SKrashen:
No Unnecessary Testing, Not No Testing
No Unnecessary Testing, Not No Testing
Submitted to the Indy Star, March 8, 2014Tim Swarens writes that "Diane Ravitch’s opposition to accountability isn’t realistic," (March 7) because we need to "identify those who excel and those who lag behind."Agreed. But we don't need to test every child every year on every subject to find this out. The NAEP test, a zero-stakes standardized test, is given to samples of studen
Let's do some critical thinking
Let's do some critical thinkingSent to the Denver Post, March 7.The Douglas County school superintendent says that students should not just "compare and contrast" but "create and evaluate" and engage in critical thinking ("Educators to state: Let's go above common core," March 6).Agreed. Let's start by evaluating whether we should have common core standards and tests
MAR 06
Do we need the SAT?
Sent to USA Today, March 6, 2014Not mentioned in the discussion of changes in the SAT ("Sharpen those pencils: The SAT test is getting harder," March 6) is the question of whether we need SAT-type examinations. In two different studies, researchers from UC Berkeley, Harvard and Princeton reported that high school grades were a good predictor of college success, and that adding SAT scores
MAR 05
Bilingual education: What does the research say?
Sent to Education Week, March 5, 2014 There are two crucial research findings related to the Sen. Lara's proposal to repeal Proposition 227 ("Calif. Bill Would Repeal Bilingual-Education Restrictions," March 4).The first: study after study has shown that students in bilingual programs outperform similar students on tests of English reading.The second: As noted by Prof. McField in the Ed
FEB 24
Invest in libraries and librarians
Sent to Los Angeles Times, Feb 24.Research and common sense tell us that we get better at reading (and writing, spelling, grammar and vocabulary) when we read a lot. But we can only read a lot if we have access to books. Most students in LAUSD are without access to books: they have nowhere to turn. Eighty percent of LAUSD students live in poverty, which means, among others things, very few books