? If you were born before 1985, chances are the answer is […]
MAR 01
Why most professional development for teachers is useless
There has been a strong reaction to my recent post titled ”A video that shows why teachers are going out of their minds,” which revealed Chicago teachers being led in a professional development session in which they sound like kindergarteners, repeating words in unison. Some commenters on the post defended the practice but most of the […]