CURMUDGUCATION:
MSNBC Re-affirms Its Uselessness in Education Coverage
US DOE Revives Truly Terrible Proposal
Over at MSNBC, you can watch Andrea Mitchell interview Arne Duncan with all the hard-hitting journalistic thoroughness displayed by Arne's Rent-a-Teacher interviews produced by the DOE. It's four and a half minutes of blood-pressurizing fluffernuttery. And I'm going to break it down for you so you don't have to watch it. Once again, you owe me, reader.Andrea starts out in front of a pretty pictur
US DOE Revives Truly Terrible Proposal
President Obama has brushed the mothballs off one of the worst, dumbest proposals in Arne Duncan's USDOE toolbox (and that is not an easy bar to clear). As reported by Reuters, Duncan is poised to revive the plan for test-based evaluation of college teacher prep programs.There are already many dumb plans in place, from the content specific Praxis tests (because if you can pass a computerized bubbl
What Test Prep Is Not
I've noticed a meme in writing promoting CCSS tests lately in which fans promote the New Improved Test's ability to dig deep into the furthest thinky places of the human brain. "It's the end of the old bubble test," these enthusiastic testinators declaim. "No more of that test prep." Here. Here. And here.And then, as sort of a rhetorical bank shot, they slip in what "test
When Washington Waiver Is Washed Away, Will We Waive Weeping?
Arne Duncan, King of All Schools, has banished Washington State to an earlier age. Stripped of their flexibility (our current word the law-cancelling edict that cabinet secretaries can now apparently issue), the state must now tumble back into the unloving embrace of No Child Left Behind.In the short term, this is terrible news for the state. Under NCLB, this is the year that we should all have re
Cami, Surgery & Big Stupid Democracy
Like a cat struggling with a fascinatingly ugly hairball, the internet yesterday coughed up an extraordinary video of Cami Anderson. I do not know where she is or why (the wall behind her says "Arizona State University/GSV"), and I do not usually cover New Jersey education because so many capable, local hands already have that covered.But for the rest of us, the video answers the questio
APR 24
Duncan Breaks Up With WA
In a move that just underlines how deeply bizarre the relationship has become between Arne Duncan, King of All Schools, and the previously-sovereign states, Arne today pulled the rug out from under Washington state, sending them tumbling toward a bureaucratic limbo that...well, at the very least, will be interesting.The Dear John letter is trim and bureaucratic. I'll offer a translation into Plain
In Pursuit of Failure
Let's say I'm devoted to finding the Loch Ness Monster, and I am determined to find scientific proof. So I order up a host of sciency devices to search the loch, and I set out to test them. My test-- any device that finds the monster is certified accurate, and any device that does not is rejected and faulty.I will measure the device's scientific accuracy by measuring it against my pre-existing bel
The Opposite of Grit
My sister and her family recently returned from a visit to Thomas Edison's laboratory (because when engineery types head to greater NYC, that's their idea of a cool stop), and they took many pictures. The place is amazing-- all this space cleaned and arranged and perfectly fitted out for investigating and experimenting and engineering much of the modern world.It was not, I thought, the kind of pla
APR 23
PARCC Is Certifiably Ready
When the folks at PARCC say that their tests will help determine if your child is college and career ready, that's not just rhetoric. As of October 2012 (revised February, 2013), PARCC is ready to officially certify your student, and I've been looking at the document that shows how this will work. If you're wondering what "college ready" means to the PARCC folks, here's the explanation.T
PARCC Discovers Unicorn Farm!
Over at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, PARCC CEO Laura McGiffert Slover has breathlessly announced the discovery of a special farm where unicorns dance and sing and give rides to little winged cherubs while singing sonnets in Latin.Okay, not really, but I would have found that more credible than Slover's actual announcement, which is that PARCC heralds the end of test prep.PARCC states are creat
APR 22
Trials of the Traveling Student
What about the students who move?It's a question often raised in support of the CCSS, or just national standards in general. Don't we need national standards so that students who move won't be thrown for a loop when they change schools, even across state lines? I'm unconvinced by this argument.I'll admit up front that, as both my regular readers know, I am not a believer in national standards at a
APR 21
Why Should I Study This, Anyway?
Never once during a football game so athletes stop chasing the ball, lie down on their backs, and compete to bench press the most weight. And yet all those football players spend hour after hour in the weight room.You probably aren't going to marry that woman you're dating right now, so what's the point in trying to learn how to talk to her or how to work out the finer points of your relationship.
CCSS Politics Make the Daily Beast Sad
Nobody can accuse the Daily Beast of being unclear about its position. "The Incredibly Stupid War on the Common Core" says the headline, followed by the subheading, "An unholy alliance between the Tea Party and the teachers' unions threatens to derail the most promising education reform in decades." So right off the bat, we know where Charles Upton Sahm is headed.The lead graph
Why Are Teachers So Quiet?
Some recent comments on this blog took teachers to task. A parent activist noted her own work against the current reformy regime and then added "and teachers as a profession and individually refused/refuse to step up and do their share of push back - paychecks were/are more important than the principles at stake and our children's wellbeing."Recently, Susan Ohanian, a respected voice in
APR 20
How To Do Real Teacher Evaluation
The fans of Reformy Stuff are not wrong about everything. For example, they are correct that the general state of teacher evaluation in this country was pretty useless. Their mistake was replacing Inertly Useless with Actively Destructive. The old system was a simple two step process (1- check for teacher pulse; 2- award perfect score) while the new step is a little more involved (1- apply random
APR 19
Duncan Lays It All Out (2010 edition)
If you want a complete explanation of the CCSS Reformy Master Plan, as well as one more piece of evidence that the CCSS regime is in fact a federal program, you can't do much better than Arne Duncan's speech on November 4, 2010, to UNESCO, "The Vision of Education Reform in the United States."I recommend you read the whole thing, but if you're in a hurry, or you just enjoy commentary, le
School Accountability Has Changed Forever
Regardless of how the battle for the soul of public education shakes out in the end (or at least in the future-- I don't know that we'll ever see an end), there are things that we have already lost for at least a generation, collateral damage, the china in a shop over-run by a herd of clashing cattle.Perhaps the biggest casualty is the trust of parents.It's not just that the last twelve years have
