Schools Matter:
Schools Matter All Week
In the 1920s Harvard was a beehive of activity aimed at segregation and sterilization of those deemed mentally and socially defective, based principally on classist and racist assumptions about the poor and the those of different ethnic backgrounds. One of the Eugenics Movement rock stars, Charles Davenport, was a graduate of Harvard and instrumental in assuring the forced castration of a number
Citizen Jack's analysis of Michelle Rhee's recent mendaciousness
"In an even more disturbing revelation heard on the tape Rhee laughs about when the tape was removed hurting the children and some even started to bleed." — John Kugler "Jack," a frequent commenter on Professor Ravitch's site, sent me the following analysis in which he compares various sources on Michelle Rhee recent deceitfulness. Jack's commentary takes the original guest pos
Opt Out Wave Growing
The articles below are captured in one day of Google Alert for "opt out." The movement to end a century of miseducative, classist, and racist tests will not be denied. Town HallNY Schools Struggle Where to Put Students Who Opt Out of Standardized TestsTown HallA battle between parents and educators has erupted over standardized testing in the state of New York. These exams have been the
APR 17
Really? Do We Really Want Experienced Teachers to Resign
How many more experienced, professional educators will submit their letters of resignation before Washington and the State Legislatures stop catering to the monied interests intent on destroying any meaningful and real education for the next generation? Haven't we already documented extensively through research and blogging how damaging the current corporate education reform movement is to the nat
NYT Talking about the Tests as Weapons of Mass Distraction
The New York Times editors appear to be catching on to the fact that the proliferation and misuse of high stakes testing are not only a huge waste of resources that are actually doing more harm than good, but are also a "distraction" from the very real problems of poverty and inequality. It's about time.To the Editor:Elizabeth Phillips decries the gag order that school principals are u
APR 15
Labeling, Sorting, Segregating: The History of Standardizing Tests in U. S. Schools
Much of the first sections of TMoE is dedicated to tracing out how tests came to be used as social sorting tools during our first Gilded Age when grand canyons of inequality between rich and poor had turned American cities into dangerous and unhealthy place. Below is a piece posted last week at Alternet, but I want to preface that first with two quotes from an important book published 98 years ago
APR 14
Why the Growing Opt Out Movement Puts Fear into the Antiquated Losers of Corporate Education Reform
I was chatting today with someone I had not seen in a while, and told them about my work in support of United Opt Out and how it could 6 percent of parents keeping their children home on test days could make the tests unusable for the sorting and punishing they are intended. Brilliant, she said. Brilliant, indeed. That is why the creaky dean of CorpEd, Chester Finn, has offered his own "love
APR 13
Assessing the Model: A KIPP Teacher Speaks of Her Nervous Breakdown and Post-KIPP Recovery, Part 3
"I would say that working at KIPP was the most horrible experience of my life. I would tell people that, I would tell a friend especially that the message is good with KIPP, that you want to send all kids to and through college. But it is at such great personal sacrifice that it’s—it crushed me. I would encourage anyone else to just stop. It wasn’t even getting fired that was the worst thing
APR 12
Stephen Colbert on the Common Core
ht to Lisa Guisbond at CPS:The Colbert ReportGet More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,Video Archive
The Firing: A KIPP Teacher Speaks of Her Nervous Breakdown and Post-KIPP Recovery, Part 2
At the end of Part 1 of my conversation with Jane, the results for the first interim assessment for the state test had been announced, and the KIPP administration was in crisis mode due to lower than expected scores. JANE: So when they had their big crisis . . . . And these kids, honestly, a lot of them don’t have dads. You know? They come from rough families. They don’t have a lot of stability.